Hi from Romania. It's hot and dry. Very hot, and very dry. I can understand why the Army is using this as their new european training center for predeployment.
That's what we're doing here anyways. This base is being set up to train troops en route to Iraq, our job is to build up the fire department. Living and working with the army BLOWS. They have a completely different manner of doing things, and it's a royal pain in the ass. They seem to rejoice in over complicating simple tasks. And the Romanians don't make life any easier. It took us almost a week just to get a contract with them that would allow us to have water to fill up our fire trucks and use in an emergency. The living conditions are also abysmal. Even the army troops with us say that it's worse than Iraq. Limited water and electricity, the water we use for showering is deemed non potable and we have strict warnings not to drink it. The only water that is safe to drink is the bottled water, which fortunately they have in abundance. Right now we're living in what amounts to nothing more than a shipping container with 2 beds, a door, a tiny window, and a small A/C unit. At least we have the A/C unit.
The chow hall is pretty good though, it's run by Haliburton subsidiary KRB. Internet access for the entire base, over 700 soldiers, is supplied by 10 computers brought in by MWR. We still have no phones able to call back to the states though. The base itself is amazingly bad. Romania is, without a doubt, as close to a third world country as you can find in europe. Borat was fillmed within 10 miles of the base in a local village. They didn't do much to decorate it. You can go into the big city about an hour away though, which is a major tourist attraction because of it's AMAZING beach. The army is really restrictive with off base movement though and we're only allowed to go on sunday and only allowed to use the bus provided by MWR, which stops running at 8pm.
I've been her for 2 weeks now, and I'm finally able to get to a place where I have some WiFi access to get online. It's nice. SG has been a highlight of my week.
I'd post more but I don't really have time. Here are a couple pictures though.
Here's me and my truck. Piece of army crap. But it gets the job done most of the time. Fun to drive though.
Here's my truck from the side. You can see the truck all purpose nature of this vehicle.
This is my shipping container home. The back half belongs to me.
This is our fire station, where we take turns pulling 48 hour shifts. We have A/C and a t.v. now. Still no running water though. Hoorah Army!
Peace.
That's what we're doing here anyways. This base is being set up to train troops en route to Iraq, our job is to build up the fire department. Living and working with the army BLOWS. They have a completely different manner of doing things, and it's a royal pain in the ass. They seem to rejoice in over complicating simple tasks. And the Romanians don't make life any easier. It took us almost a week just to get a contract with them that would allow us to have water to fill up our fire trucks and use in an emergency. The living conditions are also abysmal. Even the army troops with us say that it's worse than Iraq. Limited water and electricity, the water we use for showering is deemed non potable and we have strict warnings not to drink it. The only water that is safe to drink is the bottled water, which fortunately they have in abundance. Right now we're living in what amounts to nothing more than a shipping container with 2 beds, a door, a tiny window, and a small A/C unit. At least we have the A/C unit.
The chow hall is pretty good though, it's run by Haliburton subsidiary KRB. Internet access for the entire base, over 700 soldiers, is supplied by 10 computers brought in by MWR. We still have no phones able to call back to the states though. The base itself is amazingly bad. Romania is, without a doubt, as close to a third world country as you can find in europe. Borat was fillmed within 10 miles of the base in a local village. They didn't do much to decorate it. You can go into the big city about an hour away though, which is a major tourist attraction because of it's AMAZING beach. The army is really restrictive with off base movement though and we're only allowed to go on sunday and only allowed to use the bus provided by MWR, which stops running at 8pm.
I've been her for 2 weeks now, and I'm finally able to get to a place where I have some WiFi access to get online. It's nice. SG has been a highlight of my week.
I'd post more but I don't really have time. Here are a couple pictures though.
Here's me and my truck. Piece of army crap. But it gets the job done most of the time. Fun to drive though.
Here's my truck from the side. You can see the truck all purpose nature of this vehicle.
This is my shipping container home. The back half belongs to me.
This is our fire station, where we take turns pulling 48 hour shifts. We have A/C and a t.v. now. Still no running water though. Hoorah Army!
Peace.