One weekend to go.

Hello All,

Well, it is another cool, rainy weekend in Bavaria. Seems like it has been this way for the last 3 weeks, for the most part.

Not much to report. This is my last solo weekend in Germany. My replacement is scheduled to arrive this upcoming Friday morning. We will have about a week and a half to conduct a good turnover and then I am headed back to NC. The people I work for back at II Marine Expedionary Force (II MEF) are eagar to have me back which is good and bad. It is nice to be valued but I know that there is a ton of stuff that will be sitting on my desk when I get back. Guess the vacation is over and it is back to the daily grind.

Unfortunately, I will have to pass through Djibouti one last time to check out with my parent command. I am not sure why but it seemed pretty important to the admin people I spoke with. I was hoping to never go back but this will only be for 30 hours or so. I hope the city garbage dump nearby is not on fire like it has been every other time I have been there.

I was going to go to Zurich yesterday but after having conduct some internet research, there wasn't much I was interested in seeing and it is about 4 hours away. A long way to go to see one of the costliest cities in the world. I imagine a $15 cup of coffee in Zurich probably tastes about the same as $1.75 cup of coffee in Sneads Ferry, NC.

I can say that the one thing I wish I could have seen but will not is the Alps during the winter time. I think back to my trip to Hitler's "Eagles Nest" and can tell you that the Alps are spectacular. My be the Marine replacing me will get out there and share some snapshots.

Anyhow, I am stunned that I will be leaving soon. Being away for so long certainly sucks. But in another sense, I can't believe how fast the time has went by.

I took a trip out to a French military PX a few months ago and bought a bottle of inexpensive French wine which I had no intention of taking back with me so I decided to uncork it yesterday. It was a bottle of Chateau Saint Bonnet (2003) and is a combination of 50% cabernet sauvignon and 50% merlot. It is really very good and at $5 USD, represented a great value.

I used it to wash down a big hunk of cheese my boss shared with me. He has a friend who went down to a farm in Switzerland and performed 4 hours of labor to get a discount on cheees the farmer produces. This fella must have bought a lot of cheese because he was asking people he knew it they wanted to buy any from him. COL M, my immediate supervisor, bought 2 "wheels" of cheese (those are the big, bulk cheese things you see in the higher end grocery stores and are covered in wax).

The one wheel was really big. It must have weighed 25 lbs. It was 14 or 15 inches in diameter and 4 inches high. It is really good and pretty cool that it is straight from the farm. You just don't hear about that kind of stuff in the US.

I was going to go to a "Cabbage Festival" in one of the nearby communities today but never made it. All the roads my navigation system routed me through were closed for the festival and I could not figure out where to park. Oh well, it was drizziling a bit and kind of chilly anyways. Germans sure do like their festivals though. Now I will never know how much cabbage I could have eaten.

This is my second last weekend in Germany. Almost home.

Michael