TONY spelled backwards is "Why Not?"

Debunking World Net Daily

2009-05-13T17:31:00.000-07:00

During a recent visit with my family, my younger brother Daniel who is a Marine stationed at Camp Lejeune, told me about this conversation he had. This conversation was about an article on the ultra-conservative website World Net Daily.

This particular article was written by ultra-conservative, homophobic, born-again Christian Pat Boone. As many of us know, neither World Net Daily nor Mr. Boone have done much to earn credibility points among intellectuals. Nevertheless, millions of conservatives follow them and give much credence to what they say. Many people actually consider World Net Daily to be a credible source of news.

My brother is not one of these people. He was giving me an example of how this man and this website distort facts and present them to an audience that they know will do no fact-checking of their own. And the stories are presented in ways that they know will conjure up Christian pride and the holier-than-thou attitude of the Evangelical American Christian.

Preying on Ignorance

This particular article by Mr. Boone was posted in Oct 2008. It concerns an incident in India in which a Dalit girl was burned alive for walking somewhere she was not supposed to. Mr. Boone wrote, "in April, a 6-year-old Dalit (untouchable) girl was thrown into a roaring fire about 40 km from the temple town of Mathura and burned alive. The little girl was accused of the dastardly crime of walking through the footpath meant for only the upper castes, on the very day those "upper caste" people were exulting over India's successful new satellite launch – another devastating indictment of mankind."

The implication upon first read is pretty clear. It sure sounds like the Indian legal system carried out this burning and the crime was nothing more than a violation of an ancient caste system.

Mr. Boone goes on to say, "India is considered a Hindu nation, in much the same way Arab states are Muslim and England and the U.S. are Christian." Again, here we have an underlying message. These atrocious penalties are carried out by non-Christian nations and are a part of their sub-standard, heathen, savage culture.

Mr. Boone continues to describe how the Dalits are unfairly treated and relegated to the lowest levels of human worth. All this is certainly true. But then he writes that not all Dalits are Hindu. "I met with a young Dalit in my office just recently. He's a fine, good looking, very intelligent young man named Jyothi. He loves his country, his people and his God. He's a Christian."

So the intelligent Dalits are Christians?

Or is he only concerned about this because Jyothi is a Christian?

What Really Happened

So that is the story from World Net Daily. But after my brother did a little fact checking of his own, he found the news article on an Indian news website, The Times of India. Here we find a totally different story.

Yes, there was indeed a conflict. The Dalit girl and her mother did apparently use a disputed road in order to "answer nature's call." As they passed over this road, a 16 year old boy attacked them. "Samir (the attacker) objected to this and before Manju (the mother) could protest, he allegedly picked up Kamlesh (the daughter) and threw her on a garbage dump under fire nearby. When Manju tried to save her daughter, Samir allegedly attacked her as well. However, after Saudan came out of the house and raised an alarm, Samir fled from the scene."

Clearly this is not how the incident is portrayed by Mr. Boone.

The article reports that police are seeking charges against Samir, the attacker. "The accused has been arr ested on charges of attempt to murder and under sections 3 and 4 of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Protection of Civil Rights) Act."

"We are thinking of taking more serious action against the accused under the Gangsters Act...We want a message to go so that nobody does such a thing in future," said SSP, Mathura, RK Chaturvedi, but denied that the road was meant only for the upper caste people.

So the truth is that a teenage boy attacked a girl of a lower class and is being accused of the crime. The fact that the little girl was burned is no result of a savage backwards legal system that defends ruthless attacks on lower caste members.

Who would disagree that India has a problem with poverty? What intellectual westerner can understand an ancient caste system? No one would argue with Mr. Boone if these were the points he wanted to make. But these are not his points. Read his article and we will see that he was using this incident to rally Christians to pray for a more civilized, orderly world by spreading their faith.

I'm sure many people agree with Mr. Boone and World Net Daily. But hopefully better cases can be made than this one. If they must resort to these distortions in order to make their points, why take them seriously? Why spread false information? Why take advantage of the laziness of your readers? Are these intentional lies or are they just the result of shoddy journalism? Or both? Are they taking advantage of lazy readers or are they just lazy themselves?

Thanks to my bro for letting me know about this. For proving that all it takes is a little time and effort and liars like these can be easily debunked.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=79016

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Lucknow/Youth_throws_minor_Dalit_girl_in_fire/articleshow/3000225.cms

Evidence?

2008-12-18T06:43:00.000-08:00

My brother and I have an ongoing debate. He is a devout Roman Catholic and I am an atheist. We constantly exchange our points in an online forum (link is below if anyone is interested in reading or participating).

We've been going back and forth for nearly a year now. It is all good spirited and mature,... except perhaps for a few of my attempts at sarcasm. Sometimes I just can't help myself!

Out of this debate, several key fundamental issues have arisen. Issues that could and very well should have much more time and attention dedicated to them. One of these issues is evidence.

I consider myself to be a scientific minded person. In order for me to believe something is true, I need to see the evidence for myself, or have received it from credible sources. This does not mean that I must examine every claim that is made. But real scientific research is published in scientific journals. It is made available to the public for peer review. It is criticized and scrutinized by other scientists. Research methods are transparent. And any scientist who wishes to be taken seriously must adhere to these standards.

Of course, religion,... especially the Abrahamic religions... base their belief systems on faith. Faith is the firm belief of something without firm evidence. And so my brother and I have gone round and round on this issue and we have joined the countless others who have done this over the centuries.

Far be it for me to think that either of us have broken any new philosophical ground here, but I want to tell this little story to show an example of the difference between the true scrutinized evidence demanded by science on one hand; and the flimsy, blindly accepted anecdotes that a religious person might consider evidence on the other.

TRIP TO MARYLAND

Over the summer, I spent a week in Maryland and I had a chance to visit by brother and his family. We met for dinner in D.C. and we avoided any "non-PC" topics. And then, when it was time for us to part company, he offered me three books. They were:

Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

Eucharistic Miracles by Joan Carroll Cruz

Cures by Flavio Capucci

As he handed the books to me, he said, "Here is some evidence for you."

I told him that I already owned a copy of Mere Christianity although I had not read it at the time. But I accepted the other two and agreed to at least flip through them when I got a chance. Honestly, it is fairly difficult for me to add new books into my schedule, but on the train ride back to my hotel, I couldn't resist opening one of these books up and seeing what it was all about.

Always trying to keep myself open-minded, I was glad to have some new material to research.

That same night, sitting in my hotel room with not much else to do, I looked through the Miracles book by Ms. Cruz. Just like I do with every other book I read, I do at least a quick Google search on the author. Ms. Cruz has written several books on Catholicism and has done great charity work in New Orleans. The book gives descriptions of 32 incidents that the Catholic church considers to be official miracles of the Eucharist... the act conducted during Catholic mass when members eat bread that represents the body of Christ and drink wine that represents the blood. Of course, Catholics are supposed to believe that these are not representations, but that this transformation actually happens. Each description in the book is anywhere from 3-20 pages long. I picked the first one (which also happened to be the longest one) and read it.

LANCIANO, ITALY

This "miracle" happened in the 8th century. Long story short... In the little town of Lanciano, Italy, while an un-named priest-monk was performing the Catholic tradition of communion, a piece of bread LITERALLY transformed into human flesh and the wine LITERALLY transformed into human blood.

Right off the bat, I had to resist the urge to write this book off as one that cannot be taken seriously. Surely, people can't honestly believe that this really happened. Well it turns out I am wrong.

The story continues to describe the sequence of events that have since taken place surrounding this event. The flesh was passed into the possession of the Church authorities, it was certified as a miracle by the Church during the middle-ages, and the event was recorded by monks. The original church was destroyed by earthquakes, the actual ownership of the flesh and blood is unclear for several hundred years. Somehow it turns up being displayed in the rebuilt church in Lanciano during the 18th century. According to the book, (and confirmed by wikipedia), this flesh and blood is still on display today in the Lanciano Church.

At this point, the story jumps to 1970, when Italian scientists examined the flesh and blood and concluded the following:

"The flesh was indentified as striated muscle tissue of the myocardium (heart wall), having no trace whatsoever of any materials or agents used for the preservation of flesh. Both the flesh and the sample of blood were found to be of human origin, emphatically excluding the possibility that it was from an animal species. The blood and the flesh were found to belong to the same blood type, AB.... " (Cruz, pg 6).

The book also states that these examiners ruled out any possibility that fraud was perpetuated centuries ago (Cruz, pg 6)

So, there it is. We are told that bread and wine LITERALLY turned into human flesh and blood and still exists today in an undeteriorated condition for all eyes to see.

Naturally, I was astonished. I grew up as a Roman Catholic, I went to Sunday School, I got my first communion, but I had never heard of anything like this. My first instinct was to chalk this story up in the same category as all the sightings of the Virgin Mary appearing in muffins and cheetos. I did not buy it. As a student of science, I immediately began the normal process of scrutinizing the evidence that has been presented. Because remember, I was given this book under the name of "evidence." So like I said, if I am going to accept the presented evidence, especially a claim of a miracle, I will need to scrutinize it. If this claim was to be given any credibility, surely there would be neutral analysis, unbiased research, peer-review, etc.

My first reaction was to check out the bibliography of the book and start checking out the references. Astonishingly, there were no references listed in the short bibliography for this instance. No listings for the scientists, even though their names were given in the story (Linoli & Bertelli). This alone is a violation of scientific writing.

So I moved to the next best thing, Google. I searched pretty much all the proper nouns in the story. I found very few references to this story that were not Catholic owned and operated websites. I was looking for any third party that may have looked at this research and validated it. Any entity that was not related to the Catholic Church. Anything like this would add some credibility to the story. I could find absolutely nothing listed regarding the detailed findings of the 1970 research.

The best I could do was the wikipedia page that discusses the Lanciano miracle. You can read the same basic story from the book at this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucharistic_Miracle

This wiki page gave me a few new leads though.

Apparently, the results of the 1970 research were published in an Italian journal, the Quaderni Sclavo di Diagnostica Clinica e di Laboratori. This seemed promising. But the search just ran me around in circles. This seems to be a legitimate journal. But I found no entries related to Eucharistic miracles, or Lanciano. There were a couple entries under the names of Bertelli and Linoli, but only on other unrelated medical research. There were no entries related to any work on this Lanciano case.

Secondly, and potentially the most promising lead was the statement that the results were "reaffirmed by a scientific commission appointed by the Higher Council of the World Health Organization in 1973." When I read this, I figured that I would certainly find something to back up this miraculous claim. If neutral, legitimate peer-review was performed on this evidence by the WHO, then I would at least be forced to acknowledge the possibility that the miracle may have happened. So I followed the trail and it led me not to the WHO, but to this website:

http://www.zenit.org/article-12933?l=english

Upon still further research, Zenit.org is a Catholic organization that professes belief in everything the Church claims. Their stated purpose is to spread Catholicism. This article also claimed that the WHO verified the 1970 findings, and provided no further references.

I searched for the "Higher Council of the World Health Organization", and found nothing.

So basically, within about two hours, Google and wiki had gotten me nowhere. But I was still determined to give this one a fair chance. I wanted to exhaust any leads on this. I wanted to come to a conclusion and decide if this thing had even a snowball's chance in hell of being real or if it was just another story of a miracle that got passed along over the centuries. If I was going to accept this claim as legitimate evidence, I would need something more, and I would have to step up my research.

It was getting late, and I had to get up early the next day. So I flipped off the light and the TV and crashed.

TENACITY PAYS OFF

I was finished with my trip to Maryland and back to my "temporary home" in Qatar. I continued searching this claim in my spare time -- something of which I either have a whole crapload of, or nearly none at all.

After a couple days, I decided to use some more advanced search methods. Since I am a student with a university, I have access to many academic databases. I spent about 3-4 hours searching for any scholarly articles about this research. I found nothing. Literally nothing! Every reference to the Lanciano miracle led back to the article on Zenit.org.

This webpage seems to be the original place where this World Health Organization claim began. Whenever I found another site that claimed that the WHO had validated this research, it always led back to this unreferenced webpage.

I decided to email my brother just to let him know what I was doing. He was kind enough to contact the author of this book, Ms. Cruz. She replied to him and he sent me her message:

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Subject: Re: Eucharistic Miracles

Dear James: I'm very pleased that your brother is willing to investigate Eucharistic miracles. To answer your question--I never, in all my books, ever used anything that was not approved by the church, whether on a local level or by 'higher authorities'. I've been very careful about this so as not to give false information. I contacted all the shrines mentioned in the book. They very generously sent articles, books, pamphlets, etc. etc. Perhaps your brother could contact various churches about his questions. I believe I gave the names of the churches and their location in each of the chapters. I'm sorry that I lost all my references in the Katrina flood otherwise I could help him with exact addresses. If possible, it would be very good if he could visit the churches which have the miracles exposed. Some are exposed on occasion. If I can help your brother I would be very pleased to do so. God bless you both. Joan

--- jkidd@publicsquare.net wrote:

Dear Ms. Cruz:

I'd like to see if you could help me with something regarding your book Eucharistic Miracles. I recently bought the book for my brother, who's an atheist, and he not only started reading it but decided to try to investigate the claims for himself. I encouraged him, of course, telling him to focus on the ones that have been officially approved by the Vatican. However, he said can't tell which ones have been approved and has been having trouble locating any official documents.

So I'd like to know from you: (1) Which miracles in the book are official ones bearing the stamp of approval from the Vatican? (2) Where could I direct my brother to verify the claims for himself?

Your help in this matter would be much appreciated.

In Christ,

James Kidd

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This correspondence pretty much supports my point about what is accepted as evidence. According to Ms. Cruz, every one of her claims is validated by the Church. And this is apparently good enough to convince countless Catholics who have no desire to question it. As nice and kind as I am sure Ms. Cruz is, it is obvious that she did not require independent third-party analysis to back up the claims. The authority of the Church is sufficient for her and also for my brother. Yet when this claim is put through just basic initial investigation, we come up with next to nothing. Nothing credible or neutral to back up the claims of this so called miracle.

So this pretty much left only one other possible resource. I had to contact the World Health Organization directly.

I went to the WHO website, found a link for contact and sent a quick inquiry about this story. I asked for any info on the results of this 1970 research. I figured it was a longshot. I figured they would blow me off as a religious fanatic. Well, it took about two weeks, but I eventually received the following reply:

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Dear Tony,

Thank you for your email request.

Kindly note that there is no Higher Council of the World Health Organization (WHO) and, therefore, the documents you are referring to have not been produced by WHO.

With kind regards,

Katerina Petruskova
WHO Library

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That pretty much did it for me. This story is a fraud. I don't know who committed the fraud, but somebody did and there are plenty of suspects over 1200 years.

The fraud is still being perpetuated today after 1200 years. All desires to examine this story in detail lead back to lies.

Even though I was personally convinced that this whole thing is a sham, I decided to try one more thing. I started searching the Internet for famous debunkers. You know, like Penn & Teller, James Randi, etc... I wanted to see if anyone else had tried to investigate this.

I found an Italian organization that specializes in debunking religious miracles. I lost the link to it and now I can't find it. But they had an article about this claim and they had pretty much gotten as far as I did and wrote a little bit about it. Even now, as I revisit all these links, I recall the wild Internet goose chases that just lead to religious forums with mindless drones propping up the miracle of Lanciano as "proof" of the existence of a living Jesus.

But alas! The final chapter is not written on this one! In April, I will be leaving Qatar and returning to Italy. I'm pretty sure that I'll be heading up a road trip to Lanciano to pay tribute to the oldest Eucharistic fraud in the world. It's only a few hours away from our place, and just the drive will be beautiful itself!

COMPARE

The point of this story is not to ridicule the faithful. I apologize if anyone takes offense to my sarcasm. But I do not apologize for being a rational person. If you are willing to believe in fairy tales such as this one, that is your right. If it brings you some comfort to believe that there is a higher power up in the clouds watching over you, that is your business. I have no right nor desire to change your mind.

My wish was to point out the process of rational, scientific scrutiny that claims must pass in order to be accepted as real evidence. You can claim your miracles, but don't confuse yourself into thinking that they have been scientifically verified.

I believe this is an important difference that people should be aware of. In this day in age when religious fanatics martyr themselves believing they have virgins waiting for them in heaven, Christian conservatives try to force creationism into our science classrooms and try to force this country to live by their values, and when millions of Americans honestly believe that a nuclear holocaust would be a positive thing because it would be a step towards armageddon and the return of Jesus; it is far more important than ever to understand that science and religion are not the same thing.

Happy winter solstice!

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If you are interested in participating in online debate, visit: www.publicsquare.net

Membership is free!

Full disclosure: My brother runs it.

Expelled!

2008-04-19T00:06:00.001-07:00

Expelled!
I'm always open to hearing the "other" side of the argument. And being that I just started a new biology class specifically centered on the topic of evolution, I took the opportunity of having my last evening in the states to visit a movie theater in ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />San Diego and watch the new movie "Expelled".

I was going in with an attitude of a researcher. I was just as interested in observing the people in the theater as I was in the film itself. I had done quite a bit of reading about the film. I read several reviews which were all pretty predictable. Richard Dawkins criticized it and Rush Limbaugh loved it. No real surprises.

See Richard Dawkins own views on the film and the fiasco during a prescreening of the film here:
http://richarddawkins.net/article,2394,Lying-for-Jesus,Richard-Dawkins

You should also know that I am an atheist. I have a scientific mind and I cringe at the suggestion that creation or intelligent design should be considered at the same level as a science. So I must acknowledge that my interpretation of the film will probably be biased, although I also try very hard to keep an open mind to reasonable arguments. So, I walked into the theater and tried to clear my preconceptions, sat down and waited for the film to start.

It was about 15 minutes before the starting time and I observed that the theater was not even half full. I kind of expected more people to be there and I thought I might see a little more fanfare since it was opening night. Right before the film started a lot more people cam pouring in, including one man who came and sat in the row behind me and one seat to my right. He was obese and he propped his feet up on the chair next to mine and let out a loud sigh/yawn. Then he asked the people next to him if they knew how long the movie was gonna be. I didn't hear a reply.

All through the previews this guy kept making comments sort of under his breath but just loud enough for a few of us to hear him. My first thoughts were that maybe this guy is an atheist or some kind of smart-ass here just to annoy all the Christians in the audience. His sarcastic comments already started to annoy me even before the movie started.

One side observation of mine – all the previews were very family oriented. Geared for children, Disney films, teen type advertising. Maybe that's to be expected, but I found it interesting.

Finally the movie started and the very first imagery is of construction of the Berlin Wall. Ben Stein's commentary highlights the idea of American Freedom. Freedom of speech, and freedom to question the norm. He attempts to draw a comparison between the Berlin Wall and the suppression of scientists who tried to teach or bring up the idea of Intelligent Design.

The film interviews about 6 or 7 well-credentialed scientists who claim to have been fired or denied tenure by their universities. Most of these scientists seemed to be rational and did seem to be making a fairly decent case that as soon as they brought up the idea of ID, they were immediately shunned. Some of the pre-research I had done indicated that this may not have been the case for all of them. But still a point worth noting.

Ben Stein attempted to portray himself as being unbiased and searching for answers. He tried to act like he was just trying to find the truth about why the scientific community was holding down ID.

By this time, the fat guy behind me had continued to make little comments and snickers that were perfectly timed for the silences so that everyone around him could hear him. They became "Yeah rights", and "whatever's". But they had become evidently supportive of Stein and the film. It became obvious that he bought into the film completely and that he thought evolutionary theory was wrong.

I hate to admit it, but I was glad. I was glad he wasn't an atheist and I was glad that someone so annoying and rude was not someone who shared my worldviews. His comments showed himself as a Christian.

He started to chant things like "It's GOD!" and "G-O-D!". Finally I became annoyed enough to stand up turn towards him and say, "I'd appreciate it if you'd keep your mouth shut". He shot me a sarcastic "Sorry". Then he leaned over the chair and said something like I should just go file a complaint. I ignored him and tried to focus on the film.

Stein interviews some of the scientists and authors that I admire most. Dawkins, Dennett. Schermer, Myers. These are all brilliant men. They are at the forefront of biology and the studies of religion in society. I have read books and/or material by all of them. This film made very obvious attempts to make them look silly and twist their arguments into oversimplified ideas.
They used dreary and empirical music when the "enemy" was talking. And they used inspiring, uplifting music when Stein or the "victimized scientists" spoke.

They would quickly cut to back and forth to old black and white footage that was attempting to correlate mainstream scientists with Nazis, militaristic thinking, violence, and oppression. Meanwhile any speaker who advocated ID was portrayed as being a victim of oppression.

The middle of the film consisted of a very lame attempt to show that ID is not religiously based. However they did not present any evidence or research that supported ID. I am not surprised because ID has no theories. The only argument goes something like this, "Oh wow, things are soooooo complex!!!!" Oooooooh!!! Look how complex that is! It must be God!"

The film spends no time discussing the true ideas of evolution and natural selection. They only condensed it into an oversimplified idea and tried to make it sound ridiculous.

About this time, the fat guy got up started walking down the aisle towards the exit and yelling "GOD!" "G-O-D!", and "God is good!", "Don't be afraid of GOD!". I don't know if he left or if he sat somewhere else, but I was just glad he left.

Back to the movie… the main thing that seemed to be an attempt to prove design was a really cool computer animation series that looked kind of like DNA and cellular material moving around and doing cool stuff with cool music playing in the background. Proof right? Hah! It was supposed to show how complicated genetics and molecular science are. But it was what it was – pretty neat graphics!

The film trounces Charles Darwin. They basically accuse him of all evils of the world. They misrepresent his theories, ignore modern interpretation of his ideas, and blame him for Nazism, the holocaust, abortion, euthanasia, and a lot more that I'm sure I am forgetting.

One thing I have always noticed since I've been overseas is how ID seems to only be pushed in the US and the UK. This film pretty much reinforced this. There was only one ID promoter in the film who was not either American or British, he was Polish and he only got a couple lines in. When Stein wanted a "Fresh perspective", he found a guy in Paris, France. But he was an American.

Finally, Stein decides to go after Richard Dawkins. There is a really big play-up for this interview. They show Dawkins having make-up put on and sitting waiting like Emperor Palpatine. While they show Stein riding in cab gazing thoughtfully out the window. Slow, epic music is playing in the background as if this is some sort of climactic battle between good and evil that is about to take place.

This is the interview that Dawkins has written about. Dawkins described the context of the conversation they were having. And the film shows Dawkins giving a description of a possible scenario of how life could have began on Earth. He states that life could have been seeded here by an alien species. This drew giggles and chuckles from the crowd. The film was obviously trying to frame the conversation as ridiculous.

But I already knew that Dawkins has written many times about the origins of life. He, just like almost all other scientists, does not claim to know how life originated. The chances that aliens planted us here are the same as God creating us. There is no evidence of either. This is the point Dawkins is making, but the film just tries to make him seem insane.

So, the film ended and the crowd applauded. I realized that the theater had filled up to almost full, maybe around 150-200 people. And this is in southern Cali – not exactly the Bible belt!

I left the theater disappointed. Because it was a reminder of how this false science is still accepted by many people as fact. So many people reject truth and CLING to their bibles. This refusal of people to open their minds is dangerous, scary, and an embarrassment to the country.

So here I am, my last night in the USA. Reflecting on a full-length film that pushes religious ideology, and heading for Europe tomorrow. In less than a week, I'll be in the middle-east. And I think there is more fundamentalism here and Ben Stein should stick to comedy.

Catching Up Part 2

2008-04-13T22:06:00.000-07:00

Monday, February 18, 2008
Witchcraft?

Saudi Arabia has one of the most conservative Islamic societies in the world. The country is ran by a monarchy and frequently finds itself the subject of international criticism for human rights violations. The latest case to cause controversy is the case of Fawza Falih, an illiterate Saudi woman who stands accused by the Saudi Government of witchcraft.

Falih was detained by the Saudi Arabian religious police in 2005. She was allegedly beaten and forced to sign a confession. The confession, which was not even read to her, stated that she "bewitched" a man and caused him impotence. After she was found guilty at her trial, Falih claimed that since she could not read or write, her confession could not be held against her. Her case was appealed and the death sentence was overturned. But shortly afterwards, the death sentence was reimposed for the sake of "public interest". At this moment, Falih is awaiting her fate, a public beheading, in a Saudi prison.

This story is drawing attention from all over the world, appearing in online newspapers such as BBC, Dailymail, & The Register. Oddly it is receiving only limited attention from the American media. The human rights protection group, Human Rights Watch has filed a petition to the Saudi monarch, King Abdullah. They are imploring him to stay this execution on the grounds of an improper trial and unsubstantiated claims. Witchcraft is against Muslim law but it remains undefined in the Saudi law code. This basically means that if a judge finds one guilty of witchcraft, there is no inquiry or investigation and no proof of the act is required.
Even in a world where women have substantially less rights than men, Falih's rights were still apparently not honored. Reports state that she was not allowed to have her representatives present when her case was being discussed. Her case should have been held by a panel of three judges, but it was not.

