Seasons Greetings!
This year has been a long one, and adventure filled! Last year this time I was in a small country off to the West of America, over the Pacific. This year, I've gone over the other way, over the Atlantic, to a still small country. In between, there was a great journey. Here are some of the highlights from this past year:
I've already told most of you about the trips from Korea early in the year. Great Wall of China, Okinawa, Tokyo, and Guam! (I’ve included some details of those trips for those without Email). Very exciting, and I met many new friends.
Aside from the vacations, life in Korea was very busy. We had yet another four "war games" leading up to a major inspection, which we passed with flying colors! In fact, we did better than any base in Korea, ever! I was still assigned to Security Forces detail, where I worked with five others in the Enemy Prisoner of War (EPW) camp. Most nights, we waited for "bad guy" drop offs, but entertained ourselves by periodically doing sweeps of the area and cruising the base in the HUMVEE, hunting down the "coyotes" (the base's name for bad guys). During the main inspection, we found ourselves pitted against an "armada" of enemy soldiers, trying to sneak through the field to attack our HQ. Little did they know - in fact, they didn’t know that we could see them coming using Night Vision Glasses. We snuck up on their position and waited, lying down, for them to come our way. When they reached us, we unloaded on them (mind you of course, that this is just an exercise and we all had blanks)! There must have been over 40 of them, the largest attacking force I had seen since in the 9 war games I'd been in. But they couldn't see us, so we managed to take out just about all of them! It was really kewl!
Another inspection team came out during the early year to rate our base against all others in the Air Force, in the ‘Installation Excellence’ award program. I had to brief a Full Bird Colonel on the operations in the finance office and the improvements we had made in Customer Service. I was really nervous, but managed to give a decent presentation (thanks to a recent Speech class I took for College). Our base ended up winning the award and was given $1 Million dollars to help improve Quality of Life around the base (a new theatre was in the works, improvements to the club, I think, and more, but I left before they were created).
Anyway, the beginning of May rolled around, which brought an end to what seemed like a long, yet truly memorable year tour on the Korean peninsula. As a going away gesture, Mr Yang, one of the great Koreans we helped in English class, took me to Suwan in northern South Korea to visit a Folk Village. He explained the history of many cultural eras in Koreas vast past. (hehe, that rhymes). It was really a fantastic end to a great tour.
When I left Korea, I set up a huge itinerary going back through the States on my way to England. First stop was in Tokyo, Japan for a 10-hour layover. Although I didn’t do much there, I did manage to have a good time talking with other folks who had also just left Korea. From there, I went to Hawaii for a 3-day hiatus, kind of a reward for my year in Korea. Next stop was San Francisco for a night, then to Las Vegas to visit with my Cousin Mark and family for about 5 days. Flew from there to Omaha, visiting with friends there and taking care of my personal shipment items that I had left there when I left for Korea. After about a week, I drove to Whiteman, Missouri to see Dave, Jane and the kids; to St. Louis to visit with the Markum family; up to Wisconsin to see ole buddy Keith; home in the U.P. to visit Mom, Andy, Uncle Mike and Aunt Karen (I finally got to meet the Barabe's, whom my mom spoke so much about); down to Detroit to visit with my brother, Uncle Nick, Brenda and cousins, and friends; down to Tennessee to see James, Diana, and family. I made it up to Virginia, were I stayed with Mama Pat and Paul. Here I had to get my car ready for shipment, and while I was there, of course I visited with the old Langley crew. I also managed to meet my cousin Matt, whom I hadn’t really known (although he says we met when he came to Michigan for Nick's wedding, I was only a young lad then)
and we had a blast! Worked my way down to North Carolina for a final relaxing stop at Mama Pat's cabin before heading back to Norfolk Virginia to drop off my car. Flew up to D.C. for an overnight stay. Set out to England the next evening, at the end of June. How the heck did I do all that’!
Anywho, now in England, I found myself in a new job again, this time in the Budget arena, where I keep track and help plan out MILLIONS of dollars for the base. (It just sounded kewl, hehe) I found a nice place to live, a REAL house, where I have my own parking spot along side my place, a backyard, which I've already had the fun of trimming several times this year, and a surrounding garden, in which I must learn the tricks of the "green thumb". In September, I headed back to Texas to get more learnin' in me. Back to the ole Tech School in Wichita Falls that I attended way back in 1992! Had a blast out there and got to see many old friends, from all the bases I've been to. Made many new friends too! Visited Dallas, San Antonio, drove out to Colorado Springs and made a road trip to Omaha (in a 2000 Ford Mustang!!). After almost 2 months of training, I headed back to England only to find I had another meeting in Germany the next work day! Had a blast out there with Chris Sage and new friend Les. That was about a week.
