Because so many vices are strictly against the rules here under the umbrella of the US military, the two most popular ones that are not forbidden are caffeine and tobacco. People become experts in what's available to them, so clearly there's a hierarchy of what's considered good in these vices. Far and away the number one choice for a very long time was Tim Horton's coffee.
How do I miss thee? Let me count the ways... I guess it would be one... I miss you one way...
Tim Horton's closed two weeks ago very sadly. With Timmy H, I got into the specialty drinks I'm ashamed to say (normally I'm a regular coffee kind of guy). Not that it has anywhere near as ridiculous a menu as Starbucks does, but they carry a french vanilla cappuccino that is out of this world. I went there every day for the last two weeks they were here. Probably haven't spent more money anywhere else on KAF (and I'm pretty sure the prices were lower here than in Canada). I was never much for Tim Horton's in the past, but you can bet it now holds a special place in my heart. I'll remember fondly my days spent in Kandahar as I order my french vanilla cappuccino and a white-chocolate macadamia nut cookie sometime in the future.
One notch down on the list of coffee available here are the two British coffee places. One of these is the Heroes Cafe where they sometimes sell the lox bagel. I hear they even do a trivia night over there. It's pretty solid.
See? These places are like legitimate coffee houses.
The next tier down in the echelons of coffeedom here are the Coffee Time, and the Green Beans Coffee Company. These are franchises that sort of follow the military wherever they go. They have locations in most large-ish bases in the country and were all over Iraq as well. There's a coffee cup sleeve that sort of sums of the view of coffee around here:
It speaks for itself.
After the actual coffee places comes the various forms of home-brew or instant coffees. Most in-demand would be the K-cups that you put into keurig coffee makers. They seem to be a bit impractical for the average consumer (like nearly a dollar/cup for a brew-at-home thing? that's a little ridiculous), but if the military is providing them then great! They come in all sorts of flavors so they have a sort of inner-heirarchy of themselves.
My secret stash of chocolate glazed doughnut coffee (upper-right) is the envy of all of KAF!
I try and limit my coffee/caffeine intake as much as possible, it's hard sometimes.
KAF is a NATO base. It's not just Americans. So far, I've seen coalition forces from Slovakia, Belgium, France, UK, Australia, Turkey, Romania, Kosovo, and Bulgaria. Definitely there are more Americans than anything else, but these other soldiers make themselves known.
Merukah!
This is the sign for the Romanian compound with the creepy church in it. Might as well say "Quarantine".
Every time I see a Bulgarian I want to talk to them, but don't. I visited Bulgaria as an Ohio State University International Affairs scholar back in 2008, so I know a lot about Bulgaria's history, landscape, and culture. But I know the conversation would go something like this:
Me: Hi! I've been to Bulgaria!
Bulgarian: Really?
Me: Yes! I've been to Sophia, and Plovdiv, and Nessebar, and Veliko Turnovo, and I know about Aleksander Nevski and so on and so on.
Bulgarian: Ok.
Me: Nice talking to you.
As much as it would be nice listing to a Bulgarian the things I know about and the places I've visited in Bulgaria, I think it's a conversation worth avoiding. Perhaps the urge will be too great and I'll have that very conversation some time - word for word.
Bulgarski?
Every time I go to the British compound's "Hero's Cafe" to get a bagel with lox, they're sold out. Their problems with restocking their lox stores aside, their cafe area is a nice place. Almost on par with the Tim Horton's the Canadians have. I'll continue checking in regularly in an attempt to eat some delicious, delicious lox.
What? Switzerland?! I thought you guys were supposed to be neutral! Oh wait, that's Denmark...
This is in the entrance hall to the building where the people in charge of KAF work. I had to go there to get my Flyer for High Holidays approved to post on the Boarwalk.
Slovaks are everywhere here. I haven't interacted with many of them, so I'll let Sarah Kemp's blog post about them suffice. Whoops! It was about Albanians... same thing, almost.
The inside of the Slovakian compound is guarded as though it were the nuclear launch codes.
There are too many of these country signs for me to take pictures of, so this'll be the last one.
What would one buy in a Canadian Store? Roots hoodies? Muskoka Bear Wear?
The Canadians are headed out of here, which is a shame. They're all very friendly, and on Canadian Thanksgiving we all got a great meal out of it. Also when they leave (which I'm told is going to be in about a month and a half) the Tim Horton's goes with them. This is a calamity! I should start a petition to keep them here. They have the best coffee and doughnuts on KAF. Maybe the Belgians will bring in a chocolate shop to replace it...
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.
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...
