So I recently became a NCO.  The usual tradition is that when you get promoted, you have to buy drinks for everybody.  Well, I was down in the desert where it happened, so I planned on buying drinks when I got back up to England.  I told everybody I knew that we would be partying Friday and Saturday night, I'd pay for drinks.  I figured I had the money, since I had just won about $3,000 on slot machines. 

I finally got back on the Tuesday before the weekend and went straight back to work.  It was a deal I made with my boss so that I could get the full weekend off.  So Wednesday I wake up and I'm sick.  All I could think was, "Damn it this is going to ruin my weekend."  So of course, I loaded up on all types of medicine and drank tons of orange juice and other juice drinks to get my vitamin count up.  It sort of worked.

Thursday night I went out to the base bar to have a few drinks.  I wasn't feeling great, but good enough to hang out with people.  I had a few drinks and a bunch of people wanted to go out to a club.  I didn't feel up to it that night, so I just stayed playing darts and such. 

Friday came around and I still felt like crap, but a little better than the day before.  A bunch of us ended up drinking and hanging out until about 6 a.m.  It was an okay night, but nothing really exciting.

Saturday came around and I figured it would be a slow day.  We had  all planned to meet up at a bar off base to get some food and have some drinks.  A buddy of ours was playing drums there for some belly dancers.  I ended up playing slots all day at the base bar and then went and got ready to go to the bar off base.  I ran by the front office of our hotel to get some pounds.  I ended up getting 250 pounds (about $525) to spend on drinks. 

The bar was a blast and all of us were having a ton of fun, so I convinced a few people to go out to the club.  The original count was 3 people, then it turned into 5, then when we met up to get taxis, it was 9 people.  I thought, "Okay cool, we got a decent group."  So I end up getting 300 more pounds at the front desk because that's all they had.  They couldn't give me anything else.  It was actually a funny situation because i had $1050 in cash and I walked up to the desk and told them, "Gimme everything you got.."  I'm kinda glad they didn't because that was a ton of money. 

So we headed out and ended up having a blast at the club.  It was a party to be at.  I paid for all 9 of us to drink that night.  In the end, I spent close to $1150.  We almost got into a few fights because the locals don't like Americans.  Of course we just let it go and kept doing our thing. 

I ended up losing my voice for the last few days.  That has sucked.  My job is to get in front of people and speak.  That is seriously all I do.  So to lose my voice, it was tough.  I had to have somebody else talk for me by reading a piece of paper while I just sat there and looked weird, pointing at a screen.

So yea, thats my update and my last 2 weeks or so.  Now it's on to Turkey where the party is really going to be.