The End.

This song pretty accurately and awesomely sums up how I feel:

This, compared to how I felt when I first got here:

So long, Afghanistan...

 

It's been fun.

TGI Friday's

Let's go to TGI Friday's!

There is a Friday's here. I haven't been to every restaurant here yet by any means, but this one has been the best so far. There's a lot to be said for going somewhere that feels like home, and I've never even been to a TGI Fridays in the states. It's basically just like Applebees or Chilis... they're all the same, as far as I can tell: Plenty of flair on the walls, novelty chock-full-of-sugar drinks, and pictures in the menus, which are sometimes used to tell secrets:

Secret menu time.

One wouldn't normally think to take pictures in a TGI Friday's just because it's a TGI Friday's, and one would even less likely think to take pictures of someone taking pictures of someone in a TGI Friday's, but in Afghanistan it's normal. 

Picture within a picture. 

I think I ate too much.

So at KAF, TGI Friday's is the place to go for special occasions. They make a big deal of embarrassing people on their birthdays with a bottle of non-alcoholic champagne. The honoree is forced to stand on a chair and dance around while they sing a birthday song. I'd be embarrassed if it were me. We went to Friday's for Michael Champion's farewell lunch and he got the royal treatment:

"Celebration Drink" I think they called it.

Psychadelic Dancing

I must make it seem like I only eat at restaurants here with all the Tim Horton's and TGI Friday's talk. I've paid for a total of six meals while I've been here for over two months, a huge drop compared to my states-side record. 

A Brief History of KAF

I would like to write about my experience at last night's Jewish service and a whole bunch of other things, but I'd like to get a better idea of what's what before I do that, so I'm taking the opportunity to write something interesting about this place where I live and work.

Welcome to Kandahar Airport!

Kandahar Airfield started out as just that, an airfield, which is some sort of way of saying an airport. We're located just outside Kandahar City which is the second largest city in Afghanistan. It was built in the late 50s and early 60s by American consultants and you can really see the resemblance it bears to the American architecture at the time. There's some conjecture as to whether or not it was originally built for the purpose of eventually becoming a military post in the event of a showdown with the USSR, and in fact it was built while the Soviets were busy building Kabul Airport.

Reminds me of Catch Me If You Can

Did Eric Mendelsohn design this airport? Am I right??

For contrast, this is what was going on with the Soviet-built Kabul Airport's architecture around the same time.

When such a showdown did occur, the airport was used by the Soviets - nice going, Americans. Between then and the current conflict here it became just a regular airport with flights and humanitarian aid coming through. In December, 2001 the airport was captured by coalition forces and since then it's been in NATO hands.

The airport actually opened back up to commercial flights about five years ago, so it's actually a NATO base and a regular airport. In fact when my colleagues go on vacations between their tours at the Education Center, they fly commercial out of here. At one point during the troop surge starting a couple of years ago, Kandahar had the busiest one-runway airfield in the world with 1700-5000 flights a week!

Now it's a huge base. I've hardly seen any of it. What I have seen includes the mod (modular) housing, Ed. Center, boardwalk, and a couple of the administrative buildings where we get our badges do things like register with our background checks and apply for an escort badge. I've also been to the Tim Horton's... Have I mentioned yet that there's a full-service T.G.I. Fridays across the street? That blows me away! I went in there just to take a look and it looked exactly like a regular TGI Fridays!

It's always Friday there! But Fridays are exactly like every other day here so the same could be said of any day.

OK, these pictures seem sort of staged... but maybe such a great time is had at TGI Fridays, Kandahar.

Most of the other American restaurant franchises that are here, unlike TGIF's, are not the same as back home. There's a Nathan's Hotdogs, KFC, and some others, but they're run out of trailers with windows in them that you walk up to and order at a counter.

This is what the other restaurants look like. Burger King's gone from here though... too bad.

Having done a lot of research on Kandahar before getting here, I and everyone I discussed this with were wondering: who is it flipping the burgers and serving the food at these restaurants. Well, I've discovered that most of them are contracted from countries closer to Afghanistan. However, it appears that Tim Horton's imports their own Canadians to work here! Friendly, with that accent that most Americans would make fun of, Canadians!

Fascinating... If you were to google kandahar airport and search in maps you'd be able to spot the unique design of the original airport building among the buildings that make up the NATO base from the aerial view. Don't ask me why military bases are allowed to be shown on google maps...