August 7

Other than the NSA, I don't think anyone is reading my blog.  But just in case I'll do a quick update.

This weekend I went to Prague in the Czech Republic.  This was a trip organized by the USO on base, and here's a bit of trivia.  In the early 1940s there were several organizations that helped provide morale services to GIs.  There was the YMCA, YWCA, and others, so I think President Roosevelt started the initiative to combine them into one organization.  That would help focus fundraising efforts and prevent duplicate services.  Uniting all the services into one organization became the United Services Organization.

When I went to the USO office they said this trip was filled up but you can always show up on the date of and see if there's space.  So 1:00 on Saturday morning I was in the parking lot on base and got lucky.  It's a long bus ride but ultimately worth it.  Once we got in the city there was a tour guide who walked us around for a few hours.   Prague is notable for a few things but the one I found most interesting was its survival during WWII.  Since Czech was 'affiliated with' (some say owned by) Germany it wasn't bombed by the Germans.  Apparently there weren't too many German garrisons in Czech because the Allies didn't bomb much either.  So Prague came out of WWII far less damaged than the rest of major European cities.  Even their subway is pretty new.  I didn't go in it but it was started in the 1970s which I think is about the time Washington DC started their metro system.

So the Czech Republic is part of the European Union but does not use Euros.  They still use the Czech Krona (or something like that).  One Euro is worth ... uh, a lot of Krona...so prices are a little hard to get used to.  I had a nice lunch at an outdoor hotel/restaurant.  Caprese salad and a bull & dumpling goulash.  The bill came to 360 which turned out to be around 22 dollars.

I'm filling in for another Marine who is going on leave, so for the next two weeks I'll be the Liaison Officer for AFRICOM.  A little bit cool since I'll get exposure to very high level discussions on fighting bad guys in Africa.  And a little bit dull since no matter what the topic, a long boring meeting is still a long boring meeting.

This is the Astrological Clock in Prague.  Very old.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_astronomical_clock