Fuel loading, day 2...

[alexpgp]

Word filtered down through the campaign grapevine yesterday, about a soccer match to be held between the French and the Russians at 6:30 pm. I wondered, briefly, if this was going to be the same kind of affair as took place a few campaigns ago, where the Russian side was represented by an actual team (like, with uniforms, that played together on a regular basis) that was brought in from town. On the way over to the game, I ran into a local resident that was moseying along the road:


The game had been going on for some time by the time I arrived, and it turned out to be a pickup game, five men to a side, with the French team sporting campaign tee shirts as a sort of uniform. The Russian players on the field could be identified as the ones without the distinctive sky blue tees. The field itself was a mostly flat area behind one of the abandoned buildings in the hotel area, the surface of which was covered largely by dirt and dying clumps of grass, with some scattered small shards of concrete, broken glass, and who knows what else.


The game was played with spirit, and the final score was 4-2, if memory serves, in favor of the French.

* * *Today is the final day of spacecraft propellant loading. At last report, the loading operation has begun, and I should get ready to go downstairs to spell Olga.

Cheers...

Comments

[walkertxkitty.livejournal.com]

OMG dromedary camel! Such a beautiful critter, and you got so close to one! For our panels this year at the convention I attend, we focused on the Middle Eastern mythology and chose the camel as our animal. I've learned so much about them and I really want one. How cool to meet one up close and personal.

I can't find Kazakhstan on the map, can you help? Mine are outdated.

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

Well, I and the rest of the campaigners who have taken an interest in this animal (named "Ghota," apparently) give it a rather wide berth, as there are some critters like this around here that resent human company. This one has some kind of identifying mark in one of its nostrils, so it's not really a stray (though it acts like one).

There's a pretty good map at http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/asia/kz.htm,, with links to others. The latitude and longitude of my current location are shown in the userpic.

Cheers...

[walkertxkitty.livejournal.com]

The mark through the nostril is a peg mark, used for haltering them, and you're right...it wouldn't be found on a feral (there are no strays as the animals are quite valuable and there are none left in the wild). Whoever owns that animal has good lines.

One day, my girlfriend and I hope to travel out to the Middle East and purchase our own camels. I'm interested in them for their intelligence and sure footedness. They will apparently go over all kinds of terrain except true swamp and some of them will try even that.

I recognize the location now from some of my studies of the Middle East pre-World War II. Part of the Ottoman Empire initially, I believe and later part of Russia?