As the world turns, flying schedules change. We were scheduled to go to Jordan. That was scrapped as we had a plane broken in Aviano and the Africa mission had yet to return. They decided in the meantime that we would go to Qandahar, or Kandahar for the westerners, but the F'ups up the chain of command didn't think that an H model C-130 could color in the lines so they scrubbed us. Then they put us on a one day KOO (pronounced coo) mission, which is a Kosovo run. At least it would be tax free for the month.
With all of these changes we decided to continue our holiday and went to Heidleberg. What another wonderful day! We went up the hill to the castle and roamed around. It was a good thing there was a steep climb and lots of walking because we had to sweat out the beer from Thursty Nellie's the night before; we went downtown to watch team USA get it's ass kicked by Ghana.
After a fine workout and lots of looking around, we found the wine cellar in the castle. They have a huge wooden cask in there that held 220,000 liters of vino and has a dance floor on top. Man what an aircrew party that would be!!!! It's pretty impressive that they built the thing in the 16th century and it stands today despite being in a cool, dank cellar. Of course it leaked so they discontinued using it after only 20 years or something like that; it was never full either because they filled it from the local vineyards on the surrounding hills. I think it's cool that the vineyards that filled that cask are still surrounding the castle and that the grapes that are growing today are from the same vines.
After our workout we found a nice little restuarant in the main square and we had a nice meal. I never tire of eating pork schnitzel and french fries with gravy, washed down with a....bottle of wasser, no gas? Yeah, I wussed out because I had one too many KilKenny's the previous evening:) While we dined, we got to enjoy Germany versus England and watch the German fans go nuts.
Man when Germany won I was excited for the fans!!! They were ecstatic and blowing their horns. Lots of flags and face paint. The streets filled with cars full of fans waving German flags. I'm probably in the minority, but I was happy for the German people. They work hard not to display any form of nationalism. I don't know how long they should not fly their flags or show their pride. I hope no one forgets the atrocities of World War II, but a lot of the people celebrating that night should not be punished for the sins of their fathers. Anyway it was great. I kind of hope they win the cup.
After that, it's been back to boredom and running. As I write, we are scheduled for a Afghanistan run after all. The idiots at the top did the math and realized that H2's get the job done!! I am looking forward to flying any mission just to do something.
In the meantime enjoy the pictures I have posted and take care of yourselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment