Another week another canceled trip.  The boss and I were supposed to go over to Bagram for some business but that got canceled at the last minute for who knows why.  Oh well.  It is kind of disappointing but not a huge deal.

I got a shot this week, we all had to get flu shots at the little clinic they have here.   I have nothing against flu shots for any reason other than I’m just against shots as a general rule.   People sticking pointy metal objects into my body just doesn’t do it for me, I like my skin puncture free.  I got a ton of shots before coming over here but for some reason this one just wants to keep feeling sore.  On the other hand I got a flu shot which I generally consider a good thing (actual shot part excluded), especially around here where we all work/live in such close quarters.  Hopefully I’ll be out of here before anything starts going around, we’ll see. 

Not a whole lot has been going on here, pretty slow really which is kind of annoying I’m getting pretty short so I won’t complain too much.   I would like to thank the Navy today.  Today was the Navy’s “birthday” and so they cooked up some steamship round for dinner, which was a welcome break.  So thanks Navy.  (For a landlocked country we have a lot of Navy people here, go figure.)

The big news this week (ok there is more than one thing but I’m only sharing this for now) is we had a “mini-bazaar” on Saturday night.  They brought in a few vendors from one of the nearby bases.  These guys had more or less the same stuff that you can get at our normal bazaar on the weekends and it was outside so the lighting was less than ideal.  Also I think the prices were a little higher than our normal bazaar.  I didn’t buy anything.  Actually I think I’m finally starting to get semi decent at negotiating prices so it’s a little more fun to shop at the bazaar.

They also had a bunch of guys cooking traditional Afghan food and serving that.  They have great food here.  Good flatbread, great lamb kabobs, then rice and chicken with spices. (Similar to a curry)  The lamb kabobs are really good wrapped up in a piece of flatbread.  So that was pretty cool, we don’t get that many opportunities to eat local food, plus while we do have a rather nice DFAC it is really nice to eat something else every now and again.

But wait, there’s more!  Live entertainment!  They had a local afghan band come in and play for a few hours.  Not only that but a lot of the locals that work here got out and danced some we got some traditional music and dancing which was pretty cool.  Of course they played some less traditional stuff too, at least it sounded different. And there were plenty of people dancing and just generally having a good time.  So I hung out there for most of the evening just enjoying the atmosphere.  Something different and there really aren’t all that many opportunities to be social outside of the office here.  I had a pretty good conversation with one of the BGs who is here which was neat, doesn’t happen everyday.

Unrelated to the “mini-bazaar” but related to live music there has actually been a pretty big concert series going on throughout Kabul over the last month or so.  Bands play at a different venue each night and they don’t tell people where it will be that night till the day of.  Obviously still somewhat underground, but still pretty cool that they are doing stuff like that.  Also saw the webpage for the Kabul Golf Club, look it up, dedication is all I can say to that one.  The MAJ I work next to showed me a daily brief which has all the normal stuff but then the last section of it is something about Afghanistan or Kabul which is really interesting.  I wish I had found out about that at the beginning of my tour here as I would know a lot more about the country and people had I been able to read that every day.  As you may expect from a city located on the old Silk Road there is a TON of history and historic buildings around here, even considering all the war this country has seen in the last 30+ years. Maybe in 30 years this will be like Vietnam and we'll be able to come back as tourists, that would be pretty cool.