Now I'm finally "home" for a bit, arranging the house into a home and steadily learning what I need to be doing at work. Finally found a school near my place for TaeKwonDo, which I started back in November. It's Thanksgiving today, and tomorrow I head for Paris for the long weekend. Not sure of what to do for Christmas yet, but I’m going to try to make it up to Edinburgh, Scotland for New Years.
I hope all is well with you, and your family and friends. Please keep in touch with me, although I know it can be hard when I keep changing addresses.
Here's my current address, which should be good through summer 2002:
SSgt Daniel Rea
PSC 37 Box 5217
APO AE 09459
dreanged@hotmail.com
http://dreanged.com/HomePage.html
Happy Holidays and hope to hear from ya soon!A couple updates since the Christmas letter was written:
Thanksgiving was an excellent time this year. Thanksgiving itself was laid back, and uneventful. I just cleaned up my place a bit and read, but needed a day to relax, so that was it. Although I didn't do too much on Thanksgiving Day, I did use the long weekend well. I took a tour trip out to Paris for the remaining 3 days!
That Friday morning, I headed out to the base and tried to take out some cash, so I could convert it later, but the machines on base were all out of money (due to the long weekend, I guess). So I decided to just bring the charge card with me and use it to withdrawal funds or buy foreign currency at an exchange place. We headed out of the base in a double-decker bus at about 5 in the morning, and cruised down to the cliffs of Dover, where the major waterway port is located. Headed over the channel by ferry and came off in Calais (pronounced Kalee) France. The ride over was great, with an awesome view of both sides along the way, although a bit chilly up on deck. I checked out the Currency Exchange place and bought a little bit of Francs, but didn’t want to spend too much, knowing that these places are usually a bit more costly than in town. I really should have bought more here, and you’ll find out why later. Anyway, when we reached the other side, we drove through the vast farmlands of France on route to wee Pareee.
Once we got into Paris, we headed for our hotel, and I made my way to a local ATM. Hmmm’ this darn thing won’t accept my card. Huh? So, I went into the hotel to see what rates they had; pretty good actually! I handed them my car and, as you can guess ‘sorry, cash or travelers cheques only’. Doah! That’s the way it was for the whole trip’ but I had a small reserve of English £’s and some US $’s, so I exchanged all I had. Got me about 450 Francs. It ended up being just about enough though. That evening, a friend, Bob (although, I gotta call him Chief, due to the whole fun rank thing, but he’s kewl) and I went up to the market and checked out prices on wine. Red Wine was REALLY inexpensive, and turned out to be truly decent! Some bottles we picked up were only 9-12 francs (about $1.20)!
We cracked open a couple bottles before we went on our first tour that night. Had to start out the trip right, right.
In fact, we even brought a bottle with us! Hehe First stop was to a nice little French restaurant where we (the whole touring crew) had beef marinated in chardonnay, some cheesy French onion soup and desert, along with an endless supply of wine and beer. Of course, we all took full advantage of that! Hehehe There were entertainers there, signing songs, dancing, entertaining. Very pleasant. We snuck out a couple bottles of wine from the restaurant, and headed back to the bus. Afterwards, we headed downtown to check out the Eiffel Tower. When we got there, we were immediately swarmed by local sales folks, with tons of trinkets and goodies to remember the occasion. Well, if you’ve been reading carefully, I’d had quite a lot of wine, so my accounting functions weren’t working to a certain extent’ one guy offered me a plastic 7’ replica of the tower for 200 francs. I knew that was outrageous, but I couldn’t think by how much, so I told him I’d only give him a hundred (about $12). He warily accepted, although knowing he easily got the best of this stupid American. I rejoined our group and showed them my new toy. One of the folks on the bus, Kathi, asked how much I paid’ I told her, and I’ve been getting the flack for it since (still to this day!!) hehehe (Thanks Kathi) Anyway, we made our way to the tower. It was completely lit up, still using some of the special effects from New Years (sparkling lights, ‘Au 2000’ sign, etc). Just an awesome sight! We rode up to the midway point for a view of the city, and other stores selling my ‘prized possession’ for a mere 35 Francs. When we were done, some of us went over to the pub to see ‘what was going on’ there. After a couple more small drinks, we went back to the hotel and just CRASHED for the night.