In my opinion, this is a tragedy that could only be carried out by the most evil of men. It is not difficult to imagine that the accusers involved in this case have some sort of personal vendetta against Falih or her family. Or perhaps an accuser is trying desperately to keep a secret and is lucky enough to have connections in the Saudi joke of a judicial system. I find it very difficult to imagine any scenario in which a sane person would find Falih guilty of a crime that warranted her death.I find it even more beguiling that this story is not getting more coverage in the American media. And worse still is that as the supposed defenders of human rights all over the world, the United States government has not made any public statements to the Saudi government urging the Saudi King to prevent this deplorable act. Sorry. Am I buggin you? Don't mean to bug ya.
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Sunday, February 17, 2008
What Equilibrium Means To Me

EQUILIBRIUMAccording to Merriam-Webster:Etymology: Latin aequilibrium, from aequilibris being in equilibrium, from aequi- + libra weight, balanceDate: 16081 a: a state of intellectual or emotional balance : poise b: a state of adjustment between opposing or divergent influences or elements2: a state of balance between opposing forces or actions that is either static (as in a body acted on by forces whose resultant is zero) or dynamic (as in a reversible chemical reaction when the rates of reaction in both directions are equal)3: balance

---------This word describes many things that I like and/or feel like I want to strive for.
1. Balance -- in the physical sense. Not falling down is good. Especially when snowboarding.
2. My zodiac sign is Libra, the scales. Not that I really believe in that stuff, but it is interesting that I have come to identify myself with the scales in many ways.
3. Fair mindedness. Something that I always try to have.
4. Justice/Injustice. I like to see bad deeds punished and good deeds rewarded.
5. Nature. Seeing and observing nature. Pay attention. Nature is trying to find it's own balance.
6. Politics. Politics are the opposite of balance. Biased. Don't like it.
7. Religion. "My religion is right and yours is wrong". Don't like it.
8. Debate, which I have been doing a lot of lately. Be open minded. Don't see things in black and white. Most people cannot be easily categorized or sterotyped. Issues are more complex than that. Try to see clearly through the fog.
9. Science. Balance is what our universe is striving for.
10. Career. Not too much work, not too much play.
11. Personal. My wife is back and all is right in my world.
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Sunday, February 03, 2008
Romania

This is something I've been meaning to write about for almost a month now... the infamous trip to Bucharest, Romania to celebrate New Year's Eve.

I didn't really know who's idea it was to go to Bucharest, but it sounded cool. It's sort of one of those places that I never really thought I would visit. I always heard great things about eastern European cities. Supposedly everything is cheaper, the beer is good, people are nice, and the girls, you always hear about the hot girls that grow on trees in eastern Europe. Hot girls that don't know they're hot, and they're poor.

That's what you always hear. Sorry to disappoint any readers, but the hot girls are not the focus of this blog!

The plan was thrown together rather quickly and close to the last minute. Thanks to
Jess for doing most of the legwork! A group of 8 of us bought our tickets and Jess reserved us a couple of apartments right across the hall from each other. Bucharest was covered in snow and ice. Not even kidding - it was freaking cold! The city didn't have the old nice architecture that many other European cities have. It was pretty much dominated by generic communist-era apartment buildings - which is exaclty what our apartment building was. Concrete, nothing fancy but the rooms were nice inside.

Lake Snagov
One of the main things we wanted to see on this trip was Lake Snagov. Any Dracula buff or anyone who's read the book "The Historian" will know about this legendary monastery that sits on a little island on this little lake. And it was the scene of our first Romanian adventure.
Our second day started with us rounding everyone up for our little field trip. We had quickly discovered that it wasn't very easy to get good information from the locals.

For some reason, we could ask three people the same question and get three different answers. The public transportation system seemed okay, but it seemed almost impossible to get information about it. We had some guidebooks but they had proven to be inaccurate too. Jess and I did a little research on how to get to Snagov and decided to try the buses.

A taxi to one piata, (which is Romanian for piazza, plaza, square, etc.) where the bus was supposed to leave from, but ummm, yeah no buses there. A guy at a hotel told us to go to another piata. So we jump into taxis again. Look for the 443 bus. It apparently did not exist today. Lucky for us there was someone in the information booth! She spoke no English so I broke out my eastern European phrasebook and asked in probably horrible Romanian how to get to Snagov and she said the 443 bus... which we still hadn't seen yet. Not on the schedule but it's coming! Do we need to buy tickets? I still don't know the answer to that one. Whatever. We waited outside in the cold for about an hour before another taxi driver offered to take us to Snagov directly. Negotiate a price up front because I'm no sucker and we gotta deal.

After about 30 minutes into the taxi ride, we had arrived in the little town of Snagov. This was a small rural village that's kind of hard to describe. Tiny homes, dirt roads, horse-pulled carts, and old beat up cars, one even standing on it's side. No restaurants, no stores, nothing that said, "Hey welcome to Snagov, stay awhile!" Hopefully you're getting the image of a not very inviting place. The dreary weather and the astonished stares from the locals added to the atmosphere.
It was about this time that I realized that we never really clarified that we wanted to go to the monastery on the lake where Vlad Tepes was supposedly buried. OHHHHH, I guess we should have! I mean why would 8 Americans, standing like idiots at a local bus station in the freezing cold want to go to a famous local attraction?

Did we look like locals? Did we speak the language? Maybe he thought we lived in Snagov? I can see why he might have been confused.

Come on dude, seriously? Yeah, we want to go to the monastary. Oh, well normally we could take a boat across the lake and over to the island, but since it's so freaking cold the lake is frozen and the boat isn't running. We were given the option of walking across the frozen lake from here but it was like 6 kilometers away. To drive there? That's like another 20 minutes away. Call me crazy but the 20 minute ride in a heated taxi sounded way better than a 6 kilometer walk across a frozen lake.

The taxi driver who actually turned out to be pretty cool had just morphed into our personal tour guide. Him and the other driver were both nice enough to take us to the landing opposite the island. From here it was only about hundred yards across the frozen Lake Snagov. It was just a little dirt road that led to an old broken down pier. There were a couple little canoes that were lying in weeds and half covered in snow and ice. I started to wonder if anyone ever really comes to visit this place. I would have thought that we weren't in the right place and a horrible miscommunication had happened if it weren't for the street signs that said we were standing on the corner of Snagov Road and Vlad Tepes Avenue. The guidebooks made it sound like thiswas one of Romania's most popular tourist attractions but by the looks of it so far, it was just an old backwater church that only the locals visit.

There were dozens of locals standing on the lake ice fishing. They all gave us blank stares as we walked past. I had never walked across a frozen lake before so I thought it was pretty cool. When we got to the island, a tall bearded guy who was gathering wood saw us coming and spoke in Romanian to our taxi driver/tour guide. He was apparently the tenant monk of the monastery. He let us in and stood at the door at his little souvenir stand. I kind of wondered if he was Dracula. Hmmmm....

The inside of the monastery was beautiful albeit tiny. The walls were covered with murals, frescoes I think, of all kinds of biblical scenes. There was a little informational board that had a short story of Vlad Tepes - Vlad the Impaler - and said that he was buried here. I snuck an unauthorized photo of his grave and you can see it in my photo album.
Like so many trips turn out, this little day trip was more of an adventure than we anticipated, but soooo worth it.

New Year's Eve
We'd found the local mall, Joe and Dave had spent a little time in the casinos, we'd all been harassing Charlie with the high-pitched annoying voices from the "Charlie the Unicorn" video, and we were awaiting Crystal's arrival with her two cousins who were visiting from the states.
Crystal's cousin Mikey had an accident at the airport and busted up his face pretty bad. Lucky for him that the Romanian dentist did a great job fixing him up. And Mikey was a trooper thru the whole thing and kept his sense of humor about the whole thing.

At one point when we were leaving the apartment, we all got an unmistakable whiff of the scent of shit. On the floor underneath ours sitting in the corner of the concrete floor was a steaming pile of it. Still fresh! Pretty disgusting I must say. We debated if it was dog shit or human shit. And discussed how long before it got cleaned up. Well it might still be there for all I know. It stayed there for the whole length of our stay.

But the whole point of the trip was partying in Bucharest on New Year's Eve.

We started the last night of 2007 in a Dracula theme restaurant. Again, it was a bit of an adventure to get there since nobody really even knew if it existed or not. But we found it and it was very cool. The food was excellent and the atmosphere was neat. The only bad thing was the crazy old man that was playing the part of Dracula. He was either drunk or senile or both and he wouldn't leave Jess and Crystal alone.Once we got rid of him he didn't come back. We finished up and left.

I guess we didn't really have a good plan on where to go next but the one consistent answer we could get was that the place to be for New Year's festivities was the University Square. So we bundled up and headed out to brave the cold. We ended up watching a pretty decent fireworks display and a cool light show. Then we hit an Irish Pub for a bit. After that a few of us were ready to find a club, although I can't really say that I was. It wasn't long before somebody pissed me off and I decided to bolt. I let everybody down and didn't stay out late like we planned. 2:30am was pretty much good enough for me. Oh well, I guess my age is catching up with me! The next day was spent sleeping, resting, and telling each other stories of what happened to us all.

Brasov
Our flight back to Italy wasn't until the 3rd. So Jess, Nestor, and I decided to jump on a train and take a day trip up to a town called Brasov in Transylvania. It was a beautiful medieval town that had all the things that Bucharest lacked. Nice Renaissance style buildings that hadn't been demolished to build apartment buildings, a pedestrian historical center, and surrounded by mountains, it was a great place to walk around and have a nice lunch. Too bad it was still soooo freaking cold!

Now the train ride was a bit of an adventure itself. We ran into the same problems with not being able to get the information we needed. We couldn't even figure out if we had return tickets to get us back to Bucharest. Not even the workers at the train stations would give us straight answers.

We didn't figure it out until we got back on the train back to Bucharest and realized that we were allowed on the train, but we just didn't have seats! So we were lucky enough to spend a three-hour train ride standing up, shoulder-to-shoulder with a train car full of people. And at every stop, more people just kept getting on. The second worst train ride of my life. (Rimini-to-Sacile, Italy, Summer 2005 was the worst).

The Trip Home
Unfortunately for Romania, I think my lasting memory of that country will be the last day we all spent there. It was without question my worst travel experience ever.

First of all a blizzard came through the night before and the roads were getting bad even as early as 5am. We even had trouble getting taxis willing to take us to the airport. The check-in agent told us that all the flights were still on schedule, so we checked in and proceeded into the holding cell that was to be our home for the next 16 hours.

Yep, that's what I said, 16 hours we waited in this small, dirty, stinky, room. Despite the glimmer of hope that check-in girl gave us, all the flights were delayed. The weather was awful and the snow was coming down harder than ever. This room was probably built for about 150 people, but there might have been close to 500 of us in there. All the seats were taken so we spent the time sitting or laying on the floor. We weren't allowed to leave since we had passed through customs. There was nothing to eat, a small duty-free store that was selling bottled water, perfume, and cigarettes.

I think it's mandatory in Romania that everyone smokes. So even though we weren't allowed to pass back out through customs, we were allowed to go out onto the airport's flightline to smoke. Does that make any sense? So people were braving the extreme cold and snow to smoke and then coming back in and tracking dirt and mud onto the floor we were all trying to sleep on.
Then a few guys decided that they didn't want to go outside to smoke anymore so they took over the bathroom and hung out in there. Thanks guys, that was a great idea. Very considerate to the rest of us. It wasn't long before the whole room filled up with smoke.

Okay, so the smoke I can deal with. But now everybody's getting hungry. It's about noon and we've had nothing to eat. So our airline brings plastic-wrapped sandwiches in for everyone. The other airlines bought McDonald's for all their stranded passengers. Lucky.

This whole time we have no idea what's going on since everything is in Romanian. Finally we get word that our plane will take off at 5pm. Hey, only 12 hours late! We actually got on the plane and took off! Finally! Free at last!!!! Nope.

About 30 minutes into the flight a crazy noise started coming from the back of the plane. It sounded like a vacuum. Like a wind blowing through a door that wasn't closed all the way. Not good. The flight attendants kinda freaked out. This did not breed confidence in the passengers. The pilot came back to look. And a few minutes later, the plane had turned around and we were landing back in Bucharest.

Whatever you do, please don't make us go back into that prison cell of a holding area!
We waited on the plane for about 2 hours while mechanics "fixed and tested" the problem. Everything seemed good I guess because we took off again and we thought we would finally be on our way home. Well, no.

Again, about 30 minutes later and about 20,000 feet up in the air the noise came back. This time we didn't even care. Just keep flying as long as the back of the plane doesn't break apart. We just want to go home!

Nope sorry, we gotta turn around again. And this time we all had to get off the plane and go back into our prison. It was worse than before. More people in there. Dirtier than before. And this time we had no hope. We were gonna be in Romania for a looooooong time.

And this time the people were more pissed off than before. It was a clusterfuck in the truest sense of the term. People were chanting. Yelling. Babies crying. Hundreds of people stranded in the hell of a room (if I believed in hell this would be how I imagine it) with no food. The water was long gone. A disgusting bathroom. Nowhere to sit but the nasty floor. People trying to start fights with the poor employees that were trying to get people on planes. All the while we don't even know what's going on since no one will speak English to us or try to let us know what's up.
The only thing I cared about was getting out of this airport. And finally at about 2am on the following day our flight took off and didn't turn around. No noise this time. We landed at the right place and we finally made it home.

Sorry there was so much about air travel and so little about hot girls. If you ever go to Bucharest, go in the summer.

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Monday, December 24, 2007

The Great Gas Fiasco
One of the things I've been spending my leisure time doing is reading. One of the topics that I have taken particular interest in is the role of oil in our society and the world. If you ask any of my friends, any long conversation with me will probably lead to me saying something about one of 3 things; evolution of human society, the evils of religion, and the abuse of the earth's resources.

Pretty pragmatic I know. I should throw in a good Harry Potter book or something.

A couple weeks ago I had a couple good friends come to visit me from the states, Lia (A-Dub) and Wez. I worked with Wez at Osan AB in Korea and Lia is his lovely wife. I remember having conversations in Korea with Lia, Susan, Anne, and Jamin about the war, oil, and such. Back then I had different views on things. Back then I remember thinking that the U.S. action in the middle east was pretty much justified and I was convinced that it was just a matter of time before we found those weapons of mass destruction. Four years later, we can all see things a little more clearly, myself included.

But one thing I remember Lia saying was that this whole thing was based on oil. I wasn't blind and I admitted that sure oil could be a pretty big factor, but not the only reason we were over there. She gave me a book called "The Prize". I still have the book but I haven't picked it up yet.

Well, fast forward to now. As I started reading more and more about oil and the importance of it in American society, it hit me like a smack in the face. I have to thank Matt (Matteo Bello) who is currently serving in Iraq for giving me the book "The Party's Over" by Richard Heinberg. Truly a fascinating study into the subject.

So by the time Lia and Wez arrived, I was all ready to have deep, philosophical conversations about oil, religion, and all that fun stuff! And we did just that, and I even learned a little about Islam from them.

So they got here and we had lots of traveling to do! One thing we planned was to spend a few days in Salzburg, Austria and Munich, Germany. We even planned to go snowboarding for a day. But then on Dec 13 after we picked up the rental snowboards from the base outdoor rec center, the girl working there told Wez that we'd better get gas as soon as we could because of the strike.

Strike? What strike? Usually if there are any things like that going on we get messages at work or a bulletin on AFN. I hadn't seen or heard anything about a strike.But in fact there was a strike. The Italian truck drivers decided that they needed to escalate their struggle for increased wages. Because of this interruption in the supply chain, many gas stations were running out of gas. And not only gas; some stores and markets were running out of groceries, pharmacies were running out of medicine. And this was all over Italy. After only one day of the strike!

Makes you realize how much we rely on the trucking system.

Now here, I am going to go off on a tangent and explain to those of you who are not Americans serving here in Italy how the gas works over here. You might think this is a boring topic but I urge you to read it. It might make you think twice next time you guys in the states start to bitch about gas prices.

We can't buy gas on the base. We buy gas coupons from the exchange and we can redeem them for gas at certain local gas stations. Right now to purchase 100 liters of unleaded gas, it costs $99. So we'll call it $1 per liter. This price is about 50% higher than when I first got here in 2004, but whatever.

Now if you want to buy gas without the coupons you are free to do so. You just pay the same amount per liter like everyone else in Italy. The last price I saw today was 1.36 Euro per liter.

Ok so its time for a little math. If you haven't noticed, the US dollar isn't doing so great latley. Right now 1.36 Euro = 1.95 USD.Luckily the exchange rate between liters and gallons remains constant. There are .26 gallons in a liter. We can round that to 4 liters in a gallon.

So 4 liters x 1.95 dollars = $7.8.$7.80 per gallon is what Italians pay for gas. Let that sink in for a minute...By using our gas coupons which are about $1 per liter or $4 per gallon, we are effictively paying half of what the Italians pay. What will happen in the U.S. when gas prices hit $5 per gallon? I can already hear people bitching. I can already see the stories on the news. While most Americans are oblivious to the fact that we pay about half of what the rest of the world pays for gas.

Okay, back to the story. We drove to all the gas stations in the area - well only the ones that accept our coupons of course! Only a couple stations even had gas. Most of the others were shut down and had signs on their pumps saying they were out of gas. When we found the stations that did have gas, there were lines of dozens of cars waiting to fill up.

I had less than a quarter of a tank and we surely were not gonna start a road trip 5 hours into the Austrian Alps without certainty that there would be gas available on the way. So we decided to abort the Austria trip and focus on getting gas. This way we could do a little traveling while sticking closer to home.

After driving around for 30-45 minutes, all the time burning up the last of my gas, we found a place at the edge of Sacile. It was an Exxon station (Esso in Italian), part of the evil oil empire! But we decided the best thing would be to try to get gas in the car and then see where we could travel to without driving.

So I pulled my car into the line. There were about 20 cars ahead of us. Within 5 minutes there were at least 10 other cars behind us. My gas light had just come on. None of us knew if there would be any gas left by the time we got to the pump. This was gonna be interesting!

I decided to turn my engine off and push it. I figured if all these people were smart, they would do the same thing. Who knew how long this was gonna go on? As the line kept inching forward, Wez and I pushed my trusty Audi along. *********.. *********One of the gas staion attendants came up the line talking to all the drivers. When he got to me he told me not to worry, they had plenty of gas left. He asked if I was really out of gas, and I said no but almost. Other people were trying to cut other cars off. The old lady in the little Fiat in front of me got cut off by another old lady in a little Fiat. They yelled at each other in Italian. I couldn't understand most of it, but I could tell the cutter thought it was more important for her to get gas and now she was in front, so what are you gonna do about it?

A rich looking older Italian guy pulled to the very front of the line in a brand new Dodge SUV. He started talking to the attendants pleading with them to let him cut. He offered money to the attendants to let him bypass the entire line. It didn't work.There were two people that brought gas cans to the front of the line and were begging for just a couple liters of gas to take with them. The attendants would not allow it. They pointed at us and from the best I can gather, they were using us as a reason not to let anyone cut. "Look at these guys! They're pushing their car!" It was kind of funny I guess, but I had to respect their dedication. I think they knew that if they let one person cut, everyone would try to cut and then they might have chaos on thier hands.So we got our tank filled up. Yes I paid with my coupons. And we ended up driving 2 hours into Slovenia. It was a good trip. And when we came back I saw in the news that the Italian truck drivers had called a pause in the strike while they considered a new offer. A few days later, the strike was officially ended. And now all's well.

A question to all my American friends; what if this happened in the U.S.? I know this wasn't a real gas shortage. But it was a real world reminder of how much we depend on oil. We take it for granted. Even those of us who read the books, watch the documentaries, and try to do the little things to conserve energy. We all still take it for granted.

We got some laughs out of the whole thing. But it won't be funny when gas costs $10 a gallon, or $20, or $30! What will America be like when people have to treat their drving decisions like a major budgetary move? Sure you can drive to the mall if you want to, but can you afford it? It'll be a different world so enjoy it now while $4 per gallon is cheap!

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Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Read A Book!
So, after a nice little break from college classes, it's back to the books for me.

I enjoyed the time I had without any mandatory reading. I substituted all that with some recreational reading on topics that I find even more interesting than my college coursework. I ended up reading some things that have really changed my perspectives on life, society, and the world in general. I'd like to list a few of the most eye-opening books that I've read. I don't mean to push any of them on anyone, but if you ever find yourself asking, "why are things the way they are?" maybe one of these books will be for you:

1. The Third Chimpanzee - by Jared Diamond
2. Ishmael - by Daniel Quinn
3. The God Delusion - by Richard Dawkins
4. Guns, Germs, and Steel - by Jared Diamond
5. The Party's Over - by Richard Heinberg

P.S. Thanks to Pat, Anne, and Matt for passing some of these books on to me.

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Sunday, September 30, 2007

Crazy Times at Oktoberfest 2007
When I thought I was going back to Korea, I thought that 2007 would be my last Oktoberfest. Apparently it won't be. But in any case it's always a good time. We always seem to go up there on the weekends when the crowds are at their rowdiest. This year, me and a couple friends decided we'd check it out during the week. Maybe it would be easier to get a seat, maybe it would be a little more mellow...Not so much.

We left around 730 and got into Munich around 1300. We found a place to park on a side street on the opposite side of town from the O-fest grounds. We got on the train and trekked over to the fairgrounds.

Even though it was a Thursday, all the tents were really crowded. There was nowhere to sit inside so we sat outside a tent and ordered a beer and some roasted chicken. We went back over to the Hoffbrau tent and pushed our way to the middle trying to find some cool people to hang out with. Of course we met some crazy Aussies and hung out with them for a long time. One of those guys was standing in front of me being very animated as he talked, waving his arms around. I thought, "Hmmm, I hope that guy doesn't knock my beer mug into my tooth as I'm drinking. It would suck to chip another tooth. I better be careful". And of course, not 10 minutes after that thought, that's exactly what happened. His elbow knocked my mug into one of my front teeth and I instantly felt something grainy and powdery in my mouth. I was even able to save a little tiny chunk of my tooth and I went over to J and Baro and said, "Dude look at this! I chipped my tooth again!!!!" Oh well, it wasn't too bad and you can't really even tell now.

Nothing else too crazy happened, just good beer and good times.I don't remember how it all started but J, Baro, and I decided we wanted to fight each other. So we went outside the fair grounds and started wrestling with each other in the grass, dirt, and dog crap. Cops and other people kept coming up to us trying to break us up. We kept on saying, "It's okay, we're American!", and they'd roll their eyes and walk off.

When we were done with that, (no one had any serious injuries) we got on the train and tried to find our car. For some reason, everyone else followed me but what they didn't know was that I had was in no condition to lead!

We ended up falling asleep on some random train and when it got to the end of the line we woke up and got kicked off. There were only a couple other people around and luckily they were really nice and tried to help us get to where we were trying to go. They ended up telling us the best thing to do would be to take a taxi. We got out of the taxi and saw a little cafe that was still open.

What happened next, I can't explain.

I know I was a little drunk, but even that doesn't quite explain it. There was a little step right in front of the cafe door. I stepped up on the step and I reached to open the door to the cafe. I guess I pulled on it extremely hard and it came back and smashed my hand against the concrete side wall. Then my foot slipped off the step and I fell right on my ass! I know I looked like a complete idiot. When I got up I saw that the ring on my pinky finger was smashed and my finger was all swollen. I couldn't take the ring off and so the waiter took me to the back and pulled out a pair of pliers. I put my finger into the pliers and he smashed my ring back into a more circular shape so I could take it off.

We finally made it back to the car and fell asleep. Probably the most uncomfortable sleep ever. I woke up around 7am with bumps and bruises, sore muscles and dirt and mud all over. All of us had mud - and who knows what else - all over our clothes. I had mud caked on the side of my head, dirt in my ears, eyes, nose, and under my nails. Every time I blew my nose, it was black. I tried to wash my hands several times but my hands were dirty the whole day. I won't even try to describe how we smelled.At some point in the evening, I must have misplaced my swashbuckler hat - the one I bought at Oktoberfest last year. I couldn't find it and honestly when I look at it now, it was a little goofy looking on me. So I replaced it with a new hat. I know it looks like a cowboy hat but it's NOT! It's Bavarian!

Thank goodness for Baro's wife, Lynn. She took care of all our stuff while we wrestled. She made sure none of our stuff got lost - except my hat but that was my fault. It was a very long, tiring, and smelly ride home. But the drive across the Alps is always rewarding, especially when the peaks are covered in snow! I feel a nice winter coming on soon!

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Scotland!

The News

It was kind of a last minute decision for me to go to Scotland with our good friends Aaron & Jess.

I decided to go when I still thought I would be leaving in September for Korea. I thought that the Scotland trip would be my last long trip of my tour in Italy. A lot has changed for me in the last few weeks. Now that the dust is starting to settle and I can see the next few years of my life a little more clearly, I know that there is a good possibility that I will have many more Eurotrips in my future.

The funny thing is that I found out about this change when I was standing with Aaron and Jess at the gate at the Milan airport. My cell phone rangand I missed the call because I was in the middle of a transaction at the airport bar. I called the number back and it was my Chief. He told me that I was selected for the year-long assignment to the middle-east that I had volunteered for. And that I would need to come in to work in the next few days to do paperwork. At this point a lot was still uncertain, but I did know that I would not be leaving Italy anytime real soon. And that after my one-year tour was finished, I would have the option to stay in Italy a little longer.

