Kevin called to let us know he passed the Professional Engineer exam, great news on his way to be a PE.
Sean called just a little while ago and told us he passed Special Forces Select School. He is exhausted after 20 some days of intense training. About 2/3rds of the class of 300 dropped out, 50% of the officers in the class dropped out. He said his other training (infantry, combat engineer-sapper and combat experience) were invaluable and gave him a leg up. During the next two years, he will have more training, mostly in Fort Benning, GA -- Airborne school, then Captain school and then Ranger . He is very excited to know that he will be stationed in Germany upon completion of his courses, which also include learning to speak Russian.
How is everybody doing in America? Is it also as cold as here? It has been almost 6 months since I moved to Finland and it's great, even though it's a bit cold (-11 degrees Celsius during the day). The people here are friendly and the study program I'm following (Innovative Business Services) fits me really well. In the attachments I included a photo of me and my sister trying out this weird Finnish liquorice(drop) ice cream. I thought we liked drop in the Netherlands but here they are a lot crazier about it. They even have liquorice chocolate.
Having a great trip with wonderful weather. Have seen only one cloud in ten days. We saw the church where the Ark of Covernant is kept. Did a 15k, 800m ascent today to a rock carved monestary. The group took mules (ala the Valley of the Kings) but I trekked it. Did two full days looking at the rock hewn churchs in Lalibella (sp?). This place is as good if not better than Petra and worthy of being in the Pantheon of great tour sites (i.e. Pyramids, Angor Wat, Machu Picchu, etc.).
On to Addis tomorrow and then to the south for some animal and water fowl safari time.
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