As a military contractor in Iraq, I once spent almost 2 months sitting at the pool or catching random helicopter rides around to different bases because I was so bored.

What happened was that the company I went to work for was huge and was hiring people as fast as they could to help support the Army's surge that was happening at the time. I made it to Iraq just fine but somehow got lost in the HR system upon arrival in-country.

I'd show up to HR every evening to sign my timesheet and see if they'd figured out where I was going to be working, but no luck.

I spent most of the first month hanging out at the awesome pool on base, it was reportedly where the Iraqi's did a lot of their Olympic training. After that month, I was so bored I started taking random day-trips to different bases to visit folks I knew.

The Army ran what they called Catfish Air which was pretty much a bus service between bases, but with helicopters. You'd call and say you wanted to go somewhere, and they'd give you a show-time for the flight. I visited my uncle in Baghdad a few times, saw a couple buddies from high school, and collected a ton of t-shirts from all the different PX's at the different bases.