This news changed my whole perspective on this trip and the next few years of my life. It also gave me another reason to celebrate in Scotland!

The Highlands
Aaron and Jess had tickets to the Rugby World Cup game on Sunday between Scotland and New Zealand. But not me, my plan was to climb the tallest mountain in the British Isles, the Ben Nevis.

We arrived at the Prestwick airport and trained it into downtown Glasgow. We got a real nice hotel right in the city center. We didn't realize that in the UK, things close down a little earlier than other parts of Europe. It was already past 11pm and most restaurants had already closed. Most bars and pubs close around midnight. Quite a change from Spain, Greece, and Amsterdam!

Oh yeah and the UK is about twice as expensive as anywhere else I've been in Europe.

The next morning our plan was to take this day-long tour of the Scottish Highlands. We rushed to the visitors center only to realize that we were an hour early because we hadn't set our watches back. After waiting for the center to open, we tried to sign up but they said it was too late to buy an advance ticket and we'd have to ask the driver if there was still room for us on the bus. We rushed outside and looked for the right bus/driver. I saw a guy standing outside a small bus talking on a cell phone wearing a kilt. I wonder if that's him... yeah, it was.

This guy was the coolest tour guide ever. He said there were three seats on the bus but he was waiting for three more people to show up who were running late. But if they didn't make it in 5 minutes, they would be out of luck and we could have the seats. Fair enough. As we waited we started talking to him and built up a little rapport. I really think he was hoping the other people didn't show up. The 5 minutes passed and we got on the bus.We spent the day seeing some incredible scenery in the Scottish Highlands. Loch Lomond, Ben Dolain, and Glen Coe. Our tour guide, Stewart added to the experience with lots of cool stories, and bagpipe music. The beauty of the highlands was breathtaking. The striking thing was how desolate it was. And I mean desolate in a good way. There were huge expanses of land with no farms, no houses, no villages or restaurants. The only manmade thing in sight was the road we were on. The skies were constantly changing from bright blue with puffy white clouds to gray and dreary and drizzling light rain. And then back to blue again within 10 minutes. It was like Stewart said - the mountains just seemed to pull the clouds down out of the sky.

We had a good dinner at a nice pub and then ended the evening a little early. A good thing because I had an early bus to catch in the morning.

Ben NevisSunday morning I got up ***an hour too early again - damn time change*** to catch the bus that would take me up to Fort William. Fort William is the town to start the climb up Ben Nevis - the tallest mountain in the UK. Only about 1300 meters high but treacherous because of the rapidly changing weather conditions - they say that it could be warm and sunny at the bottom but blizzard conditions up at the top. I did a lot of reading about this mountain before the trip and the thing I heard constantly was how dangerous the trail is - easy to lose in bad weather. And if you wander off the trail, you might end up in some pretty perilous spots - cliffs, gullys, and stuff like that. It was only supposed to be a 4-6 hour hike to the top but it was recommended to take lots of food with you in case you got lost and had to survive overnight. So I was a little nervous but after talking to a couple Scots who had climbed it before they said it really wasn't all that bad. My problem was that I was starting too late in the day. I wasn't going to have enough time to make it all the way to the top and back down again in time to catch the last bus to Edinburgh. So I decided to just go as far as I could and turn around at 1430 - (2:30pm for you civilian types). It was cloudy and cool when I started the climb. A long sleeve t-shirt was pretty much enough. The climb was moderaltey difficult but had a pretty good incline.

The temperature steadily dropped the higher I went. I saw some people coming down and they were bundled up pretty heavily. After about an hour and a half, I put on a couple more layers. After another 30 minutes the wind was blowing hard and it had started to rain. I could see the top of the mountain covered in clouds and I aimed to get at least to the cloud level before I turned around. As I approached it, the temperature must have dropped 10 or 20 degrees within just a few minutes. The wind was so strong it was knocking me off balance. The rain was coming down sideways and I needed all my layers just to stay warm and dry. This was as strong a wind as I have ever felt. The rocks were slippery and the cliffs were really close. This is when I could understand how dangerous this hike could be. You really don't want to do this hike without proper footwear and gear.

I looked at my watch and it was time to turn back. I had made it about 2/3 of the way to the top - a lot better than I thought I would do. I briefly considered pressing on and missing that bus. I'm sure I could find a place to stay in Fort William. But nah, I decided to turn back.

After a 4 hour bus ride down to Edinburgh I met up with Aaron and Jess who were nicely toasted from drinking at the rugby game. I tried in vain to catch up! It wasn't gonna happen. We hopped on a train that would take us to our B&B we were staying at in Crossford. Then we all fell asleep and woke up back in Glasgow! DOH!!! That turned out to be a 130 dollar mistake because that's how much a taxi cost to get us back to Crossford.

Edinburgh
Monday I woke up tired and little sore from the hike. But this was the day for us to see some sights in Edinburgh. We got into town and found a decent Mexican food place. You know I'm always down for some Mexican food! Edinburgh proved to be a great city with lots of stuff to do. We walked around, bought overpriced souvenirs, took pictures, and even went to the Scotch Whiskey Museum. Then we killed the rest of the night at a pub playing trivia, and laughing at our own "Your Mom" jokes. You just had to be there.

Tuesday was our day to fly home. But we had a few hours to spend before weleft so we went into the town called Dunfermline. For any of you who know your Scottish history or if your fans of Braveheart, you'll remember Robert the Bruce. Well he is buried in the abbey in Dunfermline. So we went and saw his tomb, and walked around this little town for a couple hours before we started our 12 hour trek of planes, trains, and automobiles back to Italy.

So we vowed to return to Scotland someday and walk the West Highland Way.The 5-7 day 95 mile path that goes from Glasgow to Fort William and goes along some of the most beautiful highland scenery in the highlands. We are aiming for April/May of 2009 when Aaron and I get back from the desert.

To conclude this long post, I must say that if it wasn't for the ridiculously expensive cost of living, and the dollar-pound exchange rate, Scotland would be a really cool place to live.

Translations:
Some Translations:
Ben = Mountain
Glen = Valley
Loch = Lake

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Sunday, September 16, 2007

The Painting
This story is long. And it might seem pointless. But if you have an extra few minutes and you take the time to read it, maybe it will give you a hint of why I love Italy and why I'll be sad to leave.

July 2006
Susan, myself, and a couple friends drove down to Tuscany for a long weekend. We camped at a small campground in Siena and saw the famous Palio horserace. We also visited the ancient and picturesque hill towns of Volterra and San Gimignano. As you walk around the town of Volterra, you see many things. Old Roman ruins, brown stone houses with flowers pouring out of the window sills, medieval churches, and great little cafes and pizzerias. We saw many little art galleries and studios.

But there was one in particular that caught my eye. The paintings that hung on the walls were so bright and colorful. They were mostly oil on canvas and they were landscapes of Tuscany. Bright yellow sunflowers, light blue skies, cypress trees. Lots of artists paint scenes of Tuscany but there was something different about these paintings. The paintings didn't end at the frame. This artist paints onto the wood frame and it gives the impression of the scene exploding off the canvas and onto the frame.

I had never seen paintings like this before. The artist was there in the gallery when we walked in. She spoke very little English. Back then Susan and I were a little better with our Italian. We were able to communicate well enough to have a nice 20-30 minute conversation. She introdcuced herself as Vanna Spagnolo. She was a true artist. You could tell by what she was talking about. It's hard to describe but you could tell that this woman truly put her feelings and emotions into her work. As she talked about her paintings, she talked about movement, hapiness, and energy.We asked her if she had ever considered traveling to Aviano to sell her paintings. The base has two bazaars every year when artists and vendors come from all over Europe and sell their stuff to us Americans. Vanna said she was not interested in that. From what I could understand, she felt her work was about Tuscany. She lived in Tuscany and she belongs there. She felt her work being made and sold in Tuscany was more important than trying to make more money. Like I said - a true artist!I wanted to buy one of her paintings really bad. There were several that I particularly liked. I loved the ones with the sunflowers, green rolling hills, and bright blue skies since that is what Tuscany seems to always look like.

Unfortunatley, I hadn't budgeted on a purchase like this and so I wasn'table to buy one. Knowing that the chances were pretty slim that I would ever return here, I hoped that someday I would be able to come back down to this town, find her gallery again and buy one of her paintings.

April 2007
My friends, Lee, Michelle, and Jenn came to visit from Dallas. I was planning our traveling and figured that a stop in Tuscany on the way down to the Amalfo Coast would work out perfect. I thought about making that stop in Volterra and trying to find the gallery again. But, in the end we decided that we would stop in Montepulciano instead since we had never been there before. So another chance passed...

July 2007
Susan had just left for Africa. A friend and I decided to kill a weekend with a quick trip to somewhere. I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to go back down to Tuscany and buy a painting.

I started the trip planning and looked through the tourist maps, business cards, and souvenirs that I had picked up on our previous trips to Tuscany. I needed to try to remember how to get to Vanna's gallery. I found a bookmark that I had picked up at Vanna's place and it had an address to a gallery in San Gimignano on it. Vanna had two galleries, one in Volterra and one in San Gimignano. So I booked a hotel room in San Gimignano and the next day we were off.

The first place we went after checking into the hotel was the gallery. This gallery had the same types of paintings with the brightly painted landscapes extending out onto the frames and I remembered why I loved them so much. When we went in, another woman greeted us in Italian. Her name was Lorella. She was also extremely nice. She said she wasn't an artist herself but she was an art fan and a collector. We talked to her for at least a half-hour about all kinds of things; the Iraq war, being in the military, and life in Italy. Even though I went there with the specific purpose of buying a painting, I realized that even the small ones were still a little out of my budget. I debated with myself about just saying screw it and buying one anyway. But I decided against it.

But I did acknowledge that this place was only 4-5 hours away from where I live. A 4-5 hour drive is no big deal. There was really no reason why I couldn't come back again. We said our goodbyes to Lorella and went on our way. And yet another chance passed...

August 2007
Another weekend was approaching and I had no real plans. I checked to see where Nikki's bus trip was going and lo and behold - Tuscany. This was gonna be it. I resolved myself to go down there again, which would quite probably be my last time to visit Tuscany, and buy a freakin painting!!!

Our first stop on the bus trip was Volterra. Since this was an overnight bus ride, we rolled into Volterra around 7am on Saturday morning - well before anything was open. The last time I was in Volterra it was bustling with tourists, but now it was quiet and empty. I was pretty tired because you don't really get much restful sleep on these overnight bus trips. I found Vanna's gallery but it was closed. There were no signs showing a schedule. I could see into the windows at the paintings I've been hunting for over a year. I found an open cafe and ordered an espresso. I walked around the town by myself, walked outside the city walls and into the outlying hills a little. Just trying to kill a little time, hoping that Vanna would show up and open her shop before it was time for us to jump on the bus and head to the next town.

Well that didn't happen. I gave up on my hopes of talking to Vanna again and figured I would just stop at the gallery in San Gimignano and buy the painting there. But as I walked back to the bus, the streets of Volterra had become more crowded as shops and stores started to open. I glanced back over my shoulder for no particular reason and I saw Vanna walking down the street! I'm sure she was going to open her shop. But I didn't have time to go buy a painting since that would be at least a 30-45 minute process. I thought about running over to say hello, but I am sure she wouldn't remember me since it had been over a year since we met her.

So I hopped on the bus and napped on our way to San Gimignano.When we arrived in SG, we were told that we only have a few hours. I remembered exactly where to go and I walked directly to the gallery. But when I got there it too was closed up! I started to walk away but then I saw Lorella approaching the door. I smiled at her and she looked like she almost remembered me but not quite. I took off my sunglasses and then the recognized me. I offered to leave while she gets everything opened up and settled but she invited me inside, pulled out a chair and asked if I wanted some coffee. She went to the bar next door and bought me another espresso. I don't really even drink Coffee but I was so tired. Lorella was so nice and welcoming. She sat down with me and we started talking about everything again. It was challenging because my Italian is not nearly as good as it should be, but we managed. We talked a lot about art, and again military life and stuff like that. I told her that Susan was now in Africa - and that one takes explaining even in English! She was really interested in finding out what life is like for us Americans living overseas.

I think we sat and chatted for at least 30 minutes. Finally I told her that this time I am buying a painting for real! She laughed and started showing them. She talked about every painting like she understood them completely. She placed them in different locations on the walls and under different lighting. I narrowed my choices down to three and she continued to compare them like she was going to make the purchase herself. I eventually decided on one.

I paid and said goodbye. I felt like I was saying goodbye to someone I had known for a long time. Even though I had only talked to her twice, she was so warm and friendly and caring. The Italian hospitality that we hear so much about but don't always experience for ourselves. She treated me like I was a lifelong friend, not just another customer.

She pulled out her cell phone and called Vanna who was in her gallery in Volterra. She told Vanna about me seeing her in the street earlier that morning and they laughed. I got on the phone and talked to Vanna for a few minutes. She thanked me for buying a painting and she said she thinks she remembers when Susan and I visited her shop over a year ago. I had spent over an hour in this shop. I was tired, hungry, and sweaty. I told Lorella I had to go eat lunch before the bus left. I think she thought the idea of speeding through these towns was a little crazy. I agree. Two hours is not nearly enough time to experience all the things a beautiful place like Volterra or San Gimignano has to offer.

I left and stopped at a little pizzeria. As I ate, I thought it was funny that I didn't have any buyer's remorse after spending money on a painting. I guess after a year of thinking about it, debating it, and almost buying it, it seemed like it was something I just needed to do.

The painting I bought was the one I noticed the last time I was there. A bright landcape of a villa on some green rolling hills with sunflowers in the foreground and bursting out onto the wood frame. And it now hangs in my kitchen and I see it every time I walk in the room.

Vanna's website: http://www.colpadelvento.it/main_eng.html

You might be wondering why I took the time to write this story. I wrote it because to me it shows the true beauty of Italy. The painting reflects the care and love that Italians have for their land. The work and inspiration of it's creator shows that this art means something and it's not just a mass-produced decoration that thousands of people buy in souvenir shops. The warmth and openness of Vanna and Lorella show the true spirit of friendship and how nice it can feel to be considered a friend by an Italian. The process I went through in my head about buying the painting is something that I have never really gone through about art. Maybe a car but not art! I'm not a huge art fan, but this experiencewas very memorable for me. Thanks for taking the time to read it!

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Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Rambling on as the days fly by

It seems like the last three years here in Italy have flown past me. Now as I start actually making arrangements for my trip out of here, the reality continues to set in. This place that I've called home for the last three years has become just that, home.

Since Susan left for Djibouti, it hasn't been the same. I've dealt with a few things just in the last few weeks that I really haven't had to worry about for awhile. For some reason I let immature drama find its way back into my life. For a couple days there I really felt like I was back in junior high. Luckily that seems to be in the past now and I have good friends and a wonderful wife to thank for that. Boredom is something I hadn't felt in awhile. My job, studies, and traveling always kept me pretty busy. But there have been some times when I was sitting around thinking, hmmm if Susan was still here we could go take a walk!

Something you've already heard more about than you wanted (if you're a regular reader of my blog), the infectious diseases I had injected into me were a reminder to be appreciative of the good health I've been able to maintain.

And to top it off, I suffered an injury to my knee back in July. Diagnosed as Iliotibular Band Friction Syndrome, it has put me out of my running routine for several weeks. It's feeling much better now and I think I might be able to start running again in the next couple weeks. But this challenge, I can honestly say, might have been one of the most detrimental to me. I have always been a bit of a runner. I can't remember a time since I've been old enough to exercise when I haven't ran or jogged on at least a semi-regular basis.

I have realized how much I use my running time to think and sort out the thoughts in my head. Since I haven't been running I am constantly jittery and a little bit irritable. I watch other people running and I get jealous! I will never take my ability to run for granted again. Be thankful for your health and work hard to keep it!

This injury has strengthened my resolve. When I am all healed I'm gonna be running like a madman.

So lately home hasn't really felt like the home that I will remember. But even though the last few weeks since Susan left haven't been my best, I am still sad to be leaving this place. The last few weeks will not define my stay in Italy. What will I remember? I'll remember long days at work, meeting Susan at the gym, glancing at the snow-covered mountains to the north, complaining about work to each other, carrying so many duffle bags/backpacks up our staircase, coming home to cook a small dinner, playing with our kitty, and deciding which European country we wanted to visit next weekend.

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Sunday, August 19, 2007

Nasty Stuff

I knew this smallpox vaccine was gonna be nasty. I had seen it on other people who got it and I kinda knew what was gonna happen. But I have to say this stuff really had me freaked out for a little while there.About 3 days after I got the vaccine, I noticed the tingling and itchiness of the blister starting to form.

I was keeping a waterproof bandage on it so I could keep going to the gym and not worry about sweat dripping over it. But the main problem I was having was sleeping. I was so worried that the blister would pop while I was asleep and that I would get smallpox juice all over my sheets. Nasty!

Even though there was almost no chance of that happening cause I was doing everything right. I kept a bandage on it, I slept with a shirt on, I was washing my hands dozens and dozens of time every day. But for some reason I couldn't stop worrying that I would accidently do something wrong and spread it. Every time I would get any little itch anywhere on my body I would think, "Oh crap! Smallpox!"I had never really been so freaked out about anything like this before. How is this smallpox fucking with my head too?

So I started thinking that I was pretty much just being a little bitch. I tried to not think about it.

I'll spare you all the gross details of what this blister looks like. And the tedious process of caring for it while it runs its course. I'll only say that it is really not much fun.

Then on Thursday afternoon, I started feeling pretty bad. I had just came home from picking up a buddy from the airport. The blister had started to really hurt. My whole shoulder felt like it was on fire every time I moved it. My armpit felt like it was swollen. I started to get a headache and my shoulder, neck, and back muscles felt sore too. And I was sooooo tired.I looked at my shoulder and it was all red and swollen. I started reading the material they gave me at the clinic to see if this was normal. And apparently it was. Totally normal symptoms. "Stop being a little bitch!" I told myself. So I laid down and went to sleep. I fell asleep around 7pm and didn't wake up until about 9 or 10 the next morning. The first restful sleep I'd had for several days. And way more sleep than I normally get! Luckily I didn't have to work on Friday.

I felt better after that sleep. Most of those symptoms were gone. And I felt pretty much back to normal. So that was probably the peak of the discomfort of my immune system fighting the smallpox. Hopefully it's downhill from here. I still have this nasty little blister that looks like a little volcano on my shoulder. I can't imagine having full blown smallpox, it's gotta be miserable.

Catching Up

2008-04-13T21:53:00.000-07:00

Here are some old posts that I've been placing on MySpace.
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Thursday, August 09, 2007
A Walking Dirty Bomb

I was looking through my friends list and decided that I wanted to count how many friends I have that are not affiliated with the military in any way, that is: either in the military, used-to-be-in, or married to someone who is in. Of the 48 friends that I have on MySpace (I like to think I have more than that in real life), 17 of them, or should I say '17 of you' are not affilitated with the military in any of those ways.

This next story is for those 17 of you. Since it is a good bet that the 31 of you who are in or around the military have had a similar experience.Those of us in the military are accustomed to getting shots. Starting in basic training, when we are told to get in line and roll up our sleeves, file into a small room and get stuck with 2 or 3 needles in each shoulder, we know that getting vaccinated is just part of the deal. But to an extent, we are only vaccinated based on the risk of the locations where we go. Since I am scheduled to PCS to Korea in September, I am required to be vaccinated for some of the most scary diseases we know about. These are the ones that our military percieves as carrying the most likely chance of being used against us. Those being anthrax, typhoid, and small-pox. Scary shit.I received all three of these vaccinations a couple days ago. And I must admit, I've been a little freaked out since.

Starting things off at the clinic on base where I got the shots: I got the anthrax and typhoid shots first. Both of them in the right shoulder. I was told that the typhoid shot would make my arm feel like someone punched the hell out of me. The anthrax shot (which is the first in a series of six, by the way) causes a pretty intense burning sensation about 20-30 seconds after the needle is taken out. Don't really know why there is a delay like that, but it is supposedly normal.Then the guy takes me into another room for the small-pox. The small-pox room. That's what they call it. It's the only vaccination that is given in this room. How is that supposed to make you feel? Scared cause this stuff is pretty nasty? Or confident that great precautions have been taken to make the vaccination environment as safe as possible? I think I felt a little mix of both.

The small-pox vaccination isn't even a shot at all. It's more like a little fork with two little prongs that they dip into a white powder and then poke into your shoulder a few times. Before I get to the poking, let me tell you about this white powder. Well not so much the powder itself but how it is kept. This small-pox stuff is in a little plastic box, kind of like a small tupperware container... with no lid. No lid? This stuff gets it's own room but no lid? I even made a remark to the guy, "Wow, so that's it right there? You don't even keep it covered or anything?" He was kind of like, "Yeah it really isn't dangerous unless you touch it. And besides it has it's own room". Well if you say so. I guess I'll buy that.

So I get the little fork prodded into my left shoulder. I am given all this literature about what should and shouldn't happen to the vacination site. This nasty stuff inside me will cause a blister to form that will hurt and itch like crazy. I'm not supposed to scratch it. I have to keep it covered up pretty much all the time. If I let my shirt come into contact with it, then the pox are on the shirt. If you touch the shirt, then the pox are on you. If my bandage comes off in my bed while I sleep, then the pox are on my sheets. If my face rolls into that spot later, then the pox are on my face!

I've seen pictures of pox on people's faces and it does not look fun. Not cool at all.

And so now there are all kinds of other things to think about like how to shower without breaking the blister open, disposing of the used bandages in sealed plastic baggies, and stuff like that. These things are of special concern to me because I frequent the gym on pretty regular basis. Pretty much every day. I work up a good sweat and shower there before I go to work. But I am now so worried about accidently losing my bandage as I work out or while I'm in the shower that I am rethinking my whole daily routine.

I keep reading through the literature and it makes it sound like the risk of it spreading are actually pretty minimal. You just have to keep it covered and not scratch it. Nevertheless, every time I get a little itch anywhere on my body I think, "oh crap, I hope that's not a pox"! And I think these thoughts even though I know it is almost impossible that the itch is the pox because I haven't even developed the little blister on my shoulder yet! It still doesn't even itch!

Throughout all these concerns I am also forced to marvel at the human body. Our bodies can learn to fight infections if they are introduced in small enough doses. Some other diseases can't even affect us at all because the human race has evolved to be able to resist them. I have about 2-3 weeks of this to endure while my immune system frantically tries to figure out how to fight three new invaders at the same time. I might not even feel any symptoms as the germs attack me. Right about the time it figures out how to defeat the small-pox, it will be time for my second anthrax shot. And if everything goes as planned, I will smoothly transition from a potential victim of a biological weapon to being immune to germs that have killed hundreds of thousands people over the years.

At least my cat is apparently safe, since there is no evidence of small-pox vaccinations ever infecting cats. So who is more highly evolved? I'd love to hear your thoughts...
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Sunday, July 22, 2007
Susan's Last Hoorah in Amsterdam!

So the time is finally here. The reality of the approaching end to Susan and I's time here in Europe. She'll be starting her new job/adventure in Africa next week. So for her last weekend in Europe we decided to go check out a place that's been on our list for quite awhile... Amsterdam.Let me tell ya... Amsterdam is cool.

This place has gotta be one of the coolest places on the planet. Seriously, this place is different. Yeah people smoke weed at the coffee shops. Yeah prostitution is legal. To me, Amsterdam seems like the type of place where you can get anything you want any time of day, 24/7. And I do mean ANYTHING!!! After a weekend in Amsterdam, I still have no idea what Dutch food is like. Amsterdam has food from all over the world. From every country except The Netherlands. Just the ones I remember seeing a lot of were Indonesia, Argentina, Uraguay, Japan, China, Italy, Thailand, Mexico, and India. We managed to eat sushi for dinner, something that we try to do anytime we get the chance. (Our area of Italy doesn't seem to have any respectable sushi places.) And dinner on Saturday was at a Nepalese/Tibetan restaurant!

We got to spend about 2 and a half days there. We walked around, saw the sites, hit a couple musems. Walking around the streets you can smell the weed coming out of the coffee shops. Susan put it best when she described it as "surreal". I can't help but think about the scene in Pulp Fiction when John Travolta is describing the weed smoking in Amsterdam. Yeah people do it but it's really not that big of a deal. There are all these rules about doing it. You can only do it in certain places and areas of the bars. Most places that serve weed don't serve alcohol. Well in any case, it didn't matter much to me or Susan since we're really not into the whole weed smokin thing. And even if I was I've got this whole military career thing to worry about. So in case you're wondering, no I did not partake. My mom will be so glad to hear that!

The Red Light District. Very nice! Chicks in windows wearing lingerie. Some of them were super hot. Others not so much. Some trying to drum up business by dancing, teasing, trying to be sexy, tapping on the glass at guys they think might be interested. Other girls sat there and read magazines or talked on their cell phones as if they were oblivious to the crowds of horny guys gawking at them.

