To Whom It May Concern

Volleyball In The Rain

So, Qatar is one of the sunniest countries in the world, right? Yah, not so far on my pass. Day 1, cloudy, day 2, again, cloudy, and today, day 3, raining, not anything bad, just light rain.

Today started in the briefing room like always, where you meet to go on the outings, and I was picked out of 23 people to be the NCOIC of the day, basically in charge of the group. So we got out and into 6 Nissan Pathfinders, all on super sized springs and sand tires, and headed out into the dessert.

We roared up and down sand dunes, tearing around like maniacs, we weren't allowed to drive but that was okay. The drivers we had were maniacs. Then we all rode camels around, that was interesting, I found out they don't like to be pet, or at least they aren't used to it. I would lean forward and pet the camel and he would snarl at me and growl loudly, everyone was laughing their asses off about it.

Then we loaded up again in the Pathfinders and roared across the desert to the beach. It was sprinkling the entire time thus far, and that didn't stop. I got into the Persian Gulf up to my knees, but that was as far as I would go, it was just way too damn cold to go further, the wind coming off the ocean was gusting up to 30 mph and I didn't want to get sick.

So we played volleyball for about 2 hours, and that was a blast. I got totally drilled in the nuts when this girl who wasn't too good dug the ball and it bounced off her wrists at a 90 degree angle and beelined right into my crotch. Again, that was good for some laughs, not so much by me for a couple of minutes.

Finally the food got there and we all ate. It was local cuisine, a beef kabob, a mutton kabob, some bread (no where near as good as the iraqi bread) some humice? (I think?) and a couple of salads, along with some rice and chicken. I swear the chicken there must be the scrawniest of all the world's chickens because it was like chewing gristle off the bone.

All in all I had a great time. Lost my 70SPF suntan lotion, but I'm not going to worry too much about that, I'll buy more. The sad thing is, I didn't even use it of course. Hell, if it keeps going like this I won't get a chance to use it at all. So be it!

So far, lots of fun, taking some pictures, will post them when I get back home.

Current Lyrical Ramblings

Some strange arabic music they played all day today, sorry, I have NO clue what it was, it was interesting though.