Next morning, we reboarded the bus for a scenic tour of the city, viewing Notre Dame cathedral, the infamous arch in the city center (which infamy has forgotten it’s name at the moment), and the Louvre (similar to our Smithsonian Museum), which had the Mona Lisa! We also ventured out that evening to the Hard Rock Café of Paris. Chief and I took the underground from the hotel, and got off at the wrong stop. We attempted to walk it, and it was POURING down rain. By the time we made it to the Café, we were drenched! It was a fun evening and we took the tour bus back to the hotel with the rest of the crew.
The final day, we headed up to see the Sacre Coeur (Sacred Heart cathedral) and Place du Tetre (artists square). The church was immense, and active. We were allowed to walk around while a church session was going on. They started playing music on the organs, and the pipes were located all through the church. It was overwhelming how beautiful the music was. A chorus of singers followed the 3-minute intro on the main stage area, where the pasture was giving his sermon. In leaving the church, we wondered around to the Artists Square, where dozens of artists were painting and drawing, selling their work to would be buyers. Some of the art was really great!
We headed back from Paris, and stopped at a special shop in Calais to buy some French wine and Belgian chocolates. The prices were just right, so I ended up with 8 bottles of wine and 5 bags of chocolate. On the trip back over the water, the winds had picked up a lot, so the boat was all over the place. Walking around the ship made us all look drunk! Hehehe’ so instead of pretending, we decided to sit down and have a couple brews over the hour and half trip back over. We got to know some new friends better (Kathi and her husband Steve, and Dre). Sleeping most of the bus ride back to base, we ended up getting back around 8 or 9. Ahhhh’ home sweet home.
Yesterday (Tuesday), a couple folks from work and I headed down to London to Wembley arena to see AC/DC in concert!! They put on an awesome show, and still dress up the same as they did years ago, Angus in his shirt, tie and shorts, still had his huge amount of energy, just rocking the whole show, almost non stop! Some of the special effects and ‘visual eye pleasers’ were sweet, from a huge statue of Angus, with growing horns, lit eyes and spewing smoke, to huge cannons that blasted during ‘for those about to rock’. There was a huge bell for ‘Hells Bells’ and an enormous inflatable woman for ‘she’s bit’(‘). Hehehe Just an awesome show. My ears are still ringin’, so ya know it was good. On the way back, we got mixed up a couple times trying to find the main highway to head back home. It took us over 45 minutes to find the right way, just to the M25! We didn’t get home until after 1:30AM. (notice, this is a work night). I worked it out with my boss so I could sleep in for an extra couple hours’ I really NEEDED it! HA!
-------------------------------------------------------------
What a weekend! A friend of ‘the Chief’s’ called him and said he’s going back home for Christmas. Home happened to be in Maio, Ireland, so he threw out an invite. Chief asked if I could come out too, and that a good time was to be had. No problem, ‘bring the whole dang finance shop with ya, for all I care!’ Eamon is a crazy Irishman who joined the US Air Force some 8 years ago, so now he’s referred to as the ‘Irish Immigrant’ when he returns home.
On Friday afternoon, after work, we changed into better traveling attire and headed straight out for the airport. Everything ran like clockwork. Our flight was at 6:30, so we got up to the airports long term parking about 5:30 (no traffic at all!), and made the bus with no delay’ in fact we were so ‘on time’, we had a break for a pint and relaxed waiting for our flight call. The ride over to Dublin was quick, and we made it there 10 minutes early!
Eamon was there waitin’ on us, and told us his friends were gonna meet us downtown around 9:30. It was only 8 at the time, so we headed down to the ‘Green Room’ at the airport lounge and tipped back a couple pints of Guinness. If you haven’t tried Guinness, you’re really missing out! Anyway, we BS’d for a bit before dropping our bags off at the storage room for the night (we had no place to carry them since we were with car and room for the evening), then grabbed a taxi to head downtown. We started off at Mulligan’s pub, a very crowded, yet woman filled ‘establishment’ full of conversation and friendly folk. We stood around for a bit tryin out the ‘Harps’ beer, but reverting back to Guinness after a while. Eamon’s friends showed up (Simon, Rob and Ed, I think), and we made our way from the social bar out to the taxis and headed out to Leggs club. Somewhere along the way though, Eamon ended up in another cab from us, so we ended up cruising with Rob and Simon there. Eamon didn’t end up there though, not until later’ but we made the best of it. The place was jumpin’ and women were everywhere! I was pretty lit at the time, so I didn’t manage much conversation, but danced a little and chilled out for the rest. It was already near 3 in the morning!