And then there was the live sex show. Yep we went to the one at the Casa Rosso, supposedly the classiest one in the RLD. I have to say I can't complain too much. How classy can it be watching two total strangers have sex on a rotating stage? You'll have to figure that one out for yourself! But there was one part of the show that made the price of admission worth it... we saw a girl smoke a cigar... Not with her mouth. Yeah, that was cool.

We finished up our stay with a boat ride around the canals and spent Saturday night at a couple pubs and then checked out an American improv comedy act. Not bad.

So back to work for me tomorrow. Susan will be off Tuesday or Wednesday. And I have until September to enjoy however much I can before my time in Europe is over as well. But I think its gonna be tough to top this one...Check out the photos in my album.

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Thursday, July 05, 2007
The crazy month of June

June turned out to be one of the busiest months for me in a long time. Susan and I are trying our best to make it to all the places in Europe we still really want to see. Both of us are approaching the end of our time over here in Italy. Susan is in her last few weeks. For those of you who don't know, she'll be starting a new job in Djibouti (that's at the horn of Africa) at the end of July. I'll be leaving (probably to Korea) this fall.

Who knows where the future will take us? We'll end up together again somewhere, sometime...In the meantime, we continue our frantic pace of traveling. Someplace diferent every weekend. June started out with us just getting back from our trip down to the Amalfi Coast with Lee, Michelle, and Jenn. (Pics from that trip are still forthcoming!) The next weekend we headed over to the country next door, Slovenia with our friends Jess, Kim, and Brian. It was the usual Slovenian weekend of drinking, shopping, and Mexican food.

After that, we drove about 5 hours across the Alps and into Vienna, Austria. Stayed there for a few nights and managed a day trip into Bratislava, Slovenia. Both cities were really cool. Vienna is a happening place. Live music everywere. People out on the streets drinking, eating, enjoying life. Very neat town. Bratislava was cool too. Not at all like on Eurotrip!

We had a prett forgettable day trip to the Italian city of Padova. It's only like 2 hours away from our place but we'd never been there. We'd both heard good things so we decided to go check it out. Well, if you never have a chance to see Padova, you're really not missing too much. Yawn...Then, I can always count on good ol Uncle Sam to help me out with my traveling. I got sent to NAS Sigonella on Sicily to help out with some communications work down there. Sicily was another place that I thought I wouldn't have a chance to get to, but the Air Force ended up paying my way there! Susan took advantage of the opportunity and bought herself a ticket too and met me down there after I finished up my work.We spent a great couple days in the beautiful resort town of Taormina. We drove up Mount Etna, the active volcano on the island. Quite amazing to see the smoke constantly puffing out of that volcano.

Pictures from our June trips are in a new album I just posted.All the while, both of us have been in online college classes. Susan working on her final paper, and me working on my first website.

Crazy busy. But I wouldn't have it any other way...

Gone to MySpace

2007-08-17T12:14:00.000-07:00

I am now posting all my blog entries on MySpace only! Check out my site at:

http://www.myspace.com/tonyspelledbackwardisynot

Off to Greece!

2007-05-13T12:24:00.000-07:00

So as always, before I can get caught up blogging about one trip, another one comes along. I still have tons of stories and pics to share from our trip to Spain. But tomorrow at the butt crack of dawn I'll be leaving for Greece.

I'll be going to the island of Crete, but this time for work. Can't complain when Uncle Sam foots the bill! I'll be down there for about a week and I'll stay for a night or two in Athens on the way back.

I'm really excited about going down there. I know it's for work and not for play. But I'm sure I'll have a little time to see some things. Considering that I'm down to my final 4 months in Europe, I've gotta keep trying to see as much as I can.

Happy Mother's Day!!!

What a Ride!

2007-04-22T02:02:00.000-07:00

It was Good Friday. April 6, 2007. And I got to do something pretty fun. Something I will probably never get to do again. I got to hitch a ride in an F-16!

Every once in awhile, they let people ride in the back seat of the jet. It's usually given as a reward for good performance. My name got put in for a ride almost a year ago after I won a quarterly award.

My name was on a waiting list for about 8-10 months. To be honest, I wouldn't have been surprised if it never happened.

But near the end of March, I got an e mail asking if I was available for a ride on April 6.

The day before the ride, I had to go through a flight physical where I sat down with a doc and he talked to me about the upcoming flight. He asked me things like if I felt generally healthy, if I normally get motion sickness, and stuff like that. Then he gave me tips on what to eat prior to the flight, and how to deal with the effects of pulling Gs. Apparently, when the force of gravity is multiplied by doing these maneuvers, the blood in your body tends to rush to the bottom half of your body. And as it turns out this is not really a good thing. The lack of blood in your head can cause you to black out. And lots of people, even people that don't normally experience motion sickness, will get nauseous during flights.

So I started mentally preparing myself for vomiting. I really hate vomiting. And luckily I don't do it that often! My flight was scheduled for Friday at 1300, (1pm for you non-military types). But on Friday morning I went through about 3 hours of "Worst-case scenario" training. I call it that because it was training on all these things that could go wrong when we're in the air.

Everything they showed me started out with the phrase, "Hopefully you won't have to do this, but...", or "If you have to do this, it's already a bad day...".

What kind of stuff did they show me? Well, first I got to sit in a simulated F-16 cockpit. All the controls were there and I was told "Don't touch this switch unless...", and "Never ever touch this button, but only touch this one if...," There are few controls that I needed to know about even just as a passenger.

But the craziest thing to me was the one big, bright yellow, handle that was right in between my knees. I was told to hold onto this handle if we have to eject during the flight. So I asked, "Oh okay, so then it's just a handle?"

"No, if you pull that during flight, it will eject you."

Right. Got it. Don't touch the yellow handle.

I still can't believe that they would let the passengers have the ability to jettison the canopy, risk the lives of both himself and the pilot, and crash a multi-million dollar jet. But yep, they do.

After the cockpit orientation, I moved on to ejection training. This is where they train you on how to fall if you do have to eject during flight. Again, another thing that hopefully, you never have to do.

But these guys who gave me the training were cool and very helpful. Props & thanks to MSgt Hudson and TSgt Hayes!

So by the time this was all done I had enough time for a quick bite to eat - which according to the doc should consist of something dry and bland, nothing greasy. So I had a few crackers and a piece of bread. Just enough so my stomach wasn't empty.

Back to the fighter squadron building for the fitting of my flight suit and G-Suit. The G-suit is like leggings that go around your legs and around your stomach. There's a little cord that attaches to an air tank in the plane and it inflates when you pull Gs, to help keep the blood from pooling in your legs.

Me & Major Koch

The pilot I flew with was Major Koch, call-sign "Jeckyll". A really cool guy. He introduced himself and showed me a few of the systems they use prior to flight. Then he talked to me again about some of the things we'd be doing in the air. He promised me he wouldn't try to make me puke. What a nice guy!

That's me in the back!

By 1230 I was sitting in the backseat of the jet. Pictures from the cockpit were not allowed! Sorry!

We took off on time at 1300. A low takeoff, and then the jet shot straight up into the air. My first experience pulling Gs right off the bat. I think he said that was about 4 Gs. 4 times the normal force of gravity. I felt the G-suit inflate around my legs and compress my abdomen. Like the doc said, a good way to describe the feeling is like "the finger of God trying to crush you like a bug."

No nausea yet, and no tunnel vision or light-headedness yet either. So far so good.

We started out by flying around the area. We saw our house and had fun seeing the little targeting cross hairs on it! Then we flew up over the mountains. Incredible views from up there around 12000-15000 feet. At some points, we were lower than some of the peaks.

We did some cool maneuvers. We did some barrel rolls and some loops. We even flew upside down for a few minutes. To say it was incredibly cool is a huge understatement. The ride of the jet is so smooth. Not bumpy at all. Even when we were doing the crazy tricks, it was smooth.

We did a few other maneuvers and pulled more Gs. 4 Gs several times, 5 Gs once or twice. And I started to notice my stomach feeling kind of weird. I actually pulled out one of the barf bags they gave me and totally thought those crackers were making a return trip. But luckily they didn't. I held it together but the rest of the time my stomach was pretty queasy.

Major Koch asked if I was allright and after I told him I was close to puking, but after a few minutes I told him that I was okay. So we did a few more tricks and then he let me take control of the jet. I actually got to fly the jet for 5 - 10 minutes.

He took the controls again and we had time for a few more tricks. I don't remember exactly what we did, but the Gs we pulled were more than what we'd been pulling. I think we were shooting upwards at an angle and for the first time I started to get tunnel vision. This maneuver probably lasted at least 5-7 seconds. It was pretty intense. I think a little longer and I might have started to lose consciousness. But he pulled out of it and everything was okay. Whew! But that really didn't help my unsettled stomach!

After about a 45 minutes to an hour, it was time for the ride to be over. After we landed, I felt queasy for the rest of the afternoon. I also felt strangely tired. Not really physically tired, but sort of a weird lethargical feeling.

Getting ready to climb out

We talked to Major Koch and the life support people again, thanked them and drove home. And then I fell asleep on the couch for about two hours!

Thanks to everyone who had a hand in getting me this ride: Lt Anderson, SSgt Self, TSgt Veale. And to those who got me trained and ready: MSgt Hudson, TSgt Hayes, A1C Speis, and of course to Maj Koch for letting me fly with you. And finally to Susan for being there to take some pics! It was truly the experience of a lifetime.

I Like Monkeys

2007-04-16T13:57:00.000-07:00

We made it back from Spain this afternoon. What a great trip. Plenty of pics and stories to share. But I've gotta start with the funniest thing that happened.

Since our original plans of going down to Morocco got axed because of the terrorist bombings in North Africa, we figured we would just play it safe and go to check out Gibraltar for a day. We got up super early and grabbed a few pieces of fruit from the fruit basket left in our room. Sue had a kiwi, I had an apple, and we stashed a couple other things in my backpack for the trip. The night before it had rained a little, but this morning, the sky looked pretty clear. Still a bit chilly, especially in the darkness at 6am.

From Malaga, we took a bus down to a little town called La Linea. This was a small city that is right on the tip of Spain and separated from Gibraltar by an RAF airfield. (In case you didn't know, Gibraltar is still a UK territory) So once we were off the bus it was a quick 10 minute walk across the border. The Spanish customs guy wanted nothing to do with our passports... so much for getting a stamp... When we went to the UK side, we were able to get a stamp that said "Welcome to GIB", but it didn't say UK anywhere on it. Oh well...

We crossed the runway and hopped on a bus into town. A few people told me that Gibraltar is almost just like being in the UK. And they were right! Most people spoke English and spoke it with an English accent. A lot of people spoke Spanish too, but the overall feel of the place was nothing like the rest of Spain.

The architecture was different. There were Irish pubs everywhere (well Spain has lots of them too), all the street names were in English, and geez! Fish & Chips places everywhere!

After we hiked around the town a little and had a proper English breakfast of eggs, sausage, and toast, we decided to take the cable car up to the top of the rock and see the "Ape Den".

All the tourist brochures all were talking about this place. These apes, which actually look more like monkeys all live up on the top of the rock and have been there for years. It's their natural habitat and they just kind of hang out up there and you can go see them.

So we don't think too much about it. Why not? Let's go check out the monkeys. I like monkeys!

The guy on the cable car gives us a routine briefing about the area and the monkeys...

"The monkeys are not really aggressive, but they are always looking for food. They will try to take any food they can see and they have been known to fight for it. They bite. And they have learned to associate plastic bags with food, so please don't take any plastic bags up there".

Gotcha. No plastic bags. No food in site. We're all good.

So the cable car gets to the top and before we even get off the thing, a little monkey goes flying across the door. He hopped from a ledge on the landing up onto the top of the car and then disappeared. As we were looking for him, another one went running across in the opposite direction!

So... this is no zoo. There are no cages. These monkeys truly are just hanging out. Chillin, playing with each other and watching the people just as much as we were watching them.

The first two monkeys were young ones. Playful and energetic. The next one we saw must have been their momma. A little bigger, and not quite as eager to run around and jump for no particular reason. But she had no problem just sitting on a narrow rail watching the group of us come off the cable car and watching her kids play, or was she watching for plastic bags?

We walked past her and onto a lookout platform. The view of the rock was awesome. The weather turned out to be clear. Although it was warm down in the town, it was windy and cool up here at the top of the mountain.

There were monkeys all around. Probably about 4 or 5 on the platform. Some just sitting there, some walking around looking at all the people, some hopping around from rail to rail. We would cringe just a bit as they jumped around the railing, thinking foolishly that they might fall. Even though we knew there was little to no chance of that happening.

I noticed these two larger monkeys sitting in the middle of the platform. I started to walk over to them trying to position myself behind them so Sue could take a picture. One of the monkeys started eyeing me. Looking at me right in the eye. He started to walk towards me on all fours. I kept trying to circle behind him for the photo op but he had other ideas...

As soon as I realized he was up to something, he jumped up onto my back. He was hanging on my backpack. I spun around a couple times thinking he might jump off. Nope.

I heard Susan laughing, I heard other people yelling and saw them pointing. "Susan, take a picture!", I yelled.

He wasn't very heavy at all. But I couldn't figure out what he wanted or what he was thinking. Did he just like me or what? All of this happened within the span of 5-10 seconds.

The next sound I heard explained everything. I heard the monkey start to unzip one of the zippers on my backpack. Then everything all made sense. The fruit from the hotel room! We must have left some in there and forgot about it.

I decided to fling my backpack off my shoulders. Before it hit the ground, the monkey had opened the pocket, reached inside and grabbed the small plastic bag that contained what? Yep, a banana. Could we have come more prepared? What else is better for monkeys than a banana? After all the briefings and literature and signs that say "Don't bring food", "Don't feed the monkeys", what do we do? We bring them a freaking banana.

So stereotypical.

In less than 2 or 3 minutes, that little monkey spotted me from at least 10 feet away. Smelled the banana, figured out that it was in my backpack, and figured it out which pocket it was in... all while I was looking at him trying to determine how I was gonna pose for a picture.

Look at his friend monkey! He's laughing at me too!

As he sat there with the banana he just looked at me.

Everyone else was laughing. I was laughing too, it was freaking hilarious. There were napkins and papers still blowing around in the wind that came flying out of the open backpack when he grabbed the banana. Susan and I started picking it all up. Other tourists kept coming up to me laughing and showing me their pictures. A couple guys even got it on video. I'm waiting for them to send me the clips!

The monkey just sat there eating the banana looking at me. I'm picking up trash, he's eating our banana.

In the aftermath, we kept on walking around the area watching the monkeys play. I could watch monkeys all day.

Here's to you, monkey! Hope you enjoyed that banana.

A tour group of Italian kids came up onto the platform from the cable car. One of them bought a candy bar and ate half of it in the snack bar. He put the rest of it in his pocket as he headed back out onto the platform, not knowing his fate. But we knew. We knew what would happen...

Hola From Southern Spain

2007-04-12T13:39:00.000-07:00

So much to write about, and yet still so little time...

I'm sitting here in a hotel room in Malaga, Spain. It is almost 11pm, Susan is asleep. I can hear the waves right outside our hotel room crashing onto the beach. We had a pretty long day today. It started in Granada. A 3 hour tour of the Alhambra Palace, a quick lunch, and a 2 hour bus ride later we found ourselves here in Malaga.

Our little hotel is right on the beach. It is definitely nothing special. A narrow staircase goes up into a narrow hallway. The room is pretty small, but hey there's free wireless internet so who can complain?There's a bar/snack place downstairs that was surprisingly loud and lively this evening.

We're a few kilometers from the center of town. Did you know that there are Roman ruins in this town and that Pablo Picasso was born here too? Neither did I until this week. We haven't gotten to see much of this town yet, but hopefully we will over the next couple days. If the weather holds out we will get a little sunshine on the beach too.

We are in the middle of a week-long trip around southern Spain. We were hoping to go to Morocco as well, but the recent terrorist bombings changed our plans. Better safe than sorry. Tomorrow we have to get up early again and catch a bus so we can get to Gibraltar. Then we'll finish off the trip back in Seville this weekend.

I don't have much time to write now, and the pictures will have to come later too. Spain is so picturesque, we have already taken over 150 pics I think! There is so much to see and do here, to start talking about it now would have me up all night.

So that's all for now. Next post will hopefully have Flamenco dancers, Matadors, beaches, and ancient castles...

Catching up

2007-02-20T10:57:00.000-08:00

So after a long haitus from blogging I figure it is now about time for me to get it caught up again... not that there were throngs of people eagerly awaiting my next post or anything like that. But the three of you that do check this thing regularly: here ya go!

I guess I left off after Christmas. Well for New Year's Eve we took another snowboarding trip up into the mountains of Austria again. This time we went to the tiny little town of St. Veit. We spent I think 4 nights up there hanging out with a small contingent of the Aviano Ski Club, most importantly our friends, Aaron, Jess, Crystal, and David. The package included snowboard lessons, and a new years eve party. It was a pretty good time. I'll spare you the details of the trip but the highlights included:

* Jess taking every possible wrong turn on the way up

* Donuts the size of my head at a secluded snack bar on the mountain

* Watching guys try to flirt with the Edie, the hot Austrian snowboard instructor

* Not breaking any bones

* All you can drink at the new years eve party

* Susan winning the limbo contest

* Shooting off fireworks at midnight

* Sleeping late on new years day to rest and NOT going up to the mountain

Sunset in St. Veit, Austria

So that was pretty much that trip.

Since then, we haven't done any real crazy trips. Just the typical day trip to Ljubljana; ate Mexican food, watched Casino Royale - which I think is the best 007 film I've seen!

We also had a couple other uneventful snowboarding trips in January, but not much more to say about that.

Church in Alleghe, Italy

In January I started ALS - Airman Leadership School. This is where the Air Force teaches us how to manage and lead troops. It is a month long course that is coming to its end here this Thursday. I guess I've learned a few things, but honestly I just can't wait to get back to work. I've had enough of all the busy-work they give us and some of the stuff they teach is just very "utopian" and things just don't really work like that in the real Air Force. So our graduation is a big semi-formal event at the base club, followed by crazy drinking and chaos out on the town. Good times!

We also spent President's Day weekend up in Austria. Yes Austria again! This time we went to Innsbruck which is a really cool city right across the border. It is surrounded by mountains and there are tons of ski resorts all around it.

The winter over here has been really mild. Not a lot of snow at all. You have to go up to the higher elevations to get to any real snow. So we found out about this one place called Kuhtai, about 35 km west of Innsbruck and headed there for the day.

On the way up through the mountains

It was indeed pretty nice. Tiny tiny tiny!!! One road through the town, and horses hanging out right by the slopes. Sunday I got my boarding time in while Susan explored the town and enjoed the beautiful weather.

Slopes of Kuhtai

So that pretty much brings us up to now. With only about 8 months left to enjoy Europe, we plan to take lot more trips. Should be a hectic summer. If you want to come visit, your time is running out...

From the Alps to the Grand Canal

2006-12-26T07:54:00.000-08:00

Christmas break had given us four days to kill.

We had originally planned to take almost all of it and spend it snowboarding in Austria. We reserved a room in a hostel with a group of friends and everything. We woke up ridiculously early on Saturday morning and started the 2 hour drive to Naasfeld, Austria.

Nassfeld is one of the best ski areas I've been to. But since its only two hours away, it seemed hard to convince myself to stay the whole weekend up there. And coming home that night started to sound like a better and better idea. Why spend the money on a room when we could sleep in our own bed?

We had only made reservations at the hostel and no one had commited any money yet, so we wouldn't be screwing anyone out of money if we left. And so after about 5 hours of good boarding, Susan and I ditched our group and started to head back home.

Or so we thought...

On the way out of the resort area, I went the wrong way and ended up trying to turn around. The only thing is that the road I turned on to was an icy downhil slope. Not that much of a decline, but as it turned out, too much of a decline for our car.

Despite our new all weather tires, our Audi just didn't have the power or traction to get back up the hill. Good thing we had snowchains right?

Not so fast...

Yeah we had snow chains, but I should remind you that I am from Texas. I've never put snowchains on a car before. The last time I tried to put snowchains on my car was last year in Ljubljana, Slovenia. I really didn't have much luck and eventually gave up. We got about six nice Slovenian dudes to help us push the car to a cleared road.

So ever since then, Susan has been on my ass to get someone to show us how to put them on. And what did I do? I ignored her.

So now here we were- happy to be leaving for our trip home and spending the evening in our warm house watching a movie or something, but we can't get the car up a little bunny slope of a hill.

Swallow the pride. Susan went into a little hotel nearby to ask for help while I tried futiliy to figure out the stupid snow chains. In a few minutes, a healthy looking Austrian lady came out and said, "Move"! She showed me that even a half-witted monkey could put snow chains on a car. It was so easy.

We thanked her with one of the 6 bottles of cheap Champagne that we had in the car for whatever random Christmas parties we might end up at. That lady probably helps tons of people every year with their snowchains.

Cheers to you Austrian lady!!!

So we went on our way. And now even this Texan boy knows how to put snowchains on a car.

The remaining 3 of the 4 days of this Christmas break would not be nearly as eventful. Thankfully...

Saturday night, we enjoyed the company of a few of our closest friends. Playing board games, drinking wine, and spreading gossip about people we work with.

Sunday, Christmas Eve, we woke up and took an 1145 train down to Venice.

Venice is only an hour away from us and I think we take it for granted. Since its so close, we figure we can go anytime,... but then we don't. Well, we have actually gone down there several times, but not nearly as often as we should. It has a lot to offer. It is so picturesque, and has some pretty good pubs and stuff. It was nice to spend a few hours down there walking around and seeing it all decorated for Christmas. We took pictures, did a little shopping, and had some pretty decent pizza along the Grand Canal.

Here we are looking into a mirror in a store.

Some gondoliers taking a smoke and beer break.

Here I am sipping on some house wine while I wait for my pizza.

That's the Rialto in the background.

San Marco's Cathedral.

I guess gondola rides aren't as romantic as they used to be. This dude is on his cell phone!

So we headed back home that evening and spent Christmas Eve with some other friends who were having ahouse party. Not a lot of fun for me since I was a DD and also on stand-by. :( But it was still a good time.

And after all this, our last two days have been pretty anti-climatic. Christmas Day we were with friends yet again. Doing the usual secret santa thing and watching the Boondocks. Great show I must say.

Back to work on Wednesday. And time to start planning for NYE!!!

Mad Dash to the Matterhorn

2006-11-26T09:56:00.000-08:00

After we got back from our week-long trip that took us to Switzerland, Lichtenstien, France, Germany, and Austria; we took the following weekend to relax a bit and then it was off to Switzerland again. We spent the Thanksgiving holidays in the small mountain town of Zermatt, Switzerland. It is the closest Swiss town to the famous Matterhorn.

So Susan and I loaded up a rent-a-van and jumped in along with our friends, Aaron & Jess and David & Crystal. We left right after work on Wednesday. And since you can't get into the town of Zermatt by car, we had to make it to its neighbor town of Tasch so we could catch a train. The last train from Tasch to Zermatt leaves around 11:40pm, and we had about a 6 hour drive in front of us. We were cutting it close. We were running the risk of sleeping in the van if we missed that train!

But never to fear. Aaron got us through all the traffic near Venice and Milan. Jess drove the rest of the way up the switchbacks of Simplon Pass and we made into the Tasch train station with about 20 minutes to spare. By the time we unloaded all our bags onto a cart and bought our tickets, we just barely made it!

The train took about 20 minutes to get into Zermatt and when we got there we were exhausted. The cool thing about Zermatt is that there are no cars up there. All the cars are electric, including the buses and taxis. I guess they have horse carraiges there too, but we only saw one while we were there. Anyways, our hotel was only a 5 minute walk from the train station so we walked over and crashed.

You probably recognize the peak of the Matterhorn from pictures. It dominates the skyline of the town and makes for a great backdrop for pictures. I did a little reading before we left and did you know that over 400 people have been killed trying to climb this mountain? There is even a cemetery in the center of town that has at least 100 gravestones of people who died on the Matterhorn. We didn't have any plans on trying to climb it, but we were snowboarding in its shadow - literally.

You can't see it here but the Matterhorn is behind me. Really I swear!!!

As soon as we got off the lift, we saw this helicopter sitting there at the top of the run. It took off and blew snow all over us and then flew right over our heads and off over the mountains. Pretty cool.

Here is Susan at the top of the first run after the helicopter took off. This was our first day boarding and the weather was okay. The top was a little cloudy and windy, but it got nice and sunny on the way down.

Unfortunatley, the lifts were so crowded and not all the runs were open yet, so it made it pretty tough to get a good day of boarding in on Thursday. The lifts started closing around 3:30pm so we called it a day and spent the evening lounging in the cool atmosphere of downtown Zermatt. Too bad I had to do homework!

The next day of boarding was a waste. Twice as croded as the day before and the weather twice as bad. At the top of one peak the wind was so bad people could barely stand up. By the time I got to the bottom, they had already started closing some of the lifts. 3 hours in line, one run, and that was about it. So what did we do? Head to the lodge and start drinking!!!

This pic was taken by Susan from the bottom of the lift.

