Have you ever had to be evacuated from an airbase in the middle of night?

I have.

And its not something I want to try again I can tell you that.

The ‘experience’ began at the start of the month. I found out that there was a spare place on one of the deployment courses offered at work, and considering this one was shorter than others and the fact that everyone has to go on one at some point, I put my name forward. After quite more fussing and battling I had bargained for, I was allocated a space on the course, joy! I couldn’t understand why I had to battle so much to get on the course in the first place. Had I been asking to go on a 2 week wine tasting course in Hawaii I could understand it, but sleeping in a tent, in December, in Germany ….. why? I arrived at the airbase, late on a Monday afternoon.

Come Thursday afternoon, I wished that I hadn’t bothered.

Firstly, the chalet I was spending the first 3 nights was camped right in the middle of the Blair Witch’s back garden. Walking for a mile, in the rain, through the forest, with no lighting, dragging my suitcase behind as I went, all the while muttering to myself about how happy I was and congratulating myself on pushing so hard to be in such a delightful situation, obviously.

Things did improve though when I found a bar not all that far from the chalet, and its a good thing I did, because after chatting to a guy I met in there I found out that the place where the training was to take place was on the other side of the main runway, and you were not allowed to cross on foot, you needed to be in a car. Fortunately again, a few free beers on my behalf helped on the of other guys in the bar to realise that he should pick me up in the morning and give me a ride to Auschwitz … I mean, the training camp.

To be fair, the first few days were alright. Learning about various forms of anti-tank and anti-personnel mines and how to clear them. Learning all about biological, chemical, nuclear and radioactive attacks, what kit you have to wear to be safe from them and what medicines and shots to give those who have been contaminated. Then there was the first aid training and the fire fighting training, basically running around with various types of fire extinguisher depending on on what was on fire at that time, and of course, my favorite, the special weapons testing:

I was happy.

Then Thursday happened.

Thursday signaled the beginning of the Games, or ‘The Scenarios’ as the training camp leaders liked to refer to them.

Basically the scenarios, as their name might suggest, are when you are divided into teams and given each a role to fulfill, that either being, to guard the front gates, be on the lookout for mines, be on fire fighting duty, first aid etc etc.

All of this would have been fun. Had it not been done in the outdoors, in December, in Germany, during a dtorm. The entire day we had winds of over 90mph and heavy rain. Despite the efforts of most there to get the Games called off, the trainers told us it would be character building, I disagreed.

The first game saw me (thankfully, I thought at the time) selected as a ‘casualty’. TO make the Games more realistic the trainers selected random people from each group to pretend to be a victim of something dreadful, just to see how the other members of the group dealt with it. My job, I initially thought, was simple. Lie down in a burnt out, upside down car the trainers had positioned in the middle of the forest, pretend to be in shock, and see what the others do. Wonderful, until I realised that because it had been raining all day long I would be lying in a 3 inch deep puddle for half an hour until the others arrived with ‘help’.

As the weather worsened, so did our Games. The next event saw us in one of the tents having huge fire crackers being set off all around us to simulate a gas and rocket attack. Fully kitted up, with gas mask and gloves etc, there was then an enormous explosion and a shout of ‘gas gas gas, fire fire fire’. As I ran outside, with my glasses steamed up inside my gas mask, carrying about 30lbs of extra kit, including water rations, I left the tent to the scene of 3 cars on fire with people still inside. I ran to the first car and pulled out a guy who must have weighed about 200 lbs. As I dragged him away from the burning wreckage I was my ‘team mates’ smiling at me from still inside the tent, offering encouragement and help, obviously.

After a few more decent exchanges with mock terrorists, who were throwing real rocks at our heads we went for the final game of the night. This time, the trainers had brought in their ‘actors’ - about 5 of them, to supplement the other ‘victims’. By this stage the wind had picked up to over 100mph and the rain was getting worse, as was my mood and memory. All I generally remember from the last scenario was that there was again 2 cars on fire, one guy inside the car with prosthetics to make it appear that he had last an arm at the shoulder, and a girl (actor) screaming …. and I mean SSCCRREEAAMMIINNGG, for her husband, who was trapped inside a car. After first freeing the one arm man and stupidly trying to put him in the recovery position, which was pretty useless considering he only had one arm, I turned my attention to the screaming woman. One of my team members had been trying to calm her down, but this was a girl who took her acting very seriously. I arrived on the scene just in time to see the girl kick my colleague full on in the face. Then she turned her attention on me. Absorbing her punch to my chest (fortunately I was wearing a bullet proof jacket) I threw her over my shoulder and put her on a stretcher. Unfortunately I accidentally put her on the stretcher next to the actor who was playing the part of her husband … who was clearly dead and missing one arm. This set the screamer off into nuclear mode.

I`d had enough.

And walked away. Somewhere between the accident scene and my tent I found the dead man’s severed arm, which I picked up and then flung over the fence. Something which I was later told by the trainers was ‘not the correct thing to do’.

I cared not.

The Games ended shortly after midnight and we retired to our home for the night, which was a 400kg tent. By this stage though the wind was so strong that one of the tents had been picked up by the gusts and moved a few meters in one direction. The worst part though was the fact that our tents were meant to be heated, and surprise surprise, the heading in my tent wasn’t working.

So there I was, shattered, wet through without a change of clothes, cold, and nothing more than a standard issue army sleeping bag for warmth in the middle of storm, in Germany, in December. Do you think I was happy?

