Three words why Crete is awesome: Rick Astley megamix

Sorry I didn't get a blog post up yesterday.  I'll try to relate everything from yesterday and today without running on too long and boring everyone.

Yesterday morning was my first day working at NSA Souda Bay.  For those of you who don't know where that is, it's near the city of Chania (or Χανιά if you want to read it in Modern Greek), on the western part of Crete.  It's actually a Hellenic Air Force Base that the Navy helps run, so we're not allowed to take pictures.  If the Greeks catch you taking pictures, they could charge you with espionage, and that would definitely ruin my AT.  My assignment is to work in the Port Operations department, which SHOULD be similar to what I was doing at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.  In reality, it's nothing like that, and the Navy doesn't do much here.  All the maintenance is contracted out to local people, which means the Navy is just here to operate the small boats in the harbor when necessary, and to handle lines when a Navy ship comes in.  Not to go on a rant here, but they don't even have a scheduled maintenance system on the things for which they're supposed to perform maintenance.  Therefore, I can't do anything electrical, and I can't do any of the administrative stuff I'm trained to do.  It wasn't supposed to be this way, but I'm here to help in any way I can, and I'm here to enjoy my time in Crete.

That brings me to my next point:  the people stationed here don't realize how lucky they are.  Crete is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen in my life, and there are many reasons that it's probably my favorite port I've ever been to.  (Crete and Dubai are running neck and neck, and Crete may have it by a nose right now.)  We took the boats out on the water for some oil spill remediation training today, and all I could do was look at the deep, dark blue water, and the majesty of the mountains rising around the harbor.  If I had to look at that every day for work, I'd have a pretty darn good job.  As we were out there, I heard a lot of people complaining about being away from the United States, and how everything was so removed from everything they knew.  Guess what, shipmates?  That's what happens when you volunteer to go overseas.  Keep these memories, because you'll cherish them one day.  It also struck me, as I listened to the active duty sailors talk, that those kinds of interactions were part of the reason I got off active duty.  Not to say that the sailors didn't know their jobs, but there was WAY too much unprofessionalism (in the way of jokes and comments directed at anyone and anything), and people didn't appreciate what they had.  As a lot of people know, myself and Wifey included, the civilian job market sucks right now.  

So back to the "event log":  off by 1530 yesterday, and had dinner in Chania with Mitchell.  Either I didn't see all the restaurants by the harbor in Chania when I was here in 2004, or things have changed A LOT, but there were a million different restaurants to choose from.  I recognized a few I had eaten at when I was here last time, and chose one at random.  One thing you have to realize about Crete (and Europe in general) is that the restaurants and bars all have hawkers that will try to reel you in as you walk by.  They'll show you the menu, they'll offer you free drinks and dessert, and you'll be sucked in (not that it's necessarily a bad thing).  Dinner itself was fantastic.  I had pork gyros (pronounced YEE-rohs) and a Mythos beer (not bad, but certainly not up there on my "beer snob" scale), and Mitchell got spaghetti with seafood (mussels, shrimp, and I think octopus; I was NOT ordering that).  After dinner we had some sort of free dessert that tasted like a sort of vanilla pudding with meringue on top (and Wifey just vomited all over the computer).  It was very good though, and surprisingly refreshing after a quasi-heavy dinner.  Mitchell and I walked through Chania after dinner, poking our heads in a couple stores, then got in the car and proceeded to get lost on the way back to the hotel.  Fortunately we were able to follow the signs to the αεροδρόμιο and backtracked our way from there.  (10 points to whomever can translate that Greek word first.)  

Tonight for dinner we walked up and down the street by the hotel, and found a restaurant that had been recommended to us by a couple people who came here before us, and had been recommended to us by the people that ran the hotel.  I think it was called "The Three Pigs", and it was a grill-type place.  We both had the mixed grill, which came with lamb souvlaki, grilled pork, chicken, a sort of seasoned hamburger patty and a sausage.  The lamb, pork and chicken were all very good.  The other two, meh, they weren't bad, but not good either.  It also came with fries, tomatoes, and yogurt (Wifey just threw up again).  However, tonight after dinner, instead of free dessert came a free small carafe of tsikoudia, or τσικουδιά.  Tsikoudia is very similar to grappa, in that it is typically imbibed as a digestive assistant.  In any case it was free, and it was good.  

So I now sit on my balcony typing out this blog to everyone, letting my dinner digest while I view the beautiful Cretan mountains in the distance, and the courtyard/pool of the hotel in the foreground.  A good ending to a good day.

And apparently I forgot to explain the title to today's blog:  when I was sitting in the parking lot out front of the base yesterday waiting for the pass and ID office to open, I was listening to the radio.  Some stations play traditional Greek music, some play modern Greek pop music, and some play English-speaking songs.  I happened to be listening to one of the English language stations, when I heard the first beats to "Never Gonna Give You Up" come on.  I found this funny (as most people who are familiar with a Rickroll would), then it morphed into a megamix of three or four other Rick Astley songs, which I found even funnier.  I had no idea that Rick Astley even SANG more than two songs, and the fact that they turned some of his songs into a megamix made it even better.  It's just a little bit of the difference between America and Europe on display once again.

So I hope everyone enjoyed this entry.  Stand by for tomorrow's blog, where your hero will be assisting in painting a Cretan orphanage as a Community Relations (COMREL) project.  Until then, I'm Brian Atkinson.  Good night.