I am in Conakry, Guinea right now. We have been here for a few daysnow. the spanish, italian, and us marines were offloaded when we got here and they did their exercise up the river in a convoy with the marines here. I don't really know too much of what all they did. We had a massive reception here the first night. The ambassador, their joint chief of staff, their CNO,.... etc... all these dignitaries and people from various organizations NATO prob too. It was funny.. they were supposed to have it on the pier initially but then it was moved to on the flight deck and then into the well deck. So they strung up lights all around the first half of the well deck after they moved some of the trucks and stuff that were left from the marines and they hung signal flags around that I think spelled world famous. They had an ice sculptue and they had "bar tenders" 4 tables serving alcohol on the ship! They also had really good food.. with tables and table cloth buffet. It was a stand around type thing. We wore our summer whites and the servers and escorts wore their "salt and pepper." The well deck had a big ramp so it was like a grand entrance. It was cool...and of course they dinged everyone on when they arrived. I'm glad I didn't have duty. The co and the ambassador both spoke.. but they had problems speaking and understanding people. My friend the disbo, Anna, knows french pretty fluentyly. They had her translate line by line the brief that ops gave during the opening presail conference on the ship. She also got to go with the co and the commodore and his OSC to the Embassy here and talk and "make calls" as the co said. She's getting the hook up. It's too bad so many people know english in spain or else maybe I could have done the same thing. I have been the stand by bridge translator on the watchbill that stands on the bridge in case they need to translate when we went through the straits of gibraltor, etc over there.
Got off the ship today for the first time here. It is like national geographic. People are nice enough. We had to stay on buses that were escorted from the ship to a choice of 3 really nice hotels where we could eat and shop. I had some really gross pizza tonight. We aren't making water onboard so we have to drink out of the water bottles. I'm sure we will run out. haha. Anyway.... nav brief at 730, pier ceremony at 08 and then i think we are stationing the sea and anchor detail at 0830 and leaving shortly there after enroute to Ghana..