When we were getting ready to leave, we heard some trouble brewin’ and the bouncers came in the doors (swiftly), pushing people out of the way to get to the scene. When they came back, they were escorting our friend Rob out. I’m still not sure what went down, but from what I figured of Rob, he wasn’t the fightin’ sort. Maybe someone was starting something with him, who knows…on his way out, he gave me his ticket so I could get his jacket from the coatroom. We went outside, and there was Eamon, waiting to get in! hehe After missing some taxi’s, he ended up there kinda late, and they stopped letting people in the place, since it was so crowded. Simon had given us his key to his place in Lucan, and directions on how to get there’ that’s where we’d be crashin’ for the night. And he was ‘with a young lady’, so we knew we probably wouldn’t see him again that night. We hailed a taxi and happened to get one pretty quick. We started headed out, and told the driver we were headin’ for Lucan, but he didn’t know much of that area. Neither did we! We were kinda hungry too, and were up for some Doner kababs to help with the after effects of drinkin’ Guinness all night. We should have waited to get to the house to eat though, and with not being happy with the drivers lack of enthusiasm to try to get us home, we jumped outta the cab and went to the Kabab shop. The line was extremely long (there were still tons of people in the streets, even after 3 in the morning!). The kebab I got was not worth the wait, but it was good to get some grub in me. When we left, there wasn’t a taxi in sight. And the taxi’s that did pass did just that, pass. we walked around to try to find a taxi area, and finally found the Taxi Que up the road. It was a long line with available taxis few and far between, but we figured this was our shot. It was raining a bit, with a cold chill in the air (temp sitting around 0C). The slacks I was wearin’ weren’t quite winter weather style, and the socks were pretty thin. Needless to say, I was FREEZIN’ my toosh off! After almost an hour and a bad temper later, we finally made it to the front of the que, and a taxi van showed up and grabbed up everyone headin’ Lucan. I crammed in the front seat with another bloke, and warmed my hands over the car’s heating vents. Finally started to get some circulation in fingers. My jacket was soaked and my poor bald head was drenched. We finally made it out to Escrew Gardens, which was the community area Simon lived at. The paper from Simon said ‘7 Escrew Garden Lawn’. We got out of the van and looked around: Escrew Garden View, Escrew Garden Way; there were tons of these subdivisions! We walked around for close to a half hour until we happened upon the right area. Ran inside the house for a quick warm-up attempt, and got ready for a quick crash on the places available for rest. A few minutes later, we hear a key in the door, and in comes some of Simon’s roommates. We thought there might be some trouble, given that Simon hadn’t told them we’d be there, let alone, HIM not being there! Hehe But they were really kewl about it, and Eamon even stayed up for a while to BS with them. I was beat though, so I crashed out on the couch, oblivious to the world. It must have been after 5’.
10:30 the next morning, Chief roused me up, ‘It’s late, we need to get on the road and check out the town while it’s daylight’. I headed up stairs to jump in the shower, but one of Simon’s housemates was in there: Linda. I introduced myself and apologized for not being social earlier that morning. After a quick shower, I came back downstairs and Linda had tea for all three of us waiting. Very nice of her, considering we were complete strangers. She hooked us up with a taxi and we were on our way to the airport to pick up a rental car and our bags that we left the night before. Mind you, we did have our smaller backpacks, with change of clothes and such’ just so you don’t think we changed back into the clothes from last night (ewww). Hehe The taxi driver was a hoot, and had us rolling from his interpretation of a days work in Taxi life. He kinda explained what Taxi drivers are thinking when they DRIVE RIGHT past you while your waiting on a curb for hours in the cold rain! He just waves and drives on, thinking, ‘did I know that guy. Nice of him to wave!! At the airport, we grabbed some lunch at the deli store. They made this HUGE sandwich, triple-decker with tons of meat and a middle slice of bread, coleslaw and other toppings’ it was a great lunch dish!