Saturday we figured we wouldn't go up the mouintain. I really didn't feel like dealing with the crowds and they were sure to be even worse. Zermatt is quite the tourist town. It seems like almost everyone there was American. There were a few Europeans and even some Japanese tourists too. So Susan and I chilled and tried to stay caught up on our homework.

The nightlife at Zermatt looks like it would be really cool. Too bad we didn't really get a chance to experience much of it. We just couldn't get everyone together for a night out. People were either tired or didn't want to spend the money. Switzerland is quite expensive. But there were lots of clubs and bars and cool restaurants. We ate dinner at a really neat place called "The Pipe". It was run by a South African surfer guy who has developed his own menu. A really neat blend of Indian, African, and Asian.

So that was about it for Zermatt. I woke up on Sunday and decided to go for a quick morning jog along the river. I got back to the hotel and had to hurry up and shower and do my final packing before lugging all our crap back to the train station. I pulled the driving shift for the trip home and here we are back in Italy 8 hours later.

All in all the trip was good. Even thought the boarding situation was a little disappointing, it was still cool to see the Matterhorn and hang out with our good friends in a cool little town that embodies everything good about the mountains.

From Somewhere in the Black Forest

2006-11-09T02:09:00.000-08:00

I can´t believe its been almost a month since I´ve taken the time to blog. I can´t say I´ve been any busier than normal. But right now, I am writing this from an internet cafe in Baden-Baden, Germany. Susan and I have spent the last week travelling through 4 countries. While she is at a 2-day conference for the American Counseling Associastion, I am trying to keep myself busy with whatever I can find. I had hoped to be hiking right now, but unfortunately, the weather is not cooperating with me today.

So here I sit in this internet cafe and I´ll catch you up on where we´ve been the last few days...

We left Sacile on Saturday morning and drove about 4 hours to the Swiss border. We stayed overnight in Lugano, Switzerland. A very nice little town on a lake surrounded by mountains.

The next day we drove north and into the Swiss Alps. Stunningly beautiful I must say. We passed through "Heidiland", the area where the famous film was set. There were signs on the highway and at the rest stops showing where Heidi´s house was and stuff like that. Then we took a slight detour into the tiny country of Leichtenstein. Blink and you might miss it. We drove into the town of Vaduz, and there is really nothing there worth noting, not even a place to get a stamp in your passport. Just another sleepy town nestled in a mountain valley.

After a couple more hours of driving, we arrived in Zurich, Switzerland. Zurich seemed like a very cool place. Very metropolitan and all kinds of people from all over the world walking the streets. Too bad we didn´t have more time to spend there. We managed to walk the town for a few hours, have a good dinner, and relax in an Irish Pub for the night. By the way, I was pleasantly surprised to see the Dallas Cowboys vs. Washington Redskins game on the big screen TV as I walked into this pub! It made me forget that I was in Switzerland for awhile.

It was late Monday morning when we left Zurich and headed to our next destination: Strasbourg, France. We had the great experience of spending a good two full days here and I think it is one of my favorite places I´ve visited in Europe. Iwish I had more time to tell you more about Strasbourg, but I´ll wait until I have the pictures to share also. Basically, it is a melting pot of French and German culture. The old town is filled with beautiful half-timbered houses. Boutiques, bars, and cafes line the streets and hide in little corners. We enjoyed our time in Strasbourg and I hope I can make my way back there sometime again.

We left Strasbourg on wednesday and made our way accross the German border. After a quick stop at Vogelwey AB in Germany to buy some cheap motor oil, we headed to the real destination of the trip, Bad Herrenalb, Germany. This is where Susan is attending her conference. It is a tiny little town that you´re not likely to find on any map. It is located in the Black Forest which is in the southwest corner of Germany just a little to the east of Baden-Baden.

There really isn´t much to say about Bad Herrenalb, except that it is a nice quaint tiny little village with a handful of hotels and spa houses. I think I counted about 4 or 5 restaurants in the whole town (and one of them wasn´t open!). However, we did eat a great traditional German meal at one of them. This restaurant had the greatest atmosphere for a German place. Wooden beams, antiques and old paintings on the walls, and beer steins perched on shelves around the bar. I felt like I was in an old episode of Hogan´s Heroes!

So that was last night. This morning the rain came in and thwarted my hiking hopes for the day. I decided to drive up here to Baden-Baden and check it out. It´s a very ritzy spa town with all these expensive shops lining the streets.

I should also note that as we travel we also have to keep up with our school work. Both of us are in online classes and we really can´t let them slide for more than a few days. So what I should be doing right now is studying! I have 3 papers to write that are all due in the next couple weeks! *cringe*

It´s about 1130 now and I guess I´ll try to go find some lunch!

Pics to come eventually...

Cheers!

OKTOBERFEST 2006!!!

2006-10-11T09:03:00.000-07:00

September 23rd, 2006. It is that time of year again. Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany.

Time for liter-mug beers. Time for polka music. Time for me to break out the leiderhosen.

This was gonna be my third trip to Oktoberfest. So now I'm getting to be a veteran. This year we decided to take a bus trip with good old Nikki. The bus left Aviano around 10pm on Friday night and we drove all night. Most of us slept for at least a couple hours. But it makes for a tough night's sleep when the bus stops just about every hour for breaks. By the time we arrived in Munich I think we were all going on about 3 hours of very unrestful sleep.

As you can tell, a few of us even dressed up for the occasion. I borrowed this leiderhosen from a friend. Stop laughing, the Germans think its cool!

We arrived at the fairgrounds around 8 am and we waited outside the Lowenbrau tent for about an hour. As soon as the doors opened, there was a mad rush of people to try to get to the tables. You must be sitting at a table to get served beer, so real estate is at a premium. But no worries, we had no trouble getting two tables next to each other for our group of about 20 people.

This time Susan even went all out and ordered the traditional Bavarian dress, a dirndle. I believe these were our first beers of the day. Mind you it was only 9:30 am!

If you decide you want to sacrifice some time in the beer tents and go walking around the fairgrounds, you see lots of cool stuff for sale like these gingerbread hearts.

Nothing says Oktoberfest like beer, polka music, and HUGE pretzels!!!

Inside the beer tents its nothing but a huge party. People from all over the world are all sitting together drinking and talking. Aussies, Kiwis, Brits, Americans, Italians and Germans are usually the most prevelant. There are surprisingly very few fights! Those guys in the yellow shirts were from Australia. We happily toasted Steve Irwin with them.

Here are a couple guys in the band.

Here is our lovely waitress. One of the most awesome things to see at Oktoberfest is all the beer girls hauling around 8-10 mugs of beer at a time.

Me and my good friend, Aaron.

Here's where things get blurry. It got to be about 2 in the afternoon and I'd had about 3-4 liters of beer. And I'll remind you that I was going on less than 3 hours of sleep. Apparently I decided I wanted to change out of my leiderhosen and into some jeans. It looks like I started to change, but didn't quite finish. I swear I don't remember any of this.

Yeah. Here I am, passed out at 3 in the afternoon. In front of the bus door. Susan was kind enough to place a gingerbread heart on my chest in case I woke up and was hungry. Don't remember this either. Not my finest moment...

Here's the list of things I don't remember from Oktoberfest:
1. Passing out in front of the bus door.
2. Some big dude picking me up and moving me out of the way so people could get on the bus.
3. Taking off my leiderhosen shirt.
4. Buying that hat and telling everyone that I was a swashbuckler
5. Chipping my tooth - I have no idea how that happened.

So my Oktoberfest ended at about 3 pm this year. Every time I've been to Oktoberfest its always a good time. Looks like this one was my last one for now. I only hope I can make it to another one someday. Those Germans know how to celebrate.

Korea, here I come!

2006-10-02T13:26:00.000-07:00

I found out today that by October 2007, I will be moving to Yong San Army Garrison in Seoul, S. Korea. I will be assigned to a small Air Force unit there at the army installation, the 303rd Intelligence Squadron.

I will be leaving Italy in September of 2006. This is when I plan on taking a trip back to the states to see all my friends and family for a few weeks before I head back to Korea for my second tour there.

I have mixed feelings about this. I love Italy. I requested to stay here longer but my request was denied.

There are lots of things I'm going to miss about this country. I've grown accustomed to driving past vineyards to get to work, not skyscrapers. I learned how to snowboard here. I skydived here. I learned a little about wine. I can look outside anytime and see the peaks of the Alps. In 45 minutes I can be in the mountains or at the beach. In 5 hours, I can be in 5 or 6 different countries.

Then of course there are things I won't miss. Life in Italy can be pretty inconvenient at times. You can't go shopping whenever you want, you can't get food anytime you want, and you can't even get gas for your car anytime you want. 'Open 24 hours' is not understood in Italy!!!

Maybe you can't find a store that's open between noon and 4 pm, or on Sunday, or on some other random days of the week. Maybe you'll have to wait weeks just to get you're internet connected. Maybe you have to hunt a waitress down to get your check. Things here are just more relaxed. More laid back. The customer is NOT always right. More often than not, the customer is a nuisance.

But to me, the positives far outweigh the negatives. The irony of Italy is this: The things that make life challenging are the same things that make it great. There is no doubt this is a beautiful country. The landscape, the architecture, the culture, the people (well, most of the people).

So as I look back at my tour here I can say that I've done pretty good at seeing Europe. And as I look ahead to next year I plan to be travelling every weekend possible. You can bet I'll continue to post stories and pics here.

And again, if you want to come visit Susan and I here, the door is always open, but now the clock is ticking!

Coming soon: Pics from Oktoberest 2006 in Munich!!!

Hiking the 52 tunnels

2006-09-29T11:54:00.000-07:00

So when we woke up on Labor Day and thanked the gods for an extra day off work, we pretty much had no plans to do much of anything. We just got back the day before from Croatia, and lounging around the house always seems like a good idea to me after a road trip.

But lo, it was not not be.

Susan's friend told her about a hiking path not far from our place that was really cool. The Italians call it the Strada della Gallerie, or the "path of the tunnels". It is a winding path that goes up into the Alps. Along the way there are 52 tunnels that were built by the Italian military back in World War 1. They were used to supply the Italian mountain troops, the Alpini.

So off we went. As was to be expected, the drive there is always an adventure. The road to get to the trailhead was pretty much the narrowest possible road you could ever imagine... even for one car. So when we rounded a corner and almost got crushed by a huge truck carrying a huge trailer of lumber, we thought we had made a bad choice!

But we pressed on...

And then it happened again...

And still we pressed on.

We miraculously made it to the trailhead without our car getting crushed and started up the path. Being a monday, we were about the only hikers on the trail. It was about a 20 minute trek up a gravel path until we saw the first tunnel.

The tunnels were all different lengths. Some were only a few meters long and others took a good 5 minutes to walk through. All of them were pitch black. Luckily we were warned about this so we both had flashlights. Without flashlights, there would be a serious risk of broken ankles!!!

Every tunnel was numbered and named. Most of them were named after Italian cities or important Italian people, I'm guessing they were WW1 generals.

It was not an easy hike. The path had a good incline. Before we knew it we were in the clouds, and soon after we emerged above the clouds. The peaks of the Alps poked through.

Unfortunately, we had gotten off to a late start, so it was approaching 1600, (4pm for you non-military types) and we'd only made it through 27 tunnels. It had taken us 2 hours to get to that point, so we decided it would be a good idea to turn around and head back to the car before it got dark and cold.

Our leg muscles nicely worked and tired, we drove down the road of terror again, this time with no oncoming giant trucks, and made it back down to town. We were hungry so we stopped at a little pizzeria in a little town called Schio. What a little gem this place was! As a pizza tasting expert, I would have to say that this place had one of the top 5 pizzas I've had in all of Italy. No better way to end a trip!

Maybe someday we'll head back up there and try to make it through all 52 tunnels. If anyone out there wants to join us, I'll buy the pizza on the way back home!

Labor Day Weekend in... Croatia???

2006-09-29T11:27:00.000-07:00

Right, probably not exactly the first place you'd think of to spend Labor Day weekend. I'm sure some of you might have thought, "Croatia? Aren't they still at war?"

Well they're not at war. And it happens to be a very cool and beautiful country. Many Europeans know this and the little islands that run along the Croatian coast and span out into the Adriatic Sea are popular tourist destinations in the summertime.

This was our second time to Croatia, the last time being a year ago when we went to the Istrian penninsula. This time we went a little further south onto the island of Losinj.

The island of Losinj is long and narrow and only has about 4 or 5 little villages on it. There's pretty much only one road that winds its way lengthwise up and around the mountainous terrain from the north ferry landing to the southern tip of the island.

The drive was as always one of my favorite parts of the trip. Winding roads, cliffs that drop off to the sea, and of course...

The unique and risque advertising that Eastern Europe is famous for!

This trip was really just about getting away to somewhere different to relax and enjoy a place we don't get to visit very often. This little cove was right outside from the backdoor of our hotel. I swam for little while here (the water was FREEEEEEZING!!!!!!). We spent most of the day on a sandy beach just chilling, reading, and snorkelling.

The sun set on our vacation on Sunday. We drove back up the island, crossed back over to the mainland, up through Slovenia and across into Italy. The whole trip home took us about 5 hours. We woke up Monday morning with another full day to kill. Should we just stay home and relax?

To be continued...

Lake Barcis

2006-09-09T13:12:00.000-07:00

Lake Barcis is a tiny little lake tucked away in a mountain valley. It takes about 30 minutes to drive there from our house. There's a little village by the same name that sits on its shores. A lot of people go to Barcis for day trips, picnics, hiking, and sometimes boat races.

I took a trip up there this summer to kill a few hours in the afternoon.

Enjoy the pics. Isn't that blue water unreal?

Medieval Style

2006-08-29T10:49:00.000-07:00

On our way back from Prague, we stopped in a little village in the region known as Bohemia. (This is the real authentic Bohemia, not new Bohemia).

The village is called Cesky Krumlov. It's probably the coolest little Czech town you've never heard of.

This is the towering gate to the old city. At the top are some kind of offices that are attached to the castle.

This river flows through the town and when we were there, we saw lots of people kayaking and canoeing on it. It was a little rainy but not too bad.

Just like any good Medieval village it had awesome little streets to walk along. They were filled with cafes and restaurants.

Here's the town castle.

Its too bad we only spent a few hours here. It seemed like a great little town to spend a weekend in.

We only had enough time for lunch, a little shopping, a little walking around, and then it was back on the bus for the trip back to Italy. And back to work the next day.

Not a bad place for a weekend getaway.

Ciao!

Not enough time in Prague

2006-08-20T12:38:00.000-07:00

After we got back back from Paris, we had a crazy week of work and school and then the following Friday night we were back on a bus heading for Prague.

We knew this trip was gonna be a whirlwind. Friday night we slept on the bus and woke up around 6 am as we were crossing the Austria-Czech border. Needless to say, sleep on a bus is not very restful sleep. When we got into Prague, it was around 7:30 or 8, and the first thing on our schedule was a guided walking tour of the city.

Prague is every bit as gothic as I thought it would be. There are spires and statues and gargoyles everywhere.

The advertising is sort of interesting too.

This is the famous view of Prague that is all over pictures and paintings everywhere.

We spent the afternoon walking around. It rained on us a little bit but not too much.

We were so tired from the trip, we headed to our hotel early and took a quick nap. A couple hours later, we were ready to check out some Prague night life...

We started out at a Sushi place. Here we are getting ready to do some Sake bombers!

After the Sushi we went to Red Hot & Blues. Yep they have one in Prague.

Then we spent the rest of the night at this 6 story club right on the river. It was pretty cool I guess. But every time I find myself in one of these places I just don't seem to enjoy it as much as I used to. Nevertheless, I sucked it up and we stayed until about 3am. The music was good and the drinks were cheaper than in Italy!

It made for a rough Sunday morning though. We woke up and were on the bus again by 9am. And we had one more stop to make...

(to be continued)

A Minute to Breathe

2006-08-11T11:48:00.000-07:00

With work, school, and travelling all keeping me busy over the last month, it's kind of funny that I feel like blogging now. It seems that keeping this website up to date makes me feel more on top of things!

The last few weeks have been a blur of activity and happenings for me. Some of the most noteworthy:

1. I'm getting promoted!!! I found out Wednesday that I passed my test for Staff Sergeant! (That's an E-5) I'll be taking on more of a leadership/mentor role in my shop and I'll start getting a little more respect. I feel like I've been doing the job of a Staff Sgt for the last few months anyway and a few of my superiors have said that too.

2. I will be going on another temporary duty assignment (TDY) to Greece, Crete, and Cyprus. Me and 3 other guys will spend a couple weeks down there upgrading networking equipment on some NATO bases. It should be an interesting and challenging task mixed in with a little fun and leisure time. Not sure when we're leaving. I only hope these new crazy terrorist attacks don't force us to cancel our plans.

3. For those of you baking in the 100 degree temperatures, know that last weekend in Austria they got about 60 inches of snow, only about 3 hours from here. A few of my buddies are going snowboarding tomorrow! One of the things I DON'T miss about Texas is the month of August.

4. I was hoping to be able to take a trip back to the US and see some of you. But then this Greece thing came up. I still might try to get out there later this year, but we'll just have to see how things turn out.

5. I turned in a request for another tour here in Italy. If it gets approved, I'll be here until 2010! If it gets denied, I'll be leaving Italy in Sept 2007. I should get my answer in the next 45 days or so. So if any of you were thinking about coming out here to visit, please plan accordingly!

This weekend looked like it might give us a little time to relax. We'd planned to chill this weekend and clean up the house a little, but then a few of our closest friends invited us to take a trip to Slovenia with them. Hey, when Ljubjana, Slovenia has the best Mexican reastaurant in Europe and it's only 2 hours away, how can you say no?

Viva La France!!!

2006-08-10T12:36:00.000-07:00

Paris is a city that we'd wanted to visit for a long time. Who doesn't want to visit Paris? Well, finally everything came together for Susan and I, and we bought our plane tickets!

Getting There...

We flew out of Treviso, which is only about 45 minutes from our place and landed at Beauvais around 10pm.

Why do I have a picture of an Irish pub here? This was a tent that was set up right outside the airport in France. Our shuttle driver was waiting for some other passengers whose plane was delayed so he went to take a nap in his van. Susan and I saw this tent-pub and headed straight for it!

Here we are enjoying our first drinks in Paris!

The First Day

We got off to an early start because we weren't sure how the lines would be at all the monuments. A friend of ours told us about a nice hotel in a good location, thanks Lettie!!! It was in a nice part of town south of the river. We decided to go to the Louvre first so we started walking north. The pic above is the Pantheon which was only a few minutes walk from our hotel.

On the way to the Louvre... Here is the sun rising from behind the Notre Dame Cathedral.

Buildings on the River Seine.

The great controversial pyramid of the Louvre. In the words of Fache... " A scar on the face of our city"!

Here I am in front of the Venus de Milo.

We thought it was interesting that taking photos in the Louvre was allowed. We couldn't wait to get to the Mona Lisa. Yeah, well, not so fast. Taking pictures of the Mona Lisa is NOT allowed. But we saw it and it was as beautiful and mysterious and everyone says,... only a little smaller than I imagined. But we figured we should take pictures of at least some painting. This one looked cool.

One of the 8 million sculpture rooms in the Louvre that no one visits becasue they're too busy flocking to the Mona Lisa.

We saw what we needed to see in the Louvre and we didn't want to get museumed-out so we left and started walking the streets of Paris.

Paris is full of little restaurants and sidewalk cafes. Here's one of the nicest of the 7,000 cafes that I took pictures of.

This obelisk was a gift from Egypt to France. It is supposed to be over 3000 years old.

Susan and I in front of the Notre Dame.

Here is one of the cool sidewalk stands that sells cool vintage Parisian posters.

We headed for the Eiffel Tower in the early evening. We were lucky enough to have beautiful weather and a perfect sunset for our background. We weren't going to go up to the top. Not yet. Tonight would just be the night that we watched the sun go down and the tower light up.

I think it happened around 10pm. The tower lit up with all these flashing lights. When they start flashing, everyone cheers. It lasts for about 10 minutes and then stops. And it did it again on the hour at 11pm. It was very cool.

When night finally fell and we'd had our fill of watching the Eiffel tower for the night, we stopped at this little cafe and had a couple glasses of some great French wine. Well Susan did, I'm pretty sure I had a beer.

Our next stop was this little piano bar in the Latin Quarter. This was one of my favorite places we went to in Paris. Such a nice atmosphere. This guy played great piano and the girl had a great voice.

The Latin Quarter is full of bars and restaurants. And on Friday night, its full of people too.

Saturday

We woke up Saturday with only slight headaches. Nothing Aleve couldn't fix. We started out sort of early so we could make sure we had enough time to see everything.

Here is the Sacre D U'coeur. I don't know what that means, but I know it is a really big church. It sits on the highest hill in Paris so you can get great views from here. It is also located in one of the coolest areas in Paris, Montmartre.

This is one of about 3 dozen artists in the Place du Tertre. One of the most famous plazas in Paris. We stopped here and ate a quick lunch at the ultra-famous Chez Eugene.

This is just another little cafe that I thought looked really cool.

The famous Moulin Rouge Cabaret. Not as impressive as I imagined... but then, I didn't go inside!

Here is one of Paris' famous Metropolitain signs leading to a subway station.

A quaint street in Montmartre.

The only reason this picture is significant is the name of the restaurant behind me... LePalmier!

And then we meandered to the most famous street in the city, the Champs-Elysees.

It was really nothing more than a really wide street with lots of expensive stores and cafes... yawn.

The Arc du Triomphe.

Now, it was time to head back to the Eiffel Tower and actually go up to the top this time!

If you want to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower, you have a choice to make. You can take the elevator all the way to the top. Or you can climb the steps to the second level and then you take the elevator from there.

Susan and I have been living and travelling in Europe for almost two years. So we are seasoned veterans at climbing to the top of old buildings, churches, and monuments. We naturally decided to take the stairs to the second floor and ended up saving about 20 Euro and probably 4 hours!

Here are some views from the tower:

So that was about it for the tower. We headed back down, we took the stairs of course, and went to grab some dinner. We ate at a nice Indian restaurant right down the street from the tower.

We had a few hours to kill so we went back to the park in front of the Eiffel Tower. We laid in the grass and watched the tower light up again with the backdrop of a clear sunset. We were so full of samosas, lamb vindaloo, and curry that we fell asleep in the park!

When we woke up it was about 9pm and we were refreshed but still full! We headed back to the Latin Quarter for some more night life. This picture is of a street in the Latin Quarter with the Notre Dame in the background.

Saturday night is as lively as ever in the Latin Quarter. It's full of greek restaurants, cafes, bars, a few discos, and shops

We stayed out kind of late. Spent a little more time at the piano bar and walking the streets. Lots of bars had live music. I really miss all the live music venues in Dallas so I really liked this area a lot.

The Last Day

We woke up again and shook off our mild hangovers. We had done everything in Paris we'd set out to do. So we spent our last day in Paris just strolling around and taking it easy. Our shuttle back to the airport was leaving at 3pm so we only had a few hours to kill.

On Sunday the weather got a little cloudy and it sprinkled a little. But we were lucky enough to have great weather when we needed it.

We went back to the area around the Notre Dame. We did some last minute souvenir shopping, had our last snacks and our last beers, and started on our way back to the hotel to catch the shuttle.

We had an uneventful trip home and we were both back at work the next day. A little tired, but happy to be able to check Paris off the list of places we need to go.

I'm also happy to report that we found the French people to be kind, helpful, and very friendly. No matter how much we butchered their language, no one scoffed at us or called us stupid Americans. I think its too bad that the French get a bad rap from most Americans.

I'll leave you with some more shots of the Eiffel Tower.

Au revoir!!!

Want to see more pictures of Paris?

Paris!

Under the Tuscan Sun

2006-07-13T11:47:00.000-07:00

Every year over 4th of July weekend, the base here always has a little festival. Its the usual fun & games for kids, softball, BBQs, and fireworks at night. But Susan and I decided we wanted to get away from all of that. We got together with a couple friends of ours, Cheryl and Vi, packed up our car with camping gear and headed south into the most famous region of Italy... Tuscany.

When most people think of Italy, the picture that forms in their mind is probably Tuscany. It is known for its rolling hills, olive trees, vineyards, sunflowers, and medieval towns and castles that has inspired artists and writers for centuries.

It takes us about 4 hours to drive there, and definitley worth the trip.

Susan found a campsite outside the city of Siena. So our plan was to camp there for two nights while we do some exploring of the old villages, and on Sunday we would head into the city of Siena for the climax of the trip - a horse race called the Palio... more on that later.

We arrived at the campsite on Saturday morning around 10am. After we pitched the tent we hopped back in the car and headed west into the Tuscan hills.

We had no real plan of where we were going, but we just thought we'd stop at any little towns that looked cool. Our first stop was in the tiny village called Monteriggioni. It is a medieval town fortified with a wall that still stands today and completely encircles the town. From the road, Monteriggioni looks really cool. It sits on the top of a small hill, the town church tower is the only thing that you can see over the old defensive wall. (Vi has some good pics I still need to get from her). It is a really cool thing to see from the road.

Susan and I standing in Monteriggioni with the hills behind us.

Monteriggioni is tiny, and I do mean TINY. I'm sure the average Wal-Mart store is bigger than this whole town.

