Day 5; Shop Til I Drop

I knew it was going to be a great day when I woke up to an email from my soldier.  It was a group email to his friends as well as a few family members, but I was grateful nonetheless to hear what was going on:

Sup mofs,

I just got issued a duffel bag full of new crap plus new body armor...and I have to figure out how to fit it into my two already-full duffel bags and my black footlocker...it's like I'm packing for a space shuttle mission.  Anyway, I attached a couple pictures of the new spiffy body armor.  It's called an IOTV (improved outer tactical vest).  Front/back plates designed to stop a 7.62mm AK-47 round, plus side plates, shoulder pads, and a penis guard (that's what I call it, but it's just a flap that comes down kind of like a baseball catcher's pads).  The shoulder pads and penis guard are designed to stop shrapnel but not bullets. With all the pouches and crap I put on it, it carries 270 rounds of ammo (9 mags), 2 frag grenades, 1 flashbang, first aid kit, camelbak, two strap cutters (I had two so I put them in different places so I can reach either one if I'm stuck in a vehicle), multitool, flashlight, among other crap.  The whole thing weighs like 40 pounds dry and probably another 15 with ammo.

The cool part about it is that it has a ripcord in the front which, when pulled, basically makes the whole thing fall apart from you so that if you need to get through a tight space really quick, like exiting a vehicle, or if you are sinking in water, you can drop it without having to unstrap it and pull it over your head.  It takes like 10 minutes to put back together though, and I can imagine that all my soldiers are gonna be pulling each other's ripcords like retards, haha.

Just wanted to keep you guys filled in on what's going on around here.  Besides getting new gear, I'm also the Unit Movement Officer so I have been supervising the loading of tens of millions of dollars worth of my company's equipment into shipping containers to be sent to Iraq.  Kind of a big side-job they're making me do. 

I think we're gonna start convoy ops and mounted gunner qualification next week.  The only lame thing is at this point it sounds like we're gonna be stuck with the Vietnam-era M16A2 rifles we have -- we put in a request for M4s but they don't really want to give us any.  Lame.  Hopefully I can trade that cannon in for an M9 handgun and not have to carry around a rifle on base.

Later mofs,

Richy

Today, Robert took us to La Boqueria market.  Incredible food shopping—fresh fish, fruit and vegetables, and…  miscellany:

What the heck is THAT???

After a quick lunch, we then visited La Rambla, a tree-lined pedestrian mall with shopping, shopping, and more shopping.  Also interesting are the street performers along the way. 

Dinner was at an incredible Italian restaurant where my husband and I dined with Robert and 3 of his friends.  Of course, the photographer is absent from the table… ;)

Another wonderful day in Barcelona to distract me from my pathetic pining.  Don’t know how long this will last, but for now, it is slightly bearable.