All of the pictures look great, I'm glad that things don't look to be changing all that much!! Also, a special thanks to uncle Bret for sending me all of the other pictures that didn't make the blog; I had a fantastic time looking through them and imagining all the goings-on, so thank you for including me!
Christmas here has been alright. We got a few days off, though I still managed to have a little bit of work to do each day. Last night some guys and I went to midnight mass. It felt good to be at a service even though the preacher was somewhere around Vietnamese and a little tough to understand. However, he did have some good jokes and stories.
Here are a few pictures to give you an idea of what it's like around here:
This is the Christmas tree they put up by 'the mall', which isn't too shabby! They turned the lights off about 1 second before I took the picture so I had them turn them back on for me.
This is a shot of the lights they put up down the main walkway. (Imagine some flashing/strobe patterns, too.)
Here is me in my room wishing you a Merry Christmas!!!!
And here are some pictures of the rest of the room:
As you can see it isn't too terrible, basically like a typical dorm room I suppose except ours are much cleaner due to the immaculate clean-ups we perform each Tuesday evening. That tree on top of the refrigerator is a real one that was sent to us from one of the guy's parents from Maryland. They sent over 60 of them, including lights and ornaments, so we each got one. Luckily no one's has caught on fire yet. But, sadly, the lights are battery powered and they only last about 2 hours.So, that is Christmas in Bahrain! Tonight I have shore patrol from 10pm until 2 am. Basically it means I have to walk around as an undercover snitch and turn in people who are misbehaving.
So, I hope you all are having a wonderful day and I wish I could be there with you! Like I said, I'm more than thrilled to see that the good times are still rolling on and I can't wait to see you all again!!
Love,
Eric