But when we were there we were lucky enough to come upon a wedding being held in the town church.

Awww... Aren't they adorable?

The souvenir shop in Monteriggioni. THE ONLY souvenir shop in Monteriggioni.

After an average lunch in one of the 2 restaurants in Monteriggioni, we hit the road again. We followed the map and made a stop at a town called Volterra, another medieval town that is rich with history and set in a beautiful landscape surrounded my the hills.

We went into a little art gallery and made friends with this local artist. Her paintings were awesome, all acryllic or oil landscapes of Tuscany and she painted the frames too so that it looked like the scenes burst out of the frame. Vi and Cheryl made some purchases. Susan and I plan to make a return trip!

These are the ruins of an old Roman ampitheater right in the middle of Volterra.

One thing I wanted to do on this trip was a little hiking. We really didn't ever get much of a chance to do that, but we were able to take a walk outside the city limits of Volterra as we went in search of an old archaeological site not far from the town. (I read about it in a guidebook!)

The site is a necropolis from the Etruscan times. A necropolis is really nothing more than a grave or tomb, usually where important people were buried. The Etruscans were the people who lived in this region before the Romans. Did you get that? Before the Romans, so we're talking about over 2000 years ago! I guess you have to be into history for that to find that interesting, but I think its cool!

It took us about 45 minutes to walk from the outskirts of Volterra to this necropolis. On the way we passed lots of little houses, a beautifully kept cemetery, and ancient ruins built by the Etruscans. And of course the Tuscan countryside as a backdrop to everything made it all nicer.

Susan, Vi, and Cheryl inside the necropolis.

We finally reached a sign that pointed us up some old stone stairs and down a narrow little overgrown trail. The trail split and there were entrances to the tombs in either direction. It sure didn't look like it got many visitors. We arrived at an entrance, a set of old stone steps going down. I have to admit it was a little creepy. Since it was me and three girls, of course I had to go first! I took the first few steps and a out came about 80 flies. They were big, at first I thought they were bees. I pressed on and continued down.

The necropolis was like a small room with chambers that were used for the bodies. There were small electric lights mounted on the walls. Outside it must have been over 90 degrees, but down here it was nice and cool.

Even though I couldn't do any hiking, I was glad we took this little excursion. Its always fun to do a little Indiana Jones stuff!

That was enough of old dead people stuff. We walked back to Volterra and got back in the car. By this time it was close to 4 in the afternoon. We headed for our next stop, San Gimignano.

San Gimignano is a little bigger than Volterra, much bigger than Monteriggioni. We decided this would be a good place to have dinner and spend the evening.

As we walked the streets of San Gimignano Vi made friends with another local artist. He even hooked her up with some good deals on his work. People seemed to be so much friendlier down here. Maybe it was the small town atmosphere. But then again if you got to live among this scenery, I think it would be pretty easy to be happy all the time!

I sat at a sidewalk cafe and had a beer while the girls shopped for more art...

We wrapped up our Saturday night with a nice dinner at cool little pizzeria. We got a little lost on the way back to the campsite, but we made it. I slept like a log, hope I didn't snore too much!

SIENA

Sunday was the big day. The main reason we came on the trip. Every year Siena holds their big medieval festival. The highlight of the festival is a one-minute long fiasco of a horserace called the Palio. You may have heard of it since it is relativley famous as far as Italian medieval festivals go.

Siena is divided into 17 districts or "contrade". Each contrada has its representative animal and colors. Some are named after cool, scary animals like the ram, the wolf, and the dragon. But the funny thing is that some of them are named after things like the caterpillar, the seashell, the snail, and the goose.
As you walk through old Siena you see the flags of the contrade everywhere. As you move from one district to another and if you pay close attention, you will notice subtle symbolic reminders of which one you're in. The lamps on the buildings are sometimes in the shape of the animal. There are little stone designs on walls, and maybe a fountain with a statue of their animal too.

This is in the rhinoceros district. They are getting ready for the parade and the race.

Here is where the race happens. In the central town plaza. Not on a race track, right in the middle of the town! Granted it is bigger than the average town plaza, but still. They put together a makeshift path for the horses, bleachers, which cost close to $200 per seat encircle the track and a huge midsection is left in the middle. Its free to get in there so that's where we headed. Some people said you need to be in there four hours ahead of time, but it turned out that you can get in almost right before the parade starts.

Here I am donning the colors of the Elephant district. (its actually called the Tower district, but their flag has an elephant on it)

Susan picked the dragon district!

Here is the parade. All the districts brought out their horse escorted by guys dressed in medieval costumes. They were throwing their flags into the air, you've probably seen pictures of that before.

This is the band that played during the parade. They only knew one song, and they played it over and over...
This is what the plaza looked like right before the race.
Here is the parade finishing up.

So hours and hours of waiting and watching all the pagentry all led up to the big race. Finally all the horses were in place and the chaos began. The race is three laps around the track. As the horses came around the first sharp turn, three or four horses lost their footing and crashed into a padded wall. The jockeys flew off their horses. Dust is flying everywhere. The rest of the horses race past the crash site and continue on the path. The jockey-less horses keep running.

We heard that the horse wins the race, not the jockey, so they let the horses go on even if their jockey's fall off.

The horse from the Eagle district was in the lead the whole second lap. They came around the same sharp turn again, but this time, no crash. The Eagle horse had a good lead and it looked like his jockey got too comfortable. Because at the very last moment, the Panther horse made his move and tried to pass the Eagle horse. The two jockeys were hitting each other and the other horse with their sticks!

It was down to the wire, and at the last second the Panther horse won! The celebration started. Fans raced towards the wining horse, they were yelling and shouting praise for their horse. They were pulling the jockey off in a dozen directions, it looked like they were gonna rip him apart.

The Eagle fans were crying.

The whole thing was over in no more than 90 seconds.

Now that the craziness was over, we walked around the city and enjoyed the celebrations. Every contrada has a feast. The Panther contrada was so crowded we couldn't even walk down the street. Yes, the streets of Siena were one big party that night. It was really something to see.

We hit a few local bars and watched a live band play. We ended the night by walking to a few cafes and gelato stands and watched the replay of the race over and over again. Then it was back to the campsite for our last night in the tent.

The next day was Monday and as soon as we woke up we packed up our tent and jumped back in the car. We drove about one hour to the east to a little lake called Trasimeno. We got a hotel in great little town on the shores of the lake called Passignano.

Passignano is another old little village with a medieval castle on a hill. There were some nice restaurants and bars right on the lake.

We spent all day Monday relaxing on the lake. We rented a canoe and paddled around the lake, we laid in the sun on the sandy beach. A quiet dinner and a good nights sleep in a comfy bed was exactly what we needed to end the trip.

Tuesday we woke up and drove back home. Oh yeah, it was the 4th of July, wasn't it? I hadn't thought about it once.

Our Crazy Cat

2006-07-12T04:15:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd take some time to share the story of our furriest family member, our cat, Samadhi. I've always been more of a dog person, but I don't mind cats. And considering that we live in a second floor apartment and we have no fenced-in yard, a dog isn't the best fit.

Last winter, one of my friends was getting ready to leave Italy and separate from the Air Force. He had a cat that he needed to get rid of. I figured that we could use a nice house pet, so I took the cat.

He told me that he hadn't had the cat very long, he got her from a friend but he didn't know how the cat had been treated before he got her. He said she was really afraid of people, and ususally spent all day in hiding. But once in awhile she'd come out and be friendly.

My friend never really had a name for her. So we named her 'Samadhi'. It is a Sanskrit word that means to establish or make whole. It is also a term that means a higher state of conciousness in Buddhist and Hindu religions as well as in yoga. And I think its a cool name for a cat!

At first, Samadhi was naturally afraid of her new surroundings. But after a few weeks of hiding under a futon, she got comfortable with Susan and I. She started to come out and play with us all the time. She'd chase little things all over the floor. She started sleeping in our room at the foot of our bed. But she was still deathly afraid of strangers. Whenever we had visitors she would run and hide under a bed somewhere.

We took her to the vet, got her checked out and her shots updated and all that. The vet said she was a healthy cat. They couldn't tell us how old she was but she seemed pretty young because she was pretty active and always running around the house. For the first 6-9 months we had her, she was an indoor cat She was petrified to go near our front door. Lots of strange noises out there!

When autumn came around we noticed that she liked to go out on our balcony and watch the birds in the trees. She would even walk along the balcony railing and scare the crap out of Susan and I becuase a few times it looked like she almost fell.

NIGHTSTALKER
One night, at around 4 in the morning I woke up to some weird noise. It sounded like our cat was chewing on something. I got up and looked through my half-open eyes at Samadhi sitting there eating what looked like a large, dead, black, birdlike animal. I turned on the light, and due to my drowsy state, I still had trouble making out what it was. I decided (probably against better judgement) to pick the thing up for a closer examination.

My first thought was, "Wow". It was a bat. A half eaten bat. The head was half eaten. One wing was gone. I could barely tell what it was. It must have been flying around one of our windows we leave open when the weather is nice. Poor creature...

Samadhi sat there with her bright blue eyes staring at me, begging for it back.

Considering that it was 4 in the morning and I had to get up for work in a couple hours, I really didn't feel like dealing with this situation. Again, against better judgement, I tossed the mangled bat back on the floor and said "enjoy your meal". Samadhi lunged for it and continued her early breakfast. I went back to sleep.

The next morning, it looked like nothing ever happened. There was no mess whatsoever. Gotta love that about cats. The only eveidence of the fiasco was a little broken piece of batwing. It was the part that looks kinda like an arm that the wing attaches to. I picked it up and threw it in the garbage. When we got home from work that day, that same little arm was back on the floor. The garbage can had been knocked over. The trash had been spread all over the room in our cat's attempt to reclaim her only remaining trophy of her prized kill.

SUNDAY MORNING CRAZINESS
A few days after the bat incedent, Samadhi brought another episode of excitement into our apartment. This time it was a Sunday morning. We slept late, late for us is like 9am.

I was lying half awake in bed and heard some racket in the living room. I got out of bed to go check it out and in comes Samadhi strutting into our room with a little bird in her mouth. The bird was still alive and fluttering its wings trying to escape. Apparently Samadhi had no intention of killing the bird, I guess she just wanted to play with it and show off her catch.

But this time I decided to side with the bird and try to take our kitty's prize away. I picked up the cat to take her out to the balcony, but the bird fell out of her mouth and onto the ground. So I put the cat down to get the bird. But the cat was quicker than I was and she snatches up the bird again. DOH! I grab the cat again and head towards the door, the bird still fluttering in Samadhi's jaws. I''m almost to the open door and the bird breaks free and flies out back into the tree. Samadhi is back on the balcony railing just staring at that bird who got away.

Not 2 seconds later, ANOTHER bird flies into the house through the open balcony door! What the hell is going on this morning??? Samadhi bounds off the balcony and proceeds to chase this bird around our living room while Susan and I just stood there helplessly watching and laughing at the craziness. After about 3 laps around our living room, the bird flew back out the door and the cat had to watch her prey get away again.

HOW TO TRAIN A CAT
I don't really know much about cats. So I usually assume they're pretty much like dogs.

After all these animals that our cat had been chasing around, I started wondering if she might like to go outside. So I figured the first step would be to get her used to being outside. So one day I picked her up and walked down our apartment's stairwell to the little courtyard outside our building. She was squirming trying to get away, she was still scared to be outside of our apartment.

But when I got her down there and set her on the ground, she just froze and stood there looking around. She looked at me like, "what the hell am I supposed to do out here?"

I could tell she was scared so I took her back inside.

The next day I did the same thing again. This time she was a little more willing to explore her surroundings. She walked around for few minutes before she looked like she'd had enough. The next time I took her down, I set her down on the steps in the stairwell and made her follow me down part way. When she got outside, I started walking around and she followed me everywhere I went. So I grabbed a book and sat down on the outside stairs in our courtyard and let her play in the grass. She was really starting to like her new surroundings. We stayed out there for almost 2 hours before I got tired and brought her back in.

After only a few days of taking her outside, Samadhi seemed like she was ready to be on her own. I started jingling my keys right before I took her out in the hopes that she would start associating the sound with going outside - kinda like a dog. I had no idea if it would work.

Samadhi got used to the stairwell and she walked down the stairs on her own now. And when she got outside, she leaped right out and into the grass of the courtyard. I decided it was time to leave her on her own for a bit, so while she was busy exploring some shrubbery, I went back inside. I came to check on her after an hour or so and she was still in the same area just having a great time playing in the dirt and grass. I left her again for another hour, and then an hour after that. When she was finally ready to come back in she was so tired she went to her little blanket and fell asleep for the rest of the evening.

After that point, Samadhi was an outdoor kitty. We would leave her out there for hours and when we'd go to check on her she'd come bounding out of some bush and follow us up the stairs. Her normal schedule was to be outside for 3-4 hours in the evening and then back inside for the night.

During the last winter, she would only stay outside for a few hours at a time. But when spring rolled around and the weather got nicer, Samadhi couldn't get enough of the outdoors. Anytime she heard the keys jingle she would run to the front door and wait for us to open it. Now that summer is here she stays outside all day and sometimes all night. She'll come in to eat, drink, and maybe for an occasional nap or for some attention from Susan and I.

And since she's been going outside, there have been no more bat or bird incidents!

RISK MANAGEMENT
Ok, sorry to bore you with all that. But I had to give you some background information so I could get to the real story.

So now that Samadhi is pretty much an outdoor cat, we found ourselves with another problem.

We travel. We are gone almost every weekend.

I know cats can fend for themselves, but we really don't like leaving her outside for more than a day. Especially now with the summer heat.

So when we went to France for a weekend we left her in the apartment with plenty of food and water. We leave a couple windows open and also the balcony door is cracked open so she can get to her litter box.

When we got back on Sunday night, she was nowhere in the house. We went looking for her outside, and out she came, running towards us from some shrubs.

How did she get out? We live on the second floor?

We are assuming she jumped out a window or leaped onto a tree branch and climbed down. I was afraid she might have been hurt, but she wasn't hurt at all. She was totally fine. It looked like she'd eaten plenty of her food. So she probably waited awhile before she decided to try to escape the empty aprtment.

The next weekend we went camping for 4th of July weekend. As we were walking out to take our stuff down to the car, Samadhi was trying to sneak out the front door. We had to grab her and put her in a bedroom. As we were getting in the car, we heard her sad meowing from the open window. She was sitting in the window watching us leave and meowing as if to ask us to please let her out! Poor kitty. We were gone almost four full days.

When we got back on Tuesday afternoon, she was outside again. Again not injured. And again her food was eaten so she must have stayed in for a couple days before she jumped out.

I started wondering what goes through a cat's mind when they're deciding if they want to jump out of a window?

I figure she stays inside and sulks for a day or two. Then eventually thinks, "screw this, I'm so outta here!"

I wonder if she thinks we're not coming back. Or maybe she expects us back in a day or two. Maybe two days is her max. After that she just can't resist the excitment of the grass, trees, bushes, dirt, birds, and bugs of the great outdoors.

In any case, she must be using some form of risk management. Her mind must go through some sort of risk assemsment. Does she weigh the risk of jumping out a window? At what point does the benefit of jumping outweigh the risk of possibly getting hurt?

I can't help but wonder.

But I think Susan and I have been good first time cat owners. We took in this cat that was afraid of everything. And now she's brave enough to stay outside day and night and even jump out windows to do it!

Like I said, I've never really been a cat person. But Samadhi has brought lots of joy into our house. She's made us laugh countless times and she's always happy to see us when we get home from work or a vacation.

If anyone knows anything about cats, we're still learning - so we're all ears to any tips.

And can anyone out there tell me what kind of cat she is? She's looks sort of like a Persian I think. We've been told maybe she's a Himalayan. Any other ideas?

The French Riviera

2006-07-11T14:41:00.000-07:00

About three weeks ago, Susan and I hopped on a bus and rode about 5 hours across the Italian/French border and into the city of Nice, France.

This was an overnight bus ride and we had several friends on the bus with us. We rolled into Nice (pronounced Neece, in case you didn't know!) around 0600 on Saturday. Most everyone else stayed on the bus to go take a tour of some perfume factory, but Susan and I were all about hitting the beach. So we jumped off the bus near the airport, and started walking down the street towards the center of town.

We didn't know how far it was, but we didn't really care. I think we ended up walking a good 2 miles along the beach.

The street along the beach was lined with lost of nice houses and apartment buildings.

This is where we spent most of that Saturday. It was 0900 when we got to this point and the day was already pretty warm. We decided to splurge and pay the 14 Euro for each chair.

14 Euro is about USD $18-20. Normally I'd say no way I'm paying that much for a beach chair. But I have to say they were worth every cent! These are the most comfortable beach chairs in the world!

I think I fell asleep within 20 minutes of laying down. I woke up about an hour later to notice that I was already starting to burn. And it wasn't even 1100 yet!

Saturday night we spent checking out the nightlife of Nice. I have to say it is a pretty cool place. Lots of diversity in food. Lots of little bars and cafes. A huge casino in the middle of town. And of course, the blue waters of the Mediterranean. Not a bad place to spend a Saturday.

Susan and I managed to eat sushi, Mexican food, Lebanese food, and then finally met up with our friends at a Thai place.

After dinner we walked found our way into a cool bar that had a live band playing. After several beers and a few shots, all I can say is that I think they were pretty good!

This is a view from a high point on the outskirts of Nice. This pic was taken on our way out of Nice on our way to Monte Carlo.

And here is another great shot ot a little town between Nice and Monte Carlo.

And this is Monte Carlo. One of the newer parts of town.

Here is the main harbor in the city of Monte Carlo. These were some of the most impressive yachts I'd ever seen. One yacht even had a helicopter sitting on it. I think everybody was driving a Benz. Where do these people get their money?

I don't even remember where this was.

Monte Carlo and Monaco were filled with these really nice houses. Lush gardens and vegetation everywhere.

And here is the ritzy area right in front of the casino in Monte Carlo. A few of our friends went in to gamble and one of them actually came out with an additional 250 Euro.

We spent the afternoon in Monaco, watched the overrated and unimpressive changing of the guard in front of the residence of the royal family. And had lunch at a cool little restaurant in the old part of town.

After lunch we walked around a bit more, then we got back on the bus that afternoon. We were back home in Sacile by 10pm Sunday night.

What a beautiful place the French Riviera is. I guess you can say you've made it in life if you can ever manage to live there!

How Things Work in the US Air Force

2006-07-06T05:17:00.000-07:00

Just in case you thought your hard-earned tax dollars are being efficiently spent, here's a little picture that will illustrate the reality:

The Cinque Terre

2006-06-27T14:02:00.000-07:00

This one's gonna make you real jealous...

Cinque Terre means "the 5 lands". They are 5 little villages that sit along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in northern Italy. These villages are very remote and hard to reach by car. There are walking trails that link them all together and the thing to do is to hike from village to village.

Susan and I took a weekend and drove to the city of Rapallo which is near these 5 villages. We stayed in Rapallo Friday night and planned to start our hiking trip on Saturday morning.

Our hotel in Rapallo was very close to the harbor and there were a few little canals that ran through the city where lots of little fishing boats sat.

This is an old Roman bridge in Rapallo that was about 50 meters from our hotel door. I thought it was cool.

We spent Friday night checking out the city cause Rapallo isn't all that big, but compared to all the little villages around it, it seems like a thriving metropolis. We hit a couple bars, a wine and snack place that was right on the pebbly beach, you know, the usual.

On Saturday we started our hike. The first village, Monterosso was beautiful.

The beach in Monterosso.

This trail lead from Monterosso to Vernazza. This was not an easy hike. The trail takes you high up into the mountain and through vineyards and lemon tree groves. In the background you can see the Mediterranean Sea.

Here we are after about 3 hours of hiking got us to the third village.

This is the last of the 5 villages, Riomaggiore.

For the return trip, we took a boat back to Monterosso. Here is a view of one of the villages.

Another view from the boat.

This is in one of the villages. I thought it was really neat how the residents just kept their little fishing boats right on the street!

This is another view from the trails.

So we ended up doing about 8 hours of hiking and we were pretty wore out at the end of the day. We took the train back from Monterosso to Rapallo and spent the night there again. Saturday night was pretty interesting. We enjoyed the worst pizza I've ever had in Italy. This was also the night that Italy was playing the USA in the World Cup. As we sat and choked down our pizza, we watched the Italian fans scoff at the 1-1 tie. As soon as that game was over, the streets were clear and calm. The bars were empty. Restaurants started shutting their doors. It was like it was such a disgrace to tie the USA. To them, it was a loss. Hahaha, I had to laugh!

On Sunday we got another early start and headed up the coast to the famous resort town of Portofino.

Portofino is a beautiful and tiny little village. But as you can see by the yachts, there might be a few rich people there!

A small street in Portofino on an early Sunday afternoon.

More boats in the harbor.

And this is a little beach right outside of Portofino we passed on our way out of town.

This was a great way to spend a weekend. And if you didn't already hate me for living in Italy, I'm sure you do now!

Funny cause its true!

2006-06-07T01:19:00.000-07:00

1. Except for the Air Force, the military draft never ended following the Vietnam War. Members of the other U.S. Armed Services were forced to enlist. How else can you explain why Soldiers, Marines and Sailors are so upset that Airmen are treated so well? They obviously would have been smart enough to join the Air Force, too, had they had a choice. That damn draft!

2. When a Soldier or Marine asks how long your deployment is, it is not appropriate for an Airman to answer: "Six months sucker!"

3. You have to admire Soldiers and Marines for spending an entire year away from their families. But after hearing their constant complaints about Airmen deploying for only four months or six months, it gets real old, real fast. Here are a couple of my favorite comebacks when asked why Airmen have shorter deployments: "Because an Airman can do the same job in half the time," or, "We get six months off for good behavior," or, when they catch me in an especially rotten mood, "You joined the wrong service dumb ass, get over it already," or "Your wife’s fat and ugly, are you gonna blame me for that, too?"

4. "Joint operations" would run so much smoother if you removed "the few and the proud," "an organization of one" and anything that "runs deep."

5. That little pocket on the side of the new Air Force PT shorts is a great place for my lighter! They need to give me a bigger one of the other side so I don’t have to carry my cigarettes while I’m jogging.

6. The requirement to wear either the Desert Combat Uniform or the Air Force physical fitness uniform in a deployed environment is a conspiracy by senior officers who want to get saluted on and off duty.

7. Many male service members are issued beer goggles in their deployment gear.

8. No matter how much you try to rationalize it when you get home, you still nailed an ugly chick while you were deployed … and then bragged about it.

9. In some strange way, having access to a Burger King, a Baskin Robbins and a specialty coffee shop makes up for all the mortar and rocket attacks.

10. During daylight hours, U.S. Army helicopters are technologically advanced, highly tuned killing machines; when they’re screaming over your hooch at 1 a.m., 2 a.m. and again at 3:30 a.m., they turn into annoyingly loud, supped-up lawnmowers.

11. Military leaders decided to protect deployed service members from dangerous insect-borne diseases by having them dowse their combat uniforms with a highly concentrated insect repellant. Unfortunately, most of the insects come out at night when military members are wearing their unprotected fitness uniforms. Yeah, a lot of thought when into that one.

12. Between maintenance delays, passenger terminal problems and other miscellaneous blunders, a seven-hour flight from Baltimore to Ramstein Air Base, Germany, is actually less attractive than a 14-hour-long dental procedure.

13. Female service members – no matter where they rank on the evolutionary chain -- are always the center of attention in a deployed environment.

14. A female service member’s self esteem becomes noticeably higher the closer they are to a deployed environment.

15. The "e" in Army stands for "efficiency."

16. Some Soldiers who read this might feel good about No. 15, so let me clarify … it’s spelled A-R-M-Y, not A-R-M-E-E.

17. When an Army or Marine Corps officer makes a bad decision, he will not admit it. Instead, he immediately changes the policy so that it mirrors his bad decision, thus making his decision correct.

Easter Weekend in Barcelona

2006-05-28T02:28:00.000-07:00

I know I'm a loser for taking so long to share these pics, but as you have read from a few of my last posts, things have been a little busy for me lately.

So, I'm taking advantage of Memorial Day Weekend to write about my Easter weekend...

As you drive east from Zaragoza ro Barcelona, the scenery changes drastically from desert to green hills and fields.

Along the way, you see several of these giant bulls up on the mountains. They're like big signs that I assume are to show the Spanish love and respect of the bulls.

When we arrived in Barcelona we headed to the harbor.

Walking the streets of Barcelona reminded me of many Italian cities. The small alleys and narrow winding corridors. Laundry hanging from windows.

Our first night in Barcelona took us to an area of town that I swear never slept. I know this picture isn't that great, but the point of it is that it was taken at about 3 o'clock in the morning and there were still plenty of people out partying, eating, and drinking.

Here are some pics from the Flamenco Dancing show. (see previous post)

This show was so cool, it inspired me to create an entire photo album for it alone.

The second day in Barcelona found us doing a little more exploring. This church was near our hotel. A gem that was hidden among the windy streets.

This is a street full of shops and boutiques selling all kinds of stuff.

