The Traveling Pine

Cheeky and I have a few adventures to talk about because I've been lazy with writing blog posts! This will also be my last post before heading home. Yay!! I've been in Germany just about 6 months now and I am ever so anxious to get back home to friends and family. More on the summary of my trip later. For now, let me tell you what I've been up to the past two weeks! Cochem Castle One of the guys that works next to me has been trying to get to this castle for almost the entire deployment. He's signed up with the on base tour groups a few times, but for one reason or another it just didn't work out. Finally, we gathered a small group, made reservations and went on our own.  The castle at Cochem was built around the year 1000. After quite a history, it burned almost completely down in 1689. 200 years later, it was purchased by a Frenchman and restored to the way it looks today. The castle is owned by the city of Cochem and is a nice destination for tourists, incl...

Greetings! Did you all celebrate Pi day? Cheeky hopes you didn't sacrifice any pineapples to enjoy this nerdy day. The commissary didn't have any "traditional" pies such as apple or cherry, so we had a strawberry cheesecake, pecan pie, and Reese's pie. Still delicious! I wrote a few pi jokes on our whiteboard as well. We all had a good laugh and good treats! But this post isn't about pie or pi. It IS about wine and running, which is way better! M ary and Alfred's Winery Last week Saturday about a dozen of us stuffed into three cars and headed an hour and a half north to the tiny town of Briedel. It's situated on the Mosel river, which is a fantastic place to grow grapes. We went to Mary and Alfred Eigelshoven's winery. Now, when I think of a winery, this is not what I pictured. Their entire operation is at their home in a garage that might fit 4 vehicles. When we arrived, Mary was waiting for us in this garage with a long table that had a ...

"Westallica" T-shirt at the Camp Lemonnier Sign Cheeky Pine and I have just gotten back from what we hope to be our last downrange trip of the deployment. We headed down to Djibouti one more time to finish turnover with our new Paying Agent. He flew in on a Friday and we headed out on our commercial flight on Saturday evening. This trip, I had a few extra travel companions. We had a Captain from USAFE/FM observing our turnover and an Emergency Management gal who needed to get down to Djibouti, so we were her travel buddies. Saturday around 2:30pm we all met the shuttle and headed to Frankfurt Airport. This trip we were flying Turkish Airlines. This meant we had a layover in Istanbul. Our first flight went smooth and without incident. We had a little time in the airport before our 1:30AM flight, so we went in search of food. I found a tasty morsel of rolled & fried dough filled with feta cheese. And, since we were in Turkey, I had to have some baklava. Yum! I made a n...