The abundance of random snow storms, the reappearance of the terrazzo tundra, and the inescapable lore of the holiday season mean the end of the Fall semester at the Air Force and Coast Guard Academy alike. As such it seems an appropriate time to recount my unprecedented semester through the latest edition of my blog. As an introduction I had the opportunity to spend the better half of my semester at the Coast Guard Academy and returned early back to the Air Force Academy which has been one of the best and most difficult times in my life.
After an amazing summer traveling through Greece, Bulgaria, and eventually Turkey I didn't return to the Air Force Academy as I do after most summers. I returned to my home in Annapolis for a brief five day week since the Coast Guard started a few weeks after the Air Force Academy.After a seven hour drive from Annapolis to the Coast Guard Academy I arrived only to get on a bus to the New York City Harbour. Waiting for me at Pier 6 was the Barq Eagle an iron clad sailboat that the US stole from the Nazi's at the end of World War II. Originally the Horst Weischel. the Eagle is the flag ship of the US Coast Guard and the primary training vessel for cadets at the Coast Guard Academy. At first I was reluctant to enjoy the experience since I was giving up a week of my leave, but as soon as I walked on the ship the exchangers were given two days to roam around New York City. Unknown to me I was unleashed into New York City with some pretty awesome people. After a mile walk from the ship into the notoriously filthy NYC subway system we began our journey to New York City and as exchange cadets at the Air Force Academy.
I think we had all been to New York City a couple times before so we all kind of had an idea of what we wanted to do. On the first day we figured we would check out Wall Street on the day the US's credit rating went from AAA to AA+ :-o. This was a few months before everyone else had the same idea. After our trip to Wall Street and to the Freedom Tower, in the place of the Twin Towers, we headed up town to see Broadway and fifth Avenue. There we visited all of the typical shops, The M&M factory, the giant Toys R US, and some other random places. My favorite part is always the visit to Little Italy, especially the trip to Carmello's Bakery. After some pizza and cannolies we headed back to Broadway to see a 17 dollar movie. It was Cowboys and Aliens so it wasn't even a good 17 dollar movie, it was absolutely terrible.
The next day I spent with my family since Maryland is only a few hours away. We walked around and went to the Hard Rock Cafe and eventually we went back to the boat to go on our journey.
As I mentioned the Eagle is meant to train 1st and 2nd year cadets so most of the time the freshmen were shining brass cleaning bathrooms and learning how to stand watch, sail, and other applicable Coast Guard things. Each exchange cadet involved themselves in different ways. A few times a day we had to tie up or unfurl the sails of this massive ship which involved climbing about 30 feet on a vertical mesh net and crawl down the arm of the sail so that we could either tie the massive sail or untie it letting it loose. Once you get to the top you can really feel the mast that you are standing on moving around. Paul from the Air Force Academy really felt it and threw up all the way down the sail on the people below us.
Once we debarked the Eagle in New London Connecticut our remarkable semester began.The Coast Guard Academy was really interesting. There were tons of little rules, strictly enforced, that the exchange cadets began to trip over. The first is that the rooms had to be absolutely spotless, even while we were unpacking we had several officers chastise us for the unsatisfactory conditions of our rooms. One of the officers even said that we shouldn't act like we come from the chill academies. This was a problem for me the entire semester, not that my room was dirty, but I'm just not anal like that, but apparently it was pretty important since I was restricted for it. A few of us also ran into some trouble with the strictness of returning from leave on-time. The cadets at Coast Guard mock the rule since underlying circumstances like traffic, delayed flights, and weather are completely disregarded. A few cadets have gotten in accidents since they were rushing back, but the delay caused by the accident caused them to arrive late so they got restricted. In my case my plane arrived late so I couldn't catch the right train from Providence, RI to New London, CT, I was restricted upon my return. Besides a few oddities the academies were pretty similar with the exception of referring to all of their buildings as cutters, a large boat. As an example they call the walls bulkheads, and they have 360 degree portraits that are as if you are looking off the side of the ship.
The food at the Coast Guard Academy was great compared to the Air Force Academy, especially during breakfast and dinner, lunch is about the same. Every day they had a buffet with some sort of pizza and an ice cream bar. The entree would differ everyday which was usually pretty good, but I favored the action station where they made Gyros, any type of wrap, and occasionally some sort of smoothie which went really well with their loafs of bread that were actually still warm on the inside. Dinner was one of my favorite parts of the day which is really telling about my priorities, but breakfast is a close second with the omelet station and Belgium waffle bar, and of course any type of cereal you choose. Eating out isn't exclusive to the Coast Guard Academy, but I ate out a lot more there than I did at the Air Force Academy. The trips weren't too special a-lot of the times we ate at Panera Bread, which I really like, but it is too expensive.
One of my favorite places to go for lunch was the Muddy Waters Cafe in New London. It was no cheaper than Panera but it was really cool. The inside was decked out with furniture from someones home instead of the typuical booths you would find in a restaurant. The back porch which actually ahd tables overlooked the Amtrak tracks just before they reached the ghetto New London Station. It also overlooked the Thames River, actually pronounced how it sounds weird, on the other side you could see Electric Boat, the largest submarine producer in the world, watch out China. Besides the ecentric ambiance the food was extremely good and healthy at the same time. My favorite thing to order was the BLT, they made it was basil; and put it on a Croissant. After I finished my semester at the Air Force Academy, I flew into Boston took a train to the Coast Guard Academy where we had to pick up my trunk I had left there. Besides stopping at some obscure Apple Cider store in Mystic we went to Muddy Waters for lunch.