The narrow streets were full of tourists. I think I heard dozens of different languages being spoken.
Some areas were very reminicsent of Rome, Florence, or even New Orleans.

Another random church as seem from an alley.

Here is one of the houses in a quiter area of town.

La Rambla, the most famous street in Barcelona.

La Rambla was overrun with visitors. If I were a local I would stay away from here as much as possible!

Another nice quiet neighborhood, far away from tourists!

The Sagrada Familia, an incredible work of architechture.

Designed by the famous Spanish architecht, Gaudi, this church was unlike any other I've seen in all of Europe.

The neo-gothic design looks very unique and even a little creepy.

Sculpture was all over it.

This is the view from a park that sits across the street.

The Beach!!!! Too bad the April air kept the Mediterranean water a little chilly.

Now, here is where I would have inserted pictures from our adventurous Saturday night in Barcelona. I would have shown the Irish pub we stayed at until it closed at 3am. I would have shown the two coolest bartenders in Spain, Nicole and Vinanya (sp?). I would have showed the after hours bar they took us to, the English guys we made friends with, the crowded pool table in the bar, and the cocky Spanish guy that thought he owned the pool table and who I almost beat!

But, the problem is that I was having such a good time, I never even thought about taking any pictures. So you'll just have to use your imagination.

Normally I wouldn't have shared so many pics of the drive home, but I thought these were pretty cool. You can see another bull sign in the mountains near an old village and castle.

Next stop... Zaragoza.

See you next time!

The 2 Air Forces

2006-05-25T05:55:00.000-07:00

The Air Force is not exactly what I expected it to be. Before I joined, many people told me what they thought or heard about the Air Force. Some said it would be easy. Some said it would be undicsiplined. Some said it was where all the smart people go.

I have discovered that none of those statements are 100% true. In some ways, we are very dicsiplined. Sometimes, life is far from easy. The military is a cross-section of society, so every type of personality is here. There are some extremely bright, motivated, and incredible people I serve with. But there are also some that represent the worst aspects of America. There are dumb people, ignorant people, fat people, arrogant people, lazy people, sexists, racists, biggots, and flat-out idiots.

When I realized this, I recognized that my previous image of the military was not accurate. We are not necessarily the cream of the crop, or the the best America has to offer. To me it seems that there are 2 distinct different Air Forces. It is up to the individual to decide which Air Force they belong to.

They say the more effort you put in to something, the more you'll get out of it. Nowhere is that more applicable than in the Air Force. The Air Force is totally what you make of it. If you want it to make the most out of your life, the Air Force will give you the path to do just that. If you want to be challenged, you will be. If you want to have opportunities that no other employer could match, if you want to become a well-rounded, educated, well-traveled individual with years of life experiences that few others could imagine; then the Air Force, or any other branch of the military is the place for you.

On the other hand, if you are looking for a hand-holder, someone watching over your shoulder to make sure you don't screw up too bad, a crutch to lean on so you don't have to do any real work, or a job that pays you to do the bear minimum to get by; then you too can also be a member of the US Military.

I hate the fact that it's like that but it is.

A good friend of mine who I was stationed with in Korea (yeah I'm talking about you Ernst!) said something that I'll never forget. He said if you want to have a successfull career in the Air Force, all you have to do is have a good uniform, shiny boots, and show up on time.

He was right. CJ was not one of those people who did that, but he was smart enough to see the reality.

I like to think I'm in the first group. As cheesy as it sounds, I actually have pride in my Air Force. I want us to be the best of the best.

Some of the things we do that are routine to us, would make you proud to be an American. We can accomplish things that most other countries wouldn't even try. We can overcome immense obstacles while being undermanned, underfunded, and unappreciated. We might bitch about it when its happening, but then brag about it later.

I think things are too lenient in the Air Force sometimes. I think people get away with too much. And I have found many others that feel the same as I do. So have faith America! We will do everything in our power to push the slackers out!!!

After a rough week at work, I had to vent a little. And this is probably as close as I'll ever get to bitching about my job. Thanks for listening!

Tests, Trips, and Tribulations

2006-05-18T01:12:00.000-07:00

Since I've been back from Spain, it seems that I just haven't had time to get caught up on anything! Since blogging is not the highest thing on my to-do list, I am very behind on stories. Especially considering that it has now been over a month since our weekend in Barcelona and I still haven't been able to get those pics organized!!!

In any case, here are some of the highlights of my 3 weeks since I've been back in Italy (in no particular order):

I tested for promotion. I'll find out in August if I get to sew on a new stripe.

I took my final exam for my wireless telecommunications class. Got an A on the test, and a B in the class. Good enough for me.

I finally received my Associates in Applied Science degree in Electronic Systems Technology from the Community College of the Air Force. It's about freakin time since I've been in college classes for like 10 years!

My friends, CJ and Forrest came to visit us from Fort Worth. We had a great time showing them around Italy. We went to see a soccer game in Milan, and spent some time in Venice and our local area. They also travelled down to Rome and Siena on their own. Pics from their visit are also forthcoming...

I've spent seemingly countless hours replacing car batteries. You see, I was entrusted to be the caretaker of 3 of my buddies' cars while they were away in Iraq/Qatar. Unfortunatley for me, all 3 of them had apparently sat idle for too long and their batteries died. I've got one more car to finish up and 4 days to do it before the owner gets back!

My wife, Susan, left a few days ago for the states. She'll be there for a couple weeks to visit family and go to our friend Heather's wedding in South Carolina. Wish I could have gone with her. But instead at least I get to live like a bachelor for a little while. Its funny how all those veggies in the fridge seem to slowly morph into beer and microwavable pizzas.

So what's there to do this weekend? If weather permits, me and some friends will be on a beach on the Adriatic coast drinking granitas with rum and watching fat hairy guys in speedos try to pick up topless fat hairy women. Ummm,... ok that last part doesn't sound so great.

BULLFIGHT!!!

2006-05-08T04:09:00.000-07:00

It was our last weekend in Spain and we had bought our tickets to the bullfight in advance becasue I couldn't wait to see it. Fair warning to anyone who likes animals... you may not like this story. Yes, the bulls die.

We saw 3 matadors. Each matador fought 2 bulls. None of the bulls had any chance. To call this a bullfight is not quite correct. The matadors always win. Everyone knows this.

You realize this is the case when you see that the matador does not fight the bull alone. He has help, lots of help. There are about 6 assistant matadors and 3 guys with spears on blindfolded horses that 'weaken' the bull before the matador even starts. By the time the matador actually starts 'fighting' the bull, the bull has been stabbed at least 6-10 times. Not exactly a fair fight.

You have to understand that the Spanish culture is quite different from ours. The Spanish have lots of respect for bulls. It is considered honorable for a bull to die in a bullfight. I guess its better than being run through a slaughter house. I knew all of this already, but it was still pretty disturbing when we watched the first bull be killed right in front of our eyes.

This first matador was named Pablo Hermoso de Mendoza, he is one of the top matadors in Spain. He is one of the few matadors that fights the bull on horseback. It was such an amazing thing to watch. This guy was so in sync with his horses. The horse would taunt the bull, almost like he was mocking the bull. The horse would juke the bull, dance around the bull, and was always one step ahead.

This is Cayetano. He was a showman. He is not a full-fledged matador yet. So he has to be more flashy, flamboyant, and take more risks because he's working his way up.

Here is Mendoza again. You can see how close the bull comes to catching the horse.

Cayetano again. This guy was pretty amazing. It was just like how you see in pictures. The stances, the outfits, the cape and sword.

Here is one of the assistant matadors. They are pretty good themselves.

So we saw 6 bulls get killed in cold blood. The first one was pretty uncomfortable to watch. I found myself routing for the bulls. I guess you get desensitized after a while. These bulls are raised on farms specifically to die in the bull ring. Once you realize that the bull's purpose in life is to die in the ring, I guess it gets a little easier to accept.

As always, I have LOTS more pictures of this. I didn't put many on here because of all the blood and death. But if you're into that kind of thing, and/or want to get a really good impression of what the whole thing was like, I have a link to more pics and video below.

BULLFIGHT!!!

Catching Up

2006-05-07T15:54:00.000-07:00

So, I'm way behind on my blogging. I've been back from Spain for over a week now. My friends, CJ and Forrest are visiting from Texas, and we all went to see a soccer game in Milan. And I'm just now getting around to editing pictures from Zaragoza, Barcelona, and most importantly, the bullfight!

Stay tuned for some very cool pics...

Spanish Flare

2006-04-20T06:11:00.000-07:00

I finally got to see one of those things I never thought I would. Flamenco dancing in Spain. It was truly one of the coolest things I've seen in Europe. It was one of those things that words can't describe, so I'll let you enjoy the pictures.

If you want to see more pics and some video clips, click the link below.

Flamenco Dancing

That's no Easter Bunny

2006-04-20T02:10:00.000-07:00

Please read before you look at the pictures!!!!!!!

Easter in Zaragoza. The strong religious faith of this country really shows itself at this time of year. As a bunch of Americans here in Spain during the holy week preceding Easter, most of us had no idea how the Spaniards celebrate this holiday.

I think I first heard the drums on Tuesday night around 2100 (9pm for you civilian types). Beating drums that sounded like they were just down the street. "What the hell?", I thought. My roommate and I looked out the window to the dark street below and saw nothing unusual, but still heard the drumming, and it was getting louder.

It sounded like marching drums like what we always used to march to in basic military training. "BOOM!" BOOM!" "BOOM!" We headed downstairs to the hotel lobby.

There were handfuls of people here and there and standing outside on the street. We walked out the door and into the warm breezy night. Down the street by the old church, the Iglesia de Santiago, we saw what it was all about.

Pointed hoods. Hundreds of them. Beating drums. Marching down the street into the church. To an American growing up in the south, this sort of sight sent fear and hate running through you. But of course, thankfully that's not what this was. This is how the Spanish celebrate their most important holiday...

Even though there were lots of people in the streets watching, nobody made any noise. The only sound was the sound of the drums. When they stopped playing the drums, you could hear other drums from another procession happening across town.

As the marchers past by, you could tell that there were all kinds of people under those hoods. Men, women and children.

Every night at 9pm you could hear the drums start beating in the streets. Each night, the hoods were different colors. Each color represents a different church, a different station of the cross, or something like that.

Every procession carries a big float that represents a moment from the life of Jesus.

Some of the marchers carried burning incense, filling the street with its scent.

Some processions had many colors represented. As the week went on, the processions got bigger and bigger. By Thursday night, this procession lasted over an hour.

Even though, we all knew this wasn't about the Klan or racism in any way, it was still a pretty crazy thing to see.

Zaragoza Air Base, April 2006

2006-04-10T05:48:00.000-07:00

One of the coolest things about these temporary duty assignments is that they let us Comm guys get a little closer to the action than normal.

These top two pictures were taken at the air traffic control tower here on the base. You can see the F-16s sitting on the runway getting ready for takeoff...

I took the third picture while I was riding in a truck that was towing this F-16 after it had gone through some engine testing. And the last one is me on one of my "days off", when I came in to work. Sometimes it seems like there's a lot of those...

Pictures from Zaragoza

2006-04-09T12:49:00.000-07:00

Now that things have finally settled down here at work in Zaragoza, we've found a little time to relax and enjoy some of the finer points of Spanish life.

Walking around the town is one of the nicest things to do.

We've been lucky enough to have wonderful weather for most of the time we've been here. It's a little chilly in the mornings but it gets nice and warm in the afternoon.

This city is full of little plazas, parks, fountains, and sidewalk cafes.

Zaragoza is the perfect city for sitting outside and having a snack or a drink.

Most of the buildings in the town are not as old as buildings in Italy. But you still see some old castles and castles here and there.

More pics to come later...

A Weekend in Spain... Sort of

2006-04-02T00:23:00.000-08:00

Have you been busy lately? I have!

The last few days have been filled with non-stop work. Finally Sunday comes and we get a day off! After 3 full days of 12-14 hours of work that start at 6:30 am, it sure feels good to sleep as late as you want and not have anything to do all day. All I really want to do is rest and take it easy.

That being said, we still made time to go out and check out the scene at night. Zaragoza is full of life after dark. There are all kinds of people out enjoying the restaurants, bars, and pubs. At midnight you could see a group of old ladies sitting in a tapas bar drinking a bottle of wine, a mom and dad walking with their children eating ice cream, a group of twenty-somethings on their way to a disco... Almost everything stays open late, but I'm not sure how late because we're usually too exhausted to stay and find out!

Being in Spain really makes me realize how much Italian I know. The languages are similar but not that similar. In Italy I can order food, ask for things, and generally get around without much language trouble. But since I've been here everything is more of a struggle. Almost nobody here speaks English. I wish I would have paid more attention when I was a kid and my mom would yell at me in Spanish!

So Monday its back to work. Maybe for my next post, I'll actually have a weekend to speak of...

A Month in Spain...

2006-03-25T09:46:00.000-08:00

So here I am in Spain. Got here on Thursday. I'll be here for the whole month of April.

Sounds great right? The catch is - I have to work. What a bummer. But its not all bad. I'm pretty sure we'll have a little time to have some fun and do some travelling.

I'm in the city of Zaragoza which they say is the most interesting thing between Madrid and Barcelona. This part of Spain looks kinda like the high desert. Lots of dry brush and sand and gravel. Out in the distance in every direction there are mesas surrounding the city.

The City of Zaragoza is larger than I expected. Very bustling, lots of people, lots of tapas bars, pubs, and restaurants. A little shopping too. And driving the streets? Hang on for dear life, my friends!
I'm here with about 20 other people in support of a training exercise. In about a week or so there'll be a lot more Americans crawling around this town. Me and one other guy are responsible for setting up all the communications for the whole site. Yes, a pretty daunting task is ahead of us. I see some long days in our future!

So you may not hear from me all that frequently. But I hope to have some pictures of this place posted eventually. One of my first tasks will be to find some Flamenco dancing!!!

Bad Gastein, Austria

2006-03-14T11:49:00.000-08:00

Okay stop laughing. That's really the name of the town, I promise!

Susan and I, along with a few of our friends took a weekend trip up to Bad Gastein, Austria for a little snowboarding (for the dudes) and spa/sauna (for the chicks).

Now if you've read any of my other posts, you'll realize that I like snowboarding, but I'm not very good at it. Still a beginner, still learning.

Since I grew up in Texas, snowboarding, or for that matter - snow at all was not something familiar to me. Its only been since I've been stationed here in Italy, living right at the foot of the Alps that I've really found out that I love the mountains.

I knew this would probably be my last boarding trip of the year, so I wanted to enjoy a little mountain village that I'd never been to before. And as any other time you drive up to Austria, you better be ready for some winter weather - no matter the time of year.

The drive took about 3 or 4 hours. This town was located about 1000m above sea level. As you drive towards it, eventually you stop at another town and put your car onto a train. The train takes you through a 15 minute tunnel up to Bad Gastein. I guess the roads are just too dangerous to drive in the winter.

It was a really nice place. Apparently its one of the biggest resorts in Austria, they've got runs that go on forever. The weather was pretty cold. it was mostly overcast so you couldn't really see the tops of the mountains 2600 meters up. At the top the weather was flat nasty! Windy, snowy, and bitter cold. There were times when you couldn't even see the trail you were on. Still, as a learning snowboarder, I pretty much held my own. Didn't take any falls that were too nasty. And I only went off the runs once -- But that was enough for me because I ended up sinking almost 3 feet into the snow. I had to roll myself down to the run. If you could have seen me, you'd have fallen down laughing. Luckily my friends didn't see it!

It snowed almost all day Saturday. We boarded for a good 5 or 6 hours while the ladies checked out the co-ed naked spas... (yeah, that's right, co-ed AND naked) but that's not my story to tell! You'll have to ask Susan about that one!

Saturday night we went out to a few of the local pubs and hit a good restaurant. A good time was had by all!

Sunday we hit the slopes again but this time it was only 3 hours before I was ready to call it quits. I was ready to head home after a late lunch.

The drive home seemed a lot quicker than the drive up there. But it turned out to be a great weekend.
I've only got one more weekend here before I head to Spain for the whole month of April. I'm pretty sure I won't be snowboarding there!

When does a beer taste the best?

2006-03-06T07:37:00.000-08:00

I opened up MSN.com and saw this quote in an article about skiing:

"Never, ever does beer taste better than after a day of “skiing.” It’s not just a drink, it’s a bronze medal."

After Saturday, I think I might have to agree. Me and a couple friends went up to the closest Ski spot to the base, Piancavallo. Its pretty small and easy, so its perfect for beginners and people recovering from injuries like myself.

Now, since Lent started last week, I had decided that I was going to TRY to give up beer. Then I remembered how much I enjoy a good brew after I get done boarding. So I changed my mind and decided to give up wine for 40 days instead. Don't get me wrong, I love a good merlot, but wine and I just don't have the history and the relationship...

So after we finish up our boarding and head into the nearest lodge/restaurant, we sit down and get settled. My basic instinct kicked in and I felt it was time for a beer. I knew I was going to have to drive down the mountain again so I knew I could only have one. And they had Lowenbrau on draft! Perfect.

So it made me ask myself, would it be any easier to go without beer in the summertime? I don't know. What about when you're at the beach? Or after playing softball? What about if you're at a baseball game? What do you think?

I guess for me, there are certain times when it just feels natural to be holding a beer. After a day of boarding in the Alps, sitting in a lodge in the valley with some friends, eating some goulash and wienerschnitzel (cause that's what they serve over here, and its awesome!)... nothing goes down easier.

Another week in the Air Force

2006-03-05T13:00:00.000-08:00

Well, the week is about to start. Looks like it'll be a busy one. Lots of training I need to get done, along with school, and studying for my promotion exam. A couple weeks ago I renewed my M-16 rifle qualification, and this coming week I have to renew my Chem gear qualification. Yeah, not nearly as much fun as shooting the rifle.

If you've never worn a gas mask before, imagine having a rubber seal around your face and every breath you take only has about half the oxygen as normal air. If you have an itch on your nose, you can't scratch it. If you need to sneeze, try not to get snot on the inside of your mask. If you get hungry, you can't eat. The only way to drink is if you have your water valve cleaned and working.

So if you think you're having a bad week, just be glad you don't have to wear a gas mask at work.

Carnevale in Italy!

2006-03-03T11:06:00.000-08:00

You've probably all heard about Carnevale celebrations. Its celebratied all over Italy and all over the world, including the US where it goes by the name Mardi Gras.

Well, this year Susan and I were able to check out a couple places here in Italy that are famous for their Carnevale celebrations, Venice and Viareggio. Venice is only a 45 minute train ride from our house so we got plenty of pictures from there.

But the town of Viareggio was a little different. It is a small coastal town just north of Pisa. The town is famous all over Italy for its parades of giant paper mache floats.

The themes of the parades are always sarcastic or satirical. So there are mockeries of politicians, big business, capitalism, politicians, and of course this year, there was plenty of George W. Bush hating. These floats were truly amazing - huge, mechanical, and immaculately designed.

But it was all in good fun, and we had a great time down there. Here are photo albums of both places. Enjoy...

Venice Carnevale

Viareggio Carnevale

Flashback to Oktoberfest 2005

2006-03-02T15:14:00.000-08:00

I just got some really good pics from a friend of ours who went with us to Oktoberfest 2005. So I decided to write a quick post and share the photos.

Oktoberfest is really one of the coolest things I've been to in Europe. It was originally started in Munich in the 1800s in celebration of King Ludwig's wedding. Now it is a celebration of the end of the harvest season and of beer and wine. Munich is about 5 hours away from where I live. Susan and I drove up there with a couple friends. The drive itself is beautiful as you pass through the Italian and Austrian Alps.

Hope you enjoy the pics!

Oktoberfest 2005

Winter Olympics! Torino 2006

2006-02-17T14:46:00.000-08:00

Torino is about a 5 hour drive from our nice little town of Sacile. So I could never live with myself if I didn't go. I might never get the chance to go again, right?

Susan got online and bought us tickets to the Men's Ice Hockey game between the U.S. and Latvia. The game was on a wednesday at 9pm. So I took a couple days off work and we headed out of Sacile around midnight Tuesday in a rental van that we were sharing with another 5 people. We got a very unrestful 5 hours of sleep in the back of the van and ended up in downtown Torino at 6am on Wednesday. We spent the day walking around the city and visiting the local markets and cafes.

This was the first time I'd been to Torino, and I must say it is a very nice city. Very similar to Milan but it was quite a bit cleaner - maybe because the Olympics were there. There seemed to be a good amount of stuff to do. Its big enough where you could lose yourself down some little alley and not even realize the Olympics were in town.

For instance, this was a local market that just happened to be right across from the Olympic stadium.

This picture is for you ladies. See how cheap the clothes are? : )

We had a whole day to kill before the hockey game started. So we just walked around, stopped into a few pubs and cafes. We had lunch at one of the best pizzerias I've found in Italy. We saw some of the touristy statues and Olympic event venues.

One of the coolest things about Italy is that you can be walking down the street and out of nowhere, you turn a corner and you see something spectacular - maybe a building that's 800 years old, maybe a little festival that only the locals know about. Here are a couple that we saw in Torino:

In this square, we saw this Italian Army marching band. You can tell by their hats that they are the Alpini, the Italian equivelant of U.S. Army Rangers. But some of these guys were old and gray, so I think some of them were retired.

Just a few blocks away from that parade we run into this other little square that has these three old Swiss guys playing the long blowhorns. And another guy tossing the Swiss flag around. There were a few people watching them and eating Swiss food and drinking Swiss beer.
After a whole day of walking this city, we were pretty much ready to get to the game. But we still had several hours before the game started. So we headed back to the stadium area to hang out around there until we could get in. As it turned out there was a little building set up outside the stadium that was serving food and drinks. Perfect place to go kill some time.

And apparently a whole lot of other people had the same idea. Now remember that the game we were going to was USA vs. Latvia. As I looked around, I noticed that there were Latvians everywhere! They had their viking hats with horns, their Latvian hockey jerseys, flags, and they were beating their drums and blowing their horns. Most of them were drunk too. They were chanting and yelling, man they were fired up!

As Americans living overseas, we have to be a little careful in our day-to-day lives so as not to stand out too much. You never know if you're a target. But at the Olympics, everyone is flying their flag. Even so, I was still a little conscious about saying, "Hey, look at me! I'm an American!" But I decided that the crazy drunk Latvians weren't gonna scare me. So I opened up our bag and pulled out my Dallas Stars Mike Modano jersey. Susan pulled out the American flag we bought earlier in the day and wrapped it around her neck like a scarf. There were people from all over the world inside as well as few other Americans. And everyone turned out to be cool.

So inside this building is a stage, and eventually a band came out and started playing. They were pretty good, they just played stuff to get people going like Sweet Home Alabama, The Doors, Rolling Stones, as well as a couple songs that sounded like Irish or German drinking songs to me.

Just as the band was getting started, all these guys from the Czech Republic come inside in a congo line! Yelling and cheering because their hockey game just ended and they had beaten Germany. They were so happy they started dancing and jumping up on stage with the band. It was a crazy thing to be in Torino, Italy listening to a band from who knows where play Skynard and watching Czechs dance to it..

So finally its game time. We get through security which was thorough, but not overly invasive. We get into the stadium Palasport Olympico, which was built specifically for the Olympics and was nice, but only holds about 8,ooo or so people.

The game was great. The US went up 2-0 early, but the Latvians took a 3-2 lead by the second intermission. All throughout the game, the stadium was filled with the chanting of "LAT-VI-A, LAT-VI-A!!!!!! Those Latvians were crazy about their hockey team.

During one of the intermissions, I headed to the restroom and a group of about 6 Latvians saw me in my Dallas Stars jersey and stopped me.

They asked if I was American and I said, "Yes, are you Latvians?".

"Yes, and we are beating you! HA!" one of them said with a smile.

I replied, "Yeah, you have a great team, you play very well."

They put their arms around me and one said, "Let me buy you a beer!"

I talked with them for a few minutes. They were so happy to be competing with the rest of the world. They love their hockey, and one of the guys even followed the Dallas Stars because his favorite player, Sergei Zubov plays on the Stars. They wouldn't let me leave without taking a picture of me surrounded by all of them. It was really cool.

The US tied it at 3 in the 3rd period and that's how the game ended... a tie. Since it was a preliminary round there is no overtime.

But if you listened to the Latvians, you would swear that they won the game. The were still cheering and beating their drums. They were so happy about tying the US, they felt like it was a victory. Meanwhile, the US fans quietly got up to leave feeling a little disappointed that we couldn't beat a country that most Americans couldn't find on a map.

As we were leaving the stadium, we heard one Latvian say to another American, "We won! You lost!!!" Was he watching the same game we were?

Rugby in Rome

2006-02-16T09:40:00.000-08:00

I hate to waste a perfectly good Saturday by sitting around not doing anything. So when my buddy Aaron called me on Friday night asking if I wanted to go with him and a few other guys to Rome to watch the England rugby team play Italy, I didn't even have to think about it.

We caught a 7am train out of Pordenone. I guess most people would figure that on an early morning train there shouldn't be too many people ordering beer from the restaurant car. Apparently this is what the Italian train company thought, but they must not have planned for us to be on the train. We started drinking Heinekens and Moretti's at about 10:30am and after an hour had gone by and four rounds had been bought, we'd completely drank the train out of beer!

