It's still just a PX.

We went to the new PX today. There is a lot there, and it does look lovely. They have the kind of sidewalk fountains that all the kids will play in when it gets warm again. They have an outdoor fireplace where people can sit and drink coffee and stuff. They have lots of restaurants, which are way less crowded than the ones off post. The bagel shop is quite good. We had lunch there. That's about where the great ends, though.

The playground they made so much fuss about is only for toddlers, and would bore Erin to death even if she were allowed to play in it (they height restrict it and she is 6" too tall). It's also outside, and it's too cold to really sit out there much anymore. The PX still has just as crappy a selection of stuff as every other PX on the planet. We had gone to see about getting me some more maternity clothes because Target had next to nothing in my size, and I have no winter stuff (didn't really ever need it in GA, but I do need it here). The maternity section was two racks of clothes which all sucked and were way too big and way too short for me, and half a rack of nursing bras which were actually really nice and at excellent prices, but they were all huge, so that was no good for us either. We also tried to find some white turtlenecks for Erin to wear under her uniform shirts since it's getting colder, but they had none of those. In other words, AAFES is still the same old bust as it always has been.

I do think it's funny how everyone is flipping out about the possibility of civilians coming to post since they now have made it easy access during certain access so that civilians can use the food places and movie theater. As we sat in the middle of the food court, eating our lunch of pizza bagels and fruit, I asked Thak if he saw one person who seemed like a non-ID-card-holder. He didn't. I didn't either. Most of the guys we saw were obviously Active Duty (you can tell by the hair and the mannerisms). Every one who wasn't Active Duty was a vet (Again, that's usually pretty obvious). Every female there was either in uniform, or obviously with one of the aforementioned guys. All the kids were obviously with some of the previously mentioned adults. There were NO civilian families in the PX today, and it's a Saturday. If there is ever any day that it would be hopping with them, it would be today. It really seemed pretty quiet, which I'll say, was nice. It only took us a minute to find a parking space. We didn't have to wait in line to get our lunch. We easily found a table. There were no crowds to fight, and everyone was really relaxed and friendly. When we were looking for the bagel shop, another soldier who was walking by asked us what we were looking for, and then told us where it was. As we were leaving, we ran into one of Thak's friends from work and stopped to talk with him and his wife for a minute. All in all, the new PX is very chill, definitely not the nightmare of overcrowding that so many of the people have been talking about it as being.

In all, it was nice. We'll go again to eat, I'm sure. At the end of the day, though, it's still just a PX like any other. I'll be very glad when the frenzy dies down. It really is uncalled for... Those bagels really were good, though. I'll probably go on post to the bagel shop even after Thak gets out of the Army... just because there isn't a comparable one off post, and I can meet my military friends there easily. Plus, they have good coffee and they're not Starbucks, which I boycott. That is some good that came out of it. The new PX has great food.