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Everything posted here is stricktly the opinion of the poster and shall not be taken to be the official position of UNMIS, UNMISS, UN, the Norwegian Armed Forces or any other organisation whatsoever.

Friday 22 May 2009

Endex, for now

Train hard, fight easy.

Or, in the case of being an UNMO - train hard, observe easy.

And off course, all of the training is considered UN Restricted, so I can't discuss any details of it here... lets just say it was more mentally than physically taxing, and the physical bit was hard enough for most of the students.

After EndEx - End of Exercise - today we had a quick brief on what living in each mission is like from one of the instructors who had actually lived there. Since I'm going to Sudan, I naturally selected that group and got a decent feel for what it's like. And despite some of the horror stories you can find online, it sounds fairly decent all things considered - for instance most team sites now have containers you an rent to live in, with a bed, fridge, AC and a small office space. And for 21$/night - deducted straight from your MSA - it's not a bad deal at all.

This weekend we'll go on a welfare trip to Tampere, and from what I've been able to gleam t should be a more relaxing weekend then Helsinki was. Most of the downtown area is within a few blocks from the hotel, and that includes four shopping centers and two Alko - the Finnish equivalent of the Norwegian Wine Monopoly. Sunday we'll spend some time at a huge shopping center / spa / bath land style of thing - imagine Tamarack meets a sauna meets a water park, and you should be fairly close.

On Monday we start up the 'big' exercise - the one where the instructors wont hold our hands. I'm not sure if I should worry or not, but I am excited...

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