Then at about 3 in the morning the lead instructor came into our tent, resisting the temptation to pull a gun on him I sat up. He basically said that he had been called by the base security team and we were told to evacuate the site due to the ’severe weather conditions’. I thought about it, realised how cold it was outside, still raining heavily, and decided that I`d take my chances in my now, slightly warmed up sleeping bag.

I managed to survive.

Then at 6am the next morning the Games started again. Still wet through, still tired, still not happy.

There was only time for another 4 scenarios that day, which took us until just after midday, going home time.

Nearly happy.

That was until the very end when the trainers were handing out the ‘certificates of completion’, and I saw that my certificate had my name badly misspelled on it.

Disaster! Did I have to do the course all over again?

Fortunately not. A few days later the instructor, helpfully emailed me a digital copy of the certificate, with no name on it. So now I can print as many of htem as i want, with whichever name I want to put on it.

I might do one for you!

Or any of my colleagues, for that matter, 10 euros per certificate if they want one, and 100 euros if they don’t want one.

Now …. Happy.

All the best for 2012 from 1point21gigawatts.net

Thankfully, since my last post, I`ve only had to visit 2 different hotel rooms, and even more thankfully, they were in different hotels, on different business trips and in 2 different countries.

And they were both enjoyable.

Firstly I spent a week in Berlin, in the very nice Steigenberger hotel. Then yesterday evening I was back from The Hague, where I stayed at the Carlton Beach hotel. Which I`m sure would have been excellent, had I not had to arrive at 10:30 at night and leave first thing the morning after. I`m sure the view from the room would have been awesome, had there been any daylight to illuminate it.

Exactly 3 weeks today I start my Christmas holidays, but even before then I have one more business trip to get out of the way.

And this one isn’t anything like any of the others.

Next week I have to go on pre-deployment training, which more or less involves running, jumping climbing trees, shooting, and sleeping in a tent, with 40 other people, in the snow, in Germany, in December.

Can’t wait.

Hopefully I don’t go all ‘Rambo’ and start having flashbacks in the middle of the war simulations and begin attacking colleagues with a rudimentary snowball rocket launcher fashioned from spare canvas and shoelaces.

It`s all (almost) possible.

After all, I`m due something interesting happening. My last few trips have been (relatively) low key, by my standards.

Let battle commence.

I quite like staying in hotels, it lets me practise some of my most favourite hobbies, such as turning around hotel room ‘do not disturb signs’ so that they read ‘please make up room’ and then standing around the corner waiting for the inevitable screams. It also give me an opportunity to stock up on batteries from hotel room TV remotes and and of course (free) light bulbs.

Its a good thing that I`m fond of hotels too, because over the past 10 days I`ve stayed in 8 different rooms.

In Italy the room I`d stayed in for the best part of 3 weeks had been booked out by someone else months in advance, in fact the entire hotel was completely booked. After much negotiation I managed to bag a deal with the hotel manager where I could share a room with one of my colleagues for the night and then move into another room of my own the next day.

The guy I had to share with is a top man, reliable, superb at his job and good fun to be around. Unfortunately, every now and then, only every now and then, his English skills let him down. Both sat there, happy, having a beer in the hotel reception one night, we started to discuss the events of the day.

Me - “So what did you get up to for lunch today?”
Colleague - “Oh, we went out to a nice restaurant near the beach”
Me - “Oh right, food any good?”
Colleague - “No, they took me to this place where you have to eat these things, live and whole, they’re called Ostrich”
Me - (amazed and coughing up the beer I`d just swallowed) “WHAT? You ate a whole LIVE Ostrich???”
Colleague - “Yes, you know, but I didn’t like, you take the lemon take the shell and swallow it down whole".
Me - “Ah - you mean oysters!”

I have to admit, I was a little disappointed to find out I couldn’t have a go at eating a whole live Ostrich.

Anyhow, after returning from Italy, with my suitcase ridiculously overweight having bought 7 bottles of wine to bring back to Belgium, where I stayed for about 36 hours before taking the train to Ostende, and my latest work adventure.

I was there to take part in an MCM (mine counter measure) exercise. Good fun it was too. I got to catch up with the MCM diving community, who are all, completely and totally insane.

I fit right in.

Sadly, I`d left booking my hotel room rather too late and found that I`d be bounced around various hotels and various rooms over the next five days.

One of those rooms was truly, totally and completely the worst place I`ve ever been. I was very close to sleeping outside on the streets of Ostende, thinking that I`d probably have been safer.

I told one of the MCM divers about the room, who said that it couldn’t possibly be as bad as I`d described it, so I took him along for a viewing.

I opened the door, and the ghost of a thousand farts stung our nostrils. The mould in the bathroom groaned at the light and the pillow cases tried to make a break for it out the opened door.

We didn’t stay long. I decided that I needed serious alcohol before I went back.

And when I did go back - slightly drunk - I took this picture:

Which shows the door to my hotel room at the top of the picture, and the hallway leading to it. Near the bottom of the picture, you can see 3 syringes lying on the floor.

Awesome.

I was staying in the worst hotel in the world.

I didn’t get much sleep that night.

In fact I sat in the room, in the pitch black, staring at the hotel room door, sipping from a bottle of whisky, just waiting to have ‘an encounter’.

It never came, and at the earliest point possible I picked up my bags and legged it, thinking back on it, I`m not even sure if I paid the bill.

Next time, I`ll take my chances on the streets. At the very least, the smell would be better.