Well,

I had my much needed break from July 23-29th. It was in Qatar, which is on the Arabian peninsula right next to the UAE.

I am now back in Afghanistan, working on the far northern Kunar border with Pakistan. It is real pretty up here and I will send pictures soon.

In Qatar we stayed in air conditioned tents, and had to remain on base unless we took a guided tour. The tours included: 1) desert safari, which involved riding dune buggies in the sand, 2) Trip to a five story shopping mall 3) trip to a smaller mall 4) cruise around the city of Doha.

On the second day, we took a trip to a small mall. It was just like being in suburbia: Starbucks, Foodcourt, The Gap, etc....

On the third day, we took the boat cruise, it was nice enough to get some pictures.

All in all, Qatar reminded me of being in suburban New Jersey, except that is was 130 degrees with 80% humidity. All of the stores were new and very western. There are even chain restaurants like Chilis and TGIFridays there. The only difference is that the women look like Ninjas in their all black garb and the men wear all white smoks.

I know that this is bad, but I felt weird being amidst Muslim Arabs and not having a gun. Every Arab in Afghanistan that I have seen has either been shooting at me or trying to bomb me.

In fact, most people spoke English and were quite friendly. I am just so used to not trusting anyone who is muslim at this point.

Well, here are the pictures

I took this in Kabul just before I left for PASS. The sign reads: Each is glitters is not gold thingI thought that was hilarious.

This is the boat (right) that we cruised around on.

This is the Doha, Qatar skyline from the boat as we were coming in. All in all, it was a relaxing trip, and the Army even let us drink three beers a night.
Well, I will send more soon. Take care
SONNY