Bahrain!

So I have hit a port, Bahrain! We've been underway for so long that when they told us that we were going to hit port we didn't have our hopes up. We were supposed to hit a couple ports earlier which got cancelled. We don't get a lot of liberty, but a few hours a day is just fine. Here are a few things you need to know about Bahrain:

• Desert, lots of sand and heat
• Gold City and Gold Souq
• A Navy Base

And that's pretty much it! It's extremely hot and not a whole lot to do. The best part about it is being able to get off the ship, go to the NEX to finally get some much needed supplies, and get food. The base is pretty nice, with a decent food court and stores.

Gold City and Gold Souq are places where you can buy gold. Gold City is ALL gold. It's pretty much a mall dedicated to selling Gold. The gold is really cheap and the owners very aggressive in trying to sell you something. It was a really neat experience. The Gold Souq is a mall that has a lot of Arabic food, clothes, etc. I haven't had the chance to go yet, but there is supposedly a lot of stuff there.

The suits are also very cheap. It's easy to get a custom suit of high quality for a few hundred dollars. Speaking of dollars, the American Dollar isn't worth anything. The Dinar (currency for Bahrain) is worth far more than the American Dollar.

Besides the heat, the next thing that will kill you is the taxi drivers. They are really aggressive and are not afraid to use their horn to let you know that they are coming into you lane and suggest that you move. We went 5 miles and the taxi driver must have laid on the horn about 20 times. 

The ONE thing that almost everyone was excited about was the WiFi. People NEED updates. Our phones are extremely out of date. People who bought Xbox One's need to download the update in order to use it. Watching people make a bee line for the WiFi lounge with backpacks full of xbox's, laptops, tablets, etc was awesome. The kicker was the WiFi was awful. Almost no one could connect and people spent hours trying to connect.

Besides the mall, gold souq, gold city, and the NEX, there really isn't a whole lot to do. Just go to one of those places, come back to base and drink a lot.

One interesting thing about being here is Ramadan. Ramadan is an Arabic holiday where they fast during the daylight hours. There can be no drinking (not even water) or eating during this period. Our chain of command beat this into our heads. The reason it's so important is we can be arrested out in town for violating the fast. And if we are arrested, the government does not have to turn us over to the Navy. We do not have an agreement with them, which means they can keep us for as long as they want. This is really important because there is no separation between religion and state. The religion is the law. If you break their religion you break the law and will be arrested. It's really weird seeing all the restaurants closed during the day. McDonalds, everything. There aren't water fountains either, at least none that I've seen.

Well that's all I've got for now!

RUSH!

So there are a few months left to deployment and it's crunch time. I am having to do a lot of things right now very quickly in order to get PPV, which is military housing while we are in the yards. The major thing I have to work on is my ESWS pin, (Enlisted Surface Warfare Specialist). ESWS is supposed to be a general understanding of the ship you are on. You go through nearly every department and get the general mission of what they do. Most things are very general, but others can be very specific. It also contains general Navy knowledge. I have to get signatures from people in all all the different departments and good training/notes from them. After I get the entire book signed off, I take a test then a board. A board is where you stand in front of a group of people and they ask you a barrage of questions. Once you pass that you get your pin.

While I'm getting my ESWS pin I have to get qualified in other things as well as keep up with what is going on in my shop. The good thing is that my supervisors are allowing me to go to as much training as possible.

FSA duty was really making me stress out, but I think I'm starting to find my rhythm. It's pretty much the same thing every single day. The thing that makes it rough is the leadership, which is quite poor. Things don't have to operate the way that they do in the galley. It could be so much easier, but they run that place like it's middle school.

I'm reading a pretty interesting book right now called "Miracles" by C.S. Lewis. It's extremely interesting and I encourage everyone to read it. He defines what a miracle is, why the aspect of "reason" makes it clear that something outside of our universe exists, and what is behind a miracle. It's really interesting.

First Post!!

I traded my iPad 3 for an iPad Mini. I think it's a good trade, I almost never use my iPad. The capacity is too small to put a lot of movies/TV shows on it. I mainly use it to read books, which is why I traded it for the Mini. I traded it from this Marine that won it in a bingo game on the ship. The thing is, it's not set up and it has to be connected to the internet to set it up for the first time. I tried to jailbreak it, but it has to be set up first, which is stupid. They sell these iPad's in the ship store but you can't use them until we hit a port with internet which will probably be in 3654654 days -_-

All I want is an internet connection. I can't hook up my computer or anything else into this network. I want more than anything to hit a port and get updates. Every ship should have a separate network for everyone to go outside.

The worst part of FSA duty is the lack of time you have. Working from 1900 - 0900, then gym. By the time I'm done with that I get 7 hours of sleep. There's no room to get PQS's or do any training online when I feel ambitious.

Right now the biggest thing that is occupying my mind is getting my stuff updated and being able to use my iPad Mini.