We got us a nice rental car for only IRE£35 for a day. We drove down to the ‘industrial area’ of Dublin where the Guinness factory and store was located. There was a tour available with free samples of Guinness at the top of the factory. ‘OK! Arm’s Twisted!. We headed in and checked out how Guinness is made, how they made the cask barrels and some of the history and advertisements over the years. There was a huge display of all the different bottles used over time - very impressive. And Arthur Guinness signed a 9000-year contract for the factory location… I wonder what happens when that contract defaults?! At the end of the tour, up on the 7th floor, there was an awesome view of the city of Dublin and surrounding areas. I tried out the free sample pint of Guinness Extra Cold (and it was just that, EXTRA cold!). As we were heading out, we stopped in at the gift shop to see what kind of merchandise they were pawning off. They actually had some really nice stuff (I bought IRE£75 worth!) hehe I picked up a nice rain jacket, some designer mugs and towel and a metal tin postcard. Too kewl!
We walked our way over to a local pub, where we, of course, had another pint of Guinness (I think it was our blood supply by this point). As we were sittin’ down, an old Irish gentleman, musta been in his late 60s, started giving us a hard time (jokingly of course). Eamon had bought a sheep wool lined vest, and Leo (the old man) was giving him crap about being from Alaska or something. Said something about being an Eskimo. I had a hard time at first understanding the Gaelic in the accent, but it was fun listening. He kept calling me Kojac, and the Chief, ‘a frosty fellow’. Old Leo, or AKA ‘the Cincinnati Kid’ as he said he was referred to back in his day, had ‘a few’ drinks before we got there, along with some Jameson Whiskey. He told us some great stories, and we were there for about a hour and a half listening to his ‘old soldier days’ from when he was in the British Army. He was even signing some good old Irish tunes, like ‘whiskey in the jar’ and others - he offered me a drink of the ole whiskey, and hesitantly later I accepted - remorsefully. I took back that shot, it musta killed me! After the initial shock, it actually tasted pretty good, but man did it burn going down! Hehehe
We said farewell and worked our way over to find a youth hostel so we would have a place to stay for the night, a bit closer to the fun spots. After loosing complete confidence in the local transportation system the night before, the last thing we wanted was another recap of waiting in the cold rain’. The hostel was actually just up the street from the pub we were at, and the cost was a mere £15 per person. Not bad for a night’s stay and place to lay the head, huh. Once we dropped off the bags in the 8-bed dorm room, we moseyed on down to the ‘Fire Station’, one of Dublin’s bigger and nicer nightclubs. This was where Simon and many friends were to meet us. On our way, we decided to stop for dinner. We found an awesome little Italian restaurant with fantastic service. The waitresses were really cute too, from Romania/Yugoslavia. The food was delicious (I had a sampler pasta platter, with spaghetti, mostaciolli and thick linguini, with a side of cheese garlic bread). Full and happy, we slumped over to the nightclub. We walked into the joint and the place was HUGE - not only long ways, but up too! It was 4 stories high, with people crammed in the whole way… The music was thumpin’, but not so loud that you couldn’t hear others talking. We latched on to the traditional pint of Guinness and made our way around the bar scene to A. find Simon and friends, and B. check out the ‘action’. This place was just swarming with the young lassies. (Did I mention this is where I’m going to retire, like this year’)
After we found Simon, we stayed in a little group for most of the night, but I had wondered off on occasion to the dance floor upstairs to get jiggy widdit. The back and forth movement went on for about 2 hours. We tested out the Tequila options a couple times, and made some pleasant conversations with persons of the opposite sex, and eventually retired from that arena and worked our way to the Music Theatre. Chief and I stopped on our way to pick up some Burger King…good drunk food - stops the possible ‘bad feelings’ the next day. Eamon didn’t see it that way. He regretted it later! After a short stay at the concert in the Music Theatre, we headed back to the Hostel’ about 4 or so in the morning, and crashed fast! The next morning we got up and about (Eamon got up a bit too quick, if ya know what I mean’) and eventually checked out and headed for the Prison Museum, where many rebels of the 1916 uprising were kept or executed. Very interesting tour! More on that in the homepage later though’.
We meandered to the airport where, after a pint of Guinness and hearty handshake, said goodbye to Eamon and went up to the terminal to wait for our flight. I picked up some fun stuff from the Duty Free, and Chief and I had another pint, this time of Smithwick’s (another beer from Guinness that tasted like Crème Soda). It was a fun weekend, and another trip sometime soon in the future is needed to the fair island of Ireland!
More stories of the holidays to come soon.
Cheers and best wishes, for next week is CHRISTMAS!!
Dan