Oh well, we were almost there...

We got into Rome around 11:30 or so, and checked into the first cheap hotel we came across. After lunch and a few beers at an Irish pub we hop in a cab and head over to the Stadio Flavio, just a few minutes walk from the Colosseum. There were lots of fans in the area - mostly English fans. The stadium was pretty small, but full. When the game started, we realized that we were pretty much surrounded by old Englishmen drinking like fish, singing rugby songs, and calling everyone "Wankers". Pretty funny actually!

This was my first rugby game. We had great seats only three rows back. It was very cool. It really makes NFL football seem like a sissy sport.

After the game? You guessed it, right back to another Irish pub, this one was called Trinity College - I guess its pretty popular with rugby fans. We ended up hanging out with those old Englishmen from the game. They didn't stop singing all night. Unfortunatley, I don't remember many of these songs. It seems I'd had a few too many Guinesses...

We ended the night a little early,... probably because we started so early! I think it was around 10:30pm when we decided to try and cap off the night with some pizza. So we stumbled to a little pizzeria down the street. Pizza is sooooo good after a full day of drinking!

By midnight we were all but asleep. I've only been to Rome one other time, but I was somehow able to guide our group back down Via Nazionale and back to our hotel.

The next day our train left around 10:30am. So we were back home Sunday by 4pm. It was a whirlwind of a trip. No time for sightseeing, just rugby and Guiness.

Back to the Slopes

2006-02-08T13:16:00.000-08:00

So I finally decided that my left wrist, the one I broke back in November while snowboarding, was healed enough to try my luck on the slopes once again. A few of my friends from work go snowboarding almost every weekend in the wintertime. They invited me along and so I figured it was time to test out my newly healed wrist.

There is this very cool ski/snowboard spot about 2 hours away from where we live. Its right on the border of Italy and Austria. Its called Naasfeldt, I think. To get there you have to drive up icy switchbacks for about 30 minutes that wind up the side of the mountain. You go across narrow bridges and little caves that look like they've been there since the Roman Empire. For a Texas boy like me, just that by itself is pretty exciting! This place has ski runs that start in Italy and end in Austria.

So it turned out to be a beautiful day. The temperature was in the 30s - 40s, (I remember when I used to think that was cold). The snow was not super fresh, but only a few days old. And best of all it wasn't very crowded. A full day lift ticket only costs 35 Euro ( about 42 USD).

I'm happy to say that my wrist held up just fine. I wore a wrist brace, I took it easy on the slopes, and I didn't try anything stupid - its amazing what a difference that can make!

A Day in San Marino

2006-02-03T09:01:00.000-08:00

I know it been awhile since I wrote anything here. Work has been crazy. But last Saturday I was able to make it down to a little country called San Marino. Its no bigger than a small city and its completely contained within Italy. Built on a big old mountain called Mt Titan, its a very cool place.

It also happens to be the oldest independent country in the world. All throughout history, they have fought for their independence. Napoleon didn't even try to conquer them.

Anyways, this isn't a history lesson. We spent the day walking around the old town which is about 750 meters high on the top of the mountain. It was a beautiful morning, but the clouds started rolling in after lunchtime. We were on the castle wall perched atop Mt Titan and you could literally see the low clouds creep up the mountain from below us. It was a really cool sight.

Not a whole lot to do in this little country; just walking around, there are some nice little shops, old arcitechture, a few restaurants, and of course the natural scenery. All in all, it was a nice way to kill a Saturday. Another stamp in the passport too.

The Last Run of the Day

2006-01-22T10:17:00.000-08:00

Until 2005 I had never broken a bone. Well, except when I played football in middle school high school - I think I have broken every single one of my fingers. But that doesn't really count. Its not like they put casts on your fingers. The coach just tapes it to the next finger and says "Now get back in there!"

It was Veteran's Day, Nov 11. So pretty much the whole base was off work. Me and my two friends from work, Jason and Sean decided to go snowboarding for the day. Now where we live, there are at least a dozen places to snowboard within a 1 hour radius. But this time we decided we wanted to try someplace new. After some research on the internet, we found a place in Austria about 3 hours away called Moltaller Glacier.

The drive into Austria is always beautiful. The Apls are an amazing sight anytime of the year. And since this was only November there wasn't much snow except for on the peaks. We left the Aviano area around 6:30 am and it takes about an hour and a half to get to the Austrian border.

There should be a saying among the Austrians and Germans that goes something like; "Where's the sun? Its in Italy!" Sometimes its so true. It was a beautiful day as we drove from Aviano to the the northeastern border. As we made our way through the mountains, the temperature dropped a little but there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Right before you get to the Austrian border you have to go through this tunnel, its kind of long, but not as long as some others. We might have been in the tunnel for about 30 seconds. When we enetered the tunnel it was a bright sunny day. When we came out the other side it was cloudy, rainy, and windy and the temperature must have dropped about 20 degrees. Yep, we were getting close to Austria...

Even though it was colder, there still wasn't any snow. We still had an hour to drive, but the lack of snow was starting to make us worry. Their website said they had snow...

We approach the town and we still couldn't see any snow. There were a few peaks off in the distance that were snowcapped, but they weren't even in the direction we were supposed to be going. We decided to press on anyway.

We make our way up the windy road and reach the ticket office. Kind of a weird scene. A ticket office that sells ski lift tickets, dozens of people in ski gear and NO SNOW in sight. Well at least we weren't the only ones there. We bought our tickets and went to the lift. This ski lift was more like a tram or a train car. It took us inside the mountain and up for about 15 minutes. When we got out there would surely be snow, right?

Wrong.

Still no snow. No. To get to the glacier we had to get on another lift that took us up over a peak. And there it was... plenty of fresh beautiful snow. Gotta love Austria.

We spent the next 5-6 hours or so snowboarding. Even though its Austria - a winter sports paradise, there were still only 4 or 5 runs open. Jason and Sean are pretty good snowboarders but I'm from Texas. I've only been doing this a couple years, so I just do my best to keep up and not fall too much. By about 3pm, we'd had enough and decided it was time for the infamous last run'.

I had been down this run about 4 times earlier in the day. There was this one part that flattened out and every time I would lose my speed and get stuck. I'd have to get out of one of my bindings and push myself on with one foot. Not fun. Skiers whiz past you or push themselves forward with their poles. Snowboarders have no poles, so we just have to try to gain enough momentum to keep us going through the flat parts.

So this time I was gonna make it! I was gonna go fast enough to carry me over the flat part. I was screaming down the hill. I knew I was going faster than I should have, but if I just focused, I'd be okay.

Well, I don't really know what happened, but the next thing I knew I was tumbling. Tumbling fast. I was tasting snow. My hat and goggles went in different directions than I did. And when I came to a stop I felt a sharp pain in my left wrist. I knew it was bad, but I was still in tact enough to get my hat and goggles off the snow, put them back on, gather myself and finish the run.

Jason and Sean passed me, asked if I was ok and then went down to the end of the run to wait for me. My wrist hurt bad, and I was starting to get dizzy. We usually like to end a day of boarding with some schnitzel and a beer, but I didn't know how bad my wrist was. I tried to suck it up. We went into the restaurant, I couldn't even hold anything in my left hand. I sat down and took off my gloves. My wrist looked funny to me. Nothing extremely noticeable, but just not right. I sat down and tried to eat but I had no appetite. I tried to drink my beer, but my body was telling me not to drink it. I was getting dizzy and my vision was blurring. My heart was racing and I was breathing fast. I couldn't make myself relax. It was a really weird feeling. Something I'd never felt before.

Then the dizziness started to wear off and the pain started to subside. Finally my heart slowed and I started breathing normally again. I don't know what that was all about, endorphines? I'm no doctor, but something inside me made the pain subside enough for me to endure the 3 hour ride home.

Susan took me to the Italian hospital in the city of Pordenone. The X-Ray showed 3 broken bones in my wrist. They put me into a cast that went right below my elbow. No driving, lifting, running, or anything like that.

A couple weeks later, I went to the Air Force orthopedic surgeon. He looked at my original X-Rays and said that I was lucky. For one thing, he said my arm should have been casted over my elbow. Secondly he said that if I would have went to see him earlier he would have performed surgery and put all kinds of nasty pins, plates, and screws into my arm. He said my break was very complex and had a high possibility of re-breaking or not healing properly.

So he told me that he was going to take my nice little comfy Italian cast off and put on a huge long American one, and I was gonna like it. After he spent the last 10 minutes scaring the crap out of me with all the metallic objects he wanted to insert into my arm, I smiled and said, "Thank you, sir!"

So I spent the next 3 weeks in a cast that went over my elbow. I couldn't straighten my arm. Couldn't drive, run, jump, practically nothing. For someone who's usually pretty active, it really sucked.

The biggest impact it had was that it kept me from going to Middle East. Now all my friends, including Jason and Sean, are there and I'm still here in Italy. To you that might sound like a good thing, but I'm very disappointed. Anyone who's ever been in the military will know how I feel. I was looking forward to going with my friends and doing my duty... with them,... where it counts. But oh well, I'll get my chance.

I got the cast off on Dec 21. And I can't describe how good it felt. For the next 2-3 days, the best feeling in the world to me was to rub, scratch, or massage the skin on my arm that was covered in plaster for 6 weeks. So now, my wrist is still a little stiff and sore, but I'm back to doing things almost normally again. The doc said it might be months before I have all my strength back, but it'll get there eventually.

Just yesterday I saw my ortho surgeon, Major Bartle at the base gym. I was on a treadmill and he got on the one next to me. After he finished talking to another one of his former patients who was also working out, I nodded to him to say hello...

"Hey Doc", I said.

"Hey there! How's the wrist?"

"Good, almost back to normal".

"Well remember to take it easy, and don't do anything crazy", he said with smile.

"I'll bet you see all your old patients up here, huh?" I asked.

"Only the tough ones".

What do you do in the Air Force?

2006-01-15T17:55:00.000-08:00

I get this question a lot.

I spent my first year at Aviano in a workcenter called ACE - Air Expeditionary Communcations Element. Our mission was to always be ready to deploy to any location on the globe and establish computer, telephone, radio, and satellite networks on short notice.

To help illustrate, I've attached a link to some pics from a training exercise we did last summer. We affectionatley named our little exercise site "Camp Duck Butter". -- Don't ask.

Camp Duckbutter Photos

Kicking off 2006 in Budapest! - Part 2 - Lucky Penny

2006-01-15T13:39:00.000-08:00

In case you didn't know - Budapest is freakin cold in the winter time.

We arrived in Budapest late on Dec 30. We pretty much went straight to bed and got up early the next day, all rested up and ready for the New Year's celebrations. Only problem - we didn't have any plans yet. The hotel we were staying in was having a gala, but Susan and I quickly ruled that out. We're in Budapest, why would we want to hang out with a bunch of Americans? Especially ones that we see now and then on the base?

Dec 30, 2005 9:00am

We spent the day of Dec 31 sightseeing with a tour guide. This guy was really cool. He played the bass guitar in a band - wish I could remember the name of it. We saw all the touristy sites in Budapest - the castles, Hero's Square, the famous bridges... This is a super cool city. The worst thing about it was the cold. There was snow on the ground and ice on the steps. The sidewalks were slushy so walking was a chore. But even with all this, it didn't take away from the spectacular arcitechture of the city. I defintely want to go back when its warmer.

2:00pm

Now since Susan and I decided not to attend the gala at our hotel - we weren't allowed to stay in the hotel that night. This was no problem because other arrangements had already been made. There were actually some other people on the trip that didn't want to go to the gala either. So Nicole, the trip organizer, found a guy that rents out apartments. Susan and I followed this guy - his name was Peter - to our apartment for the night. We walked from one of the main markets along a street towards the Danube river. The buildings we were passing were fairly nice, althought maybe a little old. Most of them were 6-8 stories high. The doors were big and solid looking - most of them made of wood. There were little cafes and convenience stores along the way. We also passed a few streets that had restaurants, bars, pubs, and shops. Susan and I took note of these streets and hoped we could remember how to get back to them. Peter was walking fast.

We were about 100 yards away from the Danube river when Peter made a sharp turn into a building. He pulled out a key and opened up the steel gate that led into a hallway and up some stone steps. The feel of this building was old and sturdy. Who knows how long its been there? We were in one of the oldest parts of the city so it must be farily pricey to live there. But nonetheless, the building seemed dark and musty. The entryway kind of opened into a courtyard and so the cold seeped right in. The walls were cracked here and there. It seemed like a building that was very high society when it was built, but not quite so much anymore. There was a lift in the center of the entryway, but not anything like you'd see in a fancy office building in Dallas! It was basically a cage that rose from the underground levels all the way to the top of the building. Inside the cage you could see the shafts for the two lifts. No other word came to mind except "rickety". Peter walked up the steps that spiraled around the lift and we followed him up. He said our place was on the 3rd floor - and in Europe that usually means the 4th floor since the ground floor is simply called the "ground floor" and doesn't get a number. But apparentley in Hungary the 3rd floor actually equals the 17th floor. Ok, that's an exaggeration - it was the 5th. But it sure seemed like more than that.

Our apartment was nice and modern looking on the inside. Peter said everything was furnished with Ikea stuff. Hardwood floors. A kitchen, a bathroom, and a living/sleeping area with a nice big queen size bed and a little sofa. We thanked Peter and quickly got ready to leave again to go find our drinking spot for the night. As we walked around the apartment, we noticed that the aprtment seemed 'lived in'. Like very recently 'lived in'. There was prescription medication in the bathroom, socks and underwear in the drawers, and utility bills on the kitchen counter. After an exchange of confused looks, Susan and I shrugged our shoulders and headed out.

Before we left we noticed that all the doors in the building looked almost exactly the same, and we knew it would be late when we returned plus we would be drunk and tired. So in order to prevent us from getting accused of breaking and entering some poor old Hungarian woman's apartment, Susan put a penny on the ledge of the window of our door so we could identify our door when we came back.

3:00pm

We were both starving. We ate a cool little Thai reastaurant. Try finding a Thai restaurant in Italy... good luck!

5:30pm

Its New Year's Eve, we're in Budapest and we have no idea what we were going to be doing that night. After last year's experience in Venice, we wanted to make sure we got into someplace cool. It seems that in Europe, most bars/clubs/pubs have private parties that you can usually get into if you're willing to shell out the cash.

We stopped into a few bars that looked cool. One Irish pub, one place that called itself Fat Moe's Speakeasy, a jazz club, and about a dozen other places that still had availability for their parties. They cheapest one was 60 Euro per person - all you can eat and all you can drink. Sounded great to me! But we decided to check out some other places before committing, and by the time we came back they were full. Oh well...

6:00pm

Every other place seemed to want 70 - 85 Euro (~$100-$110) to get in and that didn't include drinks. I was starting to get bummed. Then we found out about this huge party being thrown by the Budapest Universtiy of Economics - in a warehouse right on the river and down the street from our apartment. 25 Euro and all you can drink. Sign us up!

And now onto the next obstacle... finding it.

It sounded simple enough, but the problem was that there was more than one warehouse AND more than one NYE party. We knew we were in the right general area and we saw a few discrete signs posted on this big huge building in front of us. Then we saw about 4 guys standing at a gate that went into an empty parking lot. The scene was right out of a movie. This winter night in Budapest was dark, cold, and this industrial area was empty and quiet. We went up to them, hoping they understood English.

"Where do we buy tickets?" I said.

They understood! Yay! We followed his directions around the far end of the building, around the corner, up some stairs, and into an unmarked door. What we walked into was some sort of backroom or storage area for a bar. Young people scampered past us while Susan and I just tried to stay out of their way. A couple guys looked at us as if to say, "What the hell do you want?"

"Tickets for the party?"

They pointed to a small door in the corner marked "office". We went inside to find a man standing in front of a desk and two women, one sitting at a computer and the other on a couch. The man asked if he could help us. We asked about the tickets and he told us they were 65 Euro each,

65 Euro? We were thinking it was 25. Must be the wrong place.

"Thanks anyway" I said as we turned to walk away.

We headed back outside into the cold and back across the still empty parking lot. We weren't sure if we were gonna be able to find the right place in time to buy tickets. We thought we might end up paying more than what we wanted to. That would be okay but it sure would be nice to find this 25 Euro one.

6:30pm

Then we passed another huge building. This has gotta be it. We went inside a door on the side of the building. There were only a few people inside, but the room just looked like an empty bar. There were dozens of people - probably university students, running around setting up tables, stocking the bar, etc... We bought the tickets from a guy sitting at a table. He told us the doors will open at 9pm and they are expecting over 5000 people!

Did you catch that? OVER 5000 people!!!!! All you can drink!!!!! It was gonna be quite a night...

6:45pm

A quick stop at another Irish pub to kill some time turned into a fun couple hours, just as most stops at Irish pubs ususally do. We met some Italian guys from Vicenza and watched them entertain the crowd by using ridiculous pick up lines on every single woman in the bar - including my wife! All I could do was laugh...

There were a lot of Italiains in Budapest.

8:50pm

Time to head back down to the warehouse and get in line. Hoping that the Hungarians have more respect for lines than the Italians... We turn the corner and see a huge mob of people trying to get into the warehouse. So much for orderly fashion. So we take our place in the herd. We're shoulder to shoulder, immovable unless the crowd moves. Pushing, shoving, the usual. I'm trying not to get irritated. I really want to have a good time tonight! We get inside, check our coats, and head to the bar. Sure enough, its all you can drink, any drink you want. Beer, liquor, wine, whatever. The inside of this building is enormous. Its looks like an old train station or something. There are three floors and dozens of bars everywhere. Old ticket offices were now bars. Old baggage rooms were now coat check rooms. Old waiting areas were now DJ booths. Mostly techno music at all the bars, but we found one that was playing 80's stuff. We stayed at that one most of the night! : )

There sure are a lot of Italians here...

11:50pm

We'd spent most of the night doing a little dancing, people-watching, and drinking at a moderate-to-fast pace. A few other American guys from our group were with us. Susan went with our friend, Levi to the bar and came back with champagne for everyone. I didn't even realize how close it was to midnight. The bar did the usual countdown thing and 2006 was upon us!

Jan 1, 2006 12:30am

The rest of the night I was mostly preoccupied with the increasingly high possibility that a fight would break out. I was getting pretty annoyed at how everyone seemed to go out of their way to bump into you. But then again, since the bar was filled with probably about 50% Italians, it shouldn't have come as a surprise. A simple trip to the bathroom almost turned into a fight when a guy cut right in front of me and I shoved him right back. He backed off. That's how you have to deal with these prissy arrogant assholes, if you stand up to them they always back down.

I come out of the bathroom and wait for Susan. When she comes out she tells me that the same thing happened to her! And she reacted the same way... that's my girl!!!

1:45am

What are all these Italians doing here?

We headed back to our spot and stopped by a bar to get another Jager and Red Bull for me and a water for Susan. Then this goofy looking guy, obviously drunk comes up to Susan and I and puts his arms around us. He starts speaking some language that I couldn't make out, and he reaches out and tries to take Susan's water right off the table and tries to walk away! WTF???

We just stood in line at the bar for 15 minutes for that water! No way am I gonna let some drunk Eurotrash take it. I grab it back from him but he won't let go. He keeps talking to me like I understand him. I'm telling him to get the F away from us and give me the F'ing water - in English and Italian. Finally a bouncer shows up and stands in between us. And the guy goes away.

As soon as the bouncer went back to his corner, the same guy comes back and tries to close talk me! He didn't seem like he was trying to fight, but I was sure getting there. And I'm pretty patient - even if I'm a little buzzed. Now I have to admit, by this point I was irritated by the crowd, the new year's elation had worn off, I was a little tired, and Susan was done drinking. So whatever this guy was trying to tell me, I had no interest in listening to him. He was a bit bigger than me, but I press my left forearm into his chest to push him back (my left wrist was still in a brace while it was recovering from 3 broken bones - that's another story), and I give him a mush right in his face with my right hand.

Don't know what a mush is? Its not a slap or a punch, its just a palm pressed on the side of the face and then a shove, done with the intent to send the message 'get the F away from me'.

Looking back at it, it may seem like I overreacted. But like I said, it was the culmination of many different factors. The bouncer came back and separated us again. Luckily that was the end of it cause I never saw that guy again. And I really didn't want to spend Jan 1, 2006 in a Hungarian jail.

Maybe since I'm getting a little older, this club scene just isn't as appealing as it used to be. I think I would have been happier to just hang out in that Irish pub.

2:45am

Even though this party was gonna go until at least 5am, it was time for us to head home. We'd had enough excitement for the night. We got back to our apartment a little after 3am and had to find our way back to our room. Confident that we would be able to find our door. Thank goodness Susan put that penny on the ledge! We rode the rickety rusted elevator up to what we thought was our floor, walked to what we thought was our door and looked for the penny...

No penny.

Oooops, wrong floor!

Back down the stairs, found the penny, smiled, and retired for the night. Thanks Abe.

Where we live

2006-01-15T12:24:00.000-08:00

Its difficult to try to explain what its like to live in Italy. Whenever I do try to explain it, I feel like I can't convey an accurate description. Pictures are better than words, although in a country as beautiful as Italy, pictures don't do it justice either...

Here are a few photos from our house, our city, and our surrounding areas:

Where We Live

Croatian Vacation - 4th of July, 2005

2006-01-14T19:55:00.000-08:00

Yes, we went to Croatia for the 4th of July last year. And no, Croatia is not a war torn country!

I think this trip was one of the coolest things we did last year. The Croatian people were so cool and loved talking to us Americans - not snobby like some Italians! The bars were open late, the beer was good, and stuff was cheap.

Here are some pictures - enjoy!

Croatian Vacation

Kicking off 2006 in Budapest! - Part 1 - Getting There is Half the Fun

2006-01-14T16:20:00.000-08:00

It wasn't our original plan to be in Budapest for NYE. We were planning on taking a tour bus to Vienna, but since the travel company couldn't sell enough tickets to fill up the bus, we had to take some last minute action.

We know this woman, Nicole who organizes tours as a business. She's not part of a travel agency, she just happens to have a friend who is an Italian bus driver. They do a trip about every month - all over Europe. We had taken a few trips with her before, and they usually turn out to be an adventure. You'll always get to your destination but there might be a few obstacles on the way. So she has this trip to Budapest planned for NYE and there were still some seats available, so we call her up and sign up for the trip.

So here's where it gets confusing - since we ended up signing up at the last minute, and we weren't even returning from Florence until the day before - Susan and I weren't able to get on the bus before it left. Nicole's plan was to put Susan and I on a train to Vienna where we'd meet up with the rest of the group and go the rest of the way on the bus. That sounded good to us, except that didn't work because apparently almost all of Italy decided they wanted to go to Eastern Europe to celebrate NYE! So all the trains were booked up. Now you have to understand that we are finding out this information piece by piece as we travel from Florence back to Venice, and we didn't even know if we were really gonna make it on this trip. So when we get back home from Florence we talk to Nicole and find out that the rest of the group is already in Budapest.

The solution Nicole proposed went something like this- "This blonde girl driving a gray mini-van will pick you guys up in the morning at 6:30am and drive you to Vienna. She'll drop you off at a rest station on the highway, and Manuel (the Italian bus driver) will pick you up there in a rental car and bring you down to Budapest."

Sounds about right for a Nicole trip!

Yeah we had second thoughts, but hey, why not?

As it turned out, there was another couple in the same boat as us. So there were four of us plus the driver. The van ride to Vienna was mostly uneventful - aside from the blonde driver bitching about being given bad directions, the blizzard in the Austrian Alps, and not being able to find the right rest station. Miraculously, Manuel found the rest station where we were and we go outside to put our bags in the rental car. Parked next to the mini-van was a tiny little Fiat that couldn't possibly be the rental we were supposed to get in. We even joked how funny it would be if that was the car for 5 people to take the 4 hour drive from Vienna to Budapest. Man that would suck - so where's our car?

It was the Fiat.

Seriously?

Somehow we got all our luggage into the "trunk". I think my socks and T-shirt drawer from Boot Camp had more room. We start on our way to Budapest and it should be smooth sailing from here.

Not so much...

After about two hours of clear highways, we saw it -- The line of red brake lights up ahead stretching as far as we could see. By now its about 8pm, dark, and its well below freezing. Luckily there was no more new snow falling to add to the 6 -8 inches that was already on the ground. It turns out that there was like an 18 car pile up on the highway earlier in the day and about 10km of highway was completely closed in both directions. So we sit in traffic for at least 2 1/2 hours. We end up driving thru this little Hungarian town and trying our best to find our way back to our path.

Susan and I speak a little Italian, Manuel speaks NO English, and none of us speak ANY Hungarian. And street signs in Hungary are about as helpful as the ones in Italy. Luckily we found some cops that could comprehend "Budapest????" and interpreted the confused look on our faces as a request for directions.

We finally made it to our hotel in Budapest right around midnight on the night of the Dec 30. Nothing beats a good nights sleep after spending 12 hours driving across central Europe.

To be continued...

2006-01-14T14:25:00.000-08:00

Me at the Heidelberg Castle in Germany