the beach in Arta

this weekend's excitement was going to the beach in Arta, about 1.5 hours away at the end of a long, bumpy, dirt road.

The French have a permanent base/camp/station near there but the Americans had come in and set up a new, temporary installation. This meant that were helicopters and Ospreys (helicopter/airplane hybrids) flying overhead, landing close to us and generally making noise. We also got to see a marine exercise right in front of us. There were some abandoned buildings less than 50 yards from us and 3 personnel carriers drove up and a bunch of marines hopped out, set up a perimeter, and cleared the buildings. That was pretty fascinating.

In between watching American tax dollars in action I found time to enjoy the beach. I went snorkeling, saw tons of sweet fish, hiked up on a hill overlooking the beach, ate a lot of junk, and visited with the other American families there. Good times.

I went to bed at 7:30 last night and slept till 6:15 this morning since i had an early morning class. Being super tired then sleeping for a long time is a good feeling.