My favorite Restaurants were in Mystic most of all was the Captain Packer Restaurant on Water Street. Since it was so expensive we waited until parents weekend so that we didn't need to foot the bill. It was really fun to meet all of our parents especially Peter's dad. Peter's dad was in the Army and made fun of his son the entire night for ordering duck, he called it the "gourmet Army". Peters dad made fun of Peter as much as Jess's mom made fun of Tommy and I for making Jess carry the flag for the march on that day as well as for blaming the girls for everything else that night.
The one restaurant I never ate at, perhaps because I was always restricted, was S&P Oyster. I'm not too disappointed I couldn't go because my parents made sure I had more Oysters than I could handle over Thanksgiving Break. We went to Calypso Bay which was interesting. When my friend Alex and his girlfriend Steph arrived there was a police car bliocking Charlie's car, Alex's dad. We thought that something must have gone terribly wrong since the keys were still in the igniton of the police car with the door wide open. We walked in just in time to see some guy get body slammed by a police officer. Apparently the guy didn't pay his bill at the other restaurant they went too, note to self pay your bill.
Most of the other exchangers spent their weekends in New York City or Boston checking out the Head of the Charlas, crew race, or a multitude of things going on in the area. I spent most of my time staying on top of debate and helping some of the younger students. One weekend for example I flew to the breathtaking Kansas City with the team, as well as the Air Force Academy, which eventually got me sent back. Most of the time I stayed in the Connecticut area or I took the train back home. The Amtrak is a fantastic way to travel up and down the East Coast, but it is a little expensive. It takes about six hours to travel from CT to Washington which is about the same as a car, but the seats are really spacious and you can finish all of your homework for the weekend, or sleep. I also really enjoyed traveling through Manhatten, which you would never want to do if you were driving a car.
The first time I went home I got to go surfing for the first time in a while. We were able to stay in Ocean City with my Aunt Linda and I surfed as muchas I could given the conditions. I know I caught a couple of waves unfortunately the pictures were only taken outside of the water so you will just have to trust me ;-). Also of note was that we went to Lombardi's Italian Restaurant, my Aunt Linda knew that I like mussels so she suggested that I try the Mussels there. they were beautiful when they came out completely green and shiny, they were a New Zealand variety so they weren't all black like usual. They really were the best mussles I have ever had so I am now constantly on a search to find a better Mussel.
The second time I came home I went to the Annapolis boat show with my friend Alex. The show was amazing because they were serving crab cakes on the dock, my favorite food, as well as painkillers. Having learned mytlesson about underage drinking I did not partake in any of the alcoholic festivities. The boat show is always really cool because you can walk across ego alley from Middleton's directly to Pussers. The annoying part was that it cost like twenty dollars with no military discount unless you were from the Naval Academy which was some bs. I guess they were mad that the Air Force Academy keeps beating them in football. Besides the annoying ticket counter person there were some amazing boats there some costing obviously millions of dollars as well as vendors selling some interesting but really expensive clothes. There were a lot of people from South America that had either sailed or flown to the Boat show, I enjoyed eavesdropping on their conversations to practice my Spanish haha. We didn't stay liong since we had to hurry back to play some soccer with old friends.
My absolute favorite thing about the USCGA was the Club Soccer Football Club of America. Although the school only has a thousand students, there was a large footbal/soccer following. We tried to play at least once a week, sometimes we were forced indoors and other times we played on the football football field, like the Super Bowl kind. No matter how much studying I needed to do there was nothing keeping me from a CFSC game, I remember one night not studying for a Prob Theory Test on behalf of CFSC, I got an 89:-) my friend Paul would tell you that this was a point less than him, I guess that's what I get for not studying. On my last night at the academy CFSC had a large game so that they could send me off, we played on the football football field and there were a full 22 people playing, thanks for the sendoff guys it was great! My friend Ryan Flanagan helped plan the game. Ryan was a cool dude the first time I met him I was looking for a ride to the airport for a debate trip. Ryan just dropped everything he was doing and took me up to Providence, thanks again Ryan!
I had an in interesting relationship with each of the exchange cadets. Peter and I always played Saits Row. It's a really violent video game like Grand Theft Auto. we would play for several hours to see who could do the mnost ridiculous things and stay living. My favorite thing was to crash an airplane into the ocean at full speed swim to shore and do it again. I guess we had a pretty violent relationship. Jess and I had Ko, the kid sitting next to us in busnizzz class, weird pinky thing. Ko would eventually sit next to Jess for the rest of the semester after I left. Paul and I had a-lot. Dr. Krystinik, who was capable of writing math at a million miles a second on the board without even looking at it, was our very excited math teacher. Dr Wingrove Haughland was our philosophy teacher :-), I guess just Paul and I will understand this one. Paul was also an avid member of Club Football Soccer Club. Cameron and I had the Air Force Navy football game which almost went the wrong way as well as all of the books and cell phone which Cameron saved my life with. Tommy and I had the extremely inappropriate joke he told us as soon as we met him and the awesome cross country trail he showed me for the first time. I'll end with an exchange cadet joke, "Why did the orange stop in the middle of the road".
Because he ran out of juice :-)
