Fuel loading, day 2...

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...