Hey y’all! I’m finally back in California, and while I’m still pretty jet lagged, I wanted to share some of my photos with you! Today, I thought I’d share some of my food photos from Afghanistan, since we like to talk about food here.

First, I need to talk about the British chow hall at Camp Bastion, because we went there a lot. Now, I know that British food gets a bad rap (and I’m not very fond of quite a lot of British cuisine), but this place has several kinda of curry every day, plus an interesting and usually delicious array of desserts (or pudding, if you like).

I actually am not sure what that thing with the fuschia topping was, but it was really delicious. The peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream and the banoffee pie was also pretty amazing.

In contrast, the American chow hall at Camp Leatherneck was … fine. They definitely had some good days, but as I’m not into “wing night” and the hamburger there was one of the scariest things I’ve ever tasted, we’ll give the British chow halls the win.

But the chow halls aren’t the only places to eat. There is an exchange that stocks all manner of protein powder, beef jerky, and Haribo gummies, as well as some apparently “expeditionary” potato chips.

The Danes also have their own exchange, which stocks the biggest packages of Mentos I’ve ever seen, lots of European chocolate and Afghan Doritos.

The Danes also have a coffee shop with an honor bar — so you can get a cup of coffee or tea and a freshly baked treat and then decide for yourself how much to donate before you relax on the patio to eat.

Back at Camp Leatherneck, there’s a more traditional coffee shop that is really named Green Beans but often referred to as Starbucks. They have great caramel frappes and chai lattes, but their baked goods never really looked worth it to me.

 

Nearby is the USO, where I spent a lot of time (partly because their wifi is far superior to the wifi that is, surprisingly, provided free in the rooms). But they also have fun things like Waffle Sunday .

Then, there’s “The Blue.”

The Blue is the only real sit-down restaurant at Bastion/Leatherneck, and they also have milkshakes and pastries and coffee. The milkshake I had was a weird consistency and the carrot cake was a little dry, but neither was bad. And, it’s Afghanistan! The fact that I could get something milkshake-esque at all is kind of a miracle.

The chow halls and restaurant options were much better at the base in Kabul, where we also went to a “bar” and drank non-alcoholic pomegranate and apple malt beverages out of beer bottles while people in camouflage with guns strapped to their waists/thighs line danced. That was trippy.

But as you can see, I was definitely well fed — or at least got plenty of calories — during my time in the sandbox! Next up? What I wore (although you can already tell that many of my outfits involved that light blue vest).