Arati's Wedding! Harry Hamlin sighting! Tiny Pants!

Well... after a long hiatus, I'm back due to popular demand! I have been traveling to the United States and to various locations in Europe, and having a great time seeing old friends and making new ones!

The weekend of 23 April I was VERY excited to be attending the wedding of my law school best friend, Arati Bhattacharya, in Houston, Texas. On another fortunate note, one of my friends, John, who recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq (for 18 months!) had just arrived in Wiesbaden - just outside Frankfurt. I was able to pass through Frankfurt on my way to Houston. It was John's birthday, so of course I had to take the guy out to dinner to celebrate! In the summer of 2005, I worked for the Army JAG in Stuttgart, Germany, and John was my boss, and we have kept in touch ever since. During that summer I was able to visit my friend Kristin from college, who was working in Frankfurt. One evening we both had a craving for Thai food and happened upon Rama V (on Vilbeler Straße 32; tel. +49 69 21996488). The restaurant is wonderfully decorated, the staff is very pleasant and attentive, and the food….oh, the food! Yum! Anyway, back to the story… I was trying to surprise John, but I clearly had to tell him I was coming so he could pick me up at the airport! We had a great birthday dinner and talked and talked and talked, catching up on the past several years. He had worked with several of my justice school classmates while in Iraq, so we were able to exchange amusing stories! My flight was early the next morning, only about 12 hours later, and I was off to Houston!

Ahh Houston! A wave of humidity washed over me, reminding me of my home in Florida… Two of Arati’s friends were nice enough to pick me up at the airport – Diya & Natasa. Both of them were so friendly – we were quickly laughing and talking in the car and then on our way to the Hotel Derek to change for the pre-wedding festivities!

Barrett, Arati & Me

Arati’s father is a resturanteur and his food was amazing! I’m a total spice-wimp (to which any of my Texan friends can attest), but the food was just spicy enough, the sauces were rich and flavorful, and I simply couldn’t get enough! (I was going to be having my navy physical fitness test the next week, so I was a bit paranoid about eating so much tasty food – especially when I could tell it wasn’t exactly low calorie! However, there aren’t many good international restaurants in Naples, so I knew I had to get it while the gettin’ was good!) We danced and danced and danced and danced! Arati was my crazy dance buddy in law school, and of course, we continued our tradition that evening!

Truly jetlagged, I didn’t stay up too late, knowing that there was going to be more dancing the next day! That Saturday, we took part in the ritual before the wedding ceremony in which Anu (her now-husband) rides in on a horse!! From my understanding, it is to symbolize the groom being brought to the house of the bride (symbolically the foyer of the Hotel Derek…) We danced alongside the horse, and the two families met inside. They exchanged garlands, placing them on each other’s necks, celebrating the unity of the two families.

Anu - the Groom

It was also a mini law school reunion! I was able to see several of my friends from a few years ago, and hear about everyone’s families and careers.

Christine, Me, Chanel, Kelly & Liz

We all sat next to each other during the wedding ceremony – truly happy that our two friends had found each other and made the ultimate decision to get married. Arati and Anu are two of the most truly generous human beings I have ever met – it was such an honor to be part of the celebration! What made the whole day even more exciting – Arati had loaned us some traditional Indian garb to wear that day! I had such a fantastic time that the hours flew by! We ate (of course! YUM!) and danced and danced and danced! I like to think that I burned off all the calories I ate, but I didn’t even come close!! ;-)

Natasa & Me

Arati - the Bride & Me (doesn't she look GREAT?!) :)

The day after the wedding we enjoyed MORE food at a tasty brunch at Arati’s father’s restaurant and had one last meal before we parted ways. Next time you visit an Indian restaurant, I would highly recommend that you indulge in a “Mango Selassie” – it’s like a mango smoothie…it was so good I just wanted to bathe in it. Mmmmmm!

So, after the brunch, my new buddy Natasa (one of the best hotel roommates I could ever ask for!) and I went to the mall… had some tasty Starbucks (yes, yes, I know, feel free to chastise me for drinking Starbucks. Too bad, people. It's about 100x tastier than the everyday espresso here - no one around me serves Illy, only Kimbo and some other not so tasty kind, and no that's not a travesty to say if it's totally true)... and I saw HARRY HAMLIN (and his wife… Lisa Rinna). I have loved Harry Hamlin ever since the first time I saw Clash of the Titans… (http://kol-knightlydelights.blogspot.com/2009/04/harry-hamlin-revealed-clash-of-titans.html)

I’m not sure how old I was when I saw it, but I couldn’t have been that old… I couldn’t believe it – we walked right by them! He still looks good and she still looks like she’s received a little too much help from her neighborhood surgeon wielding a tube of collagen. I almost wanted to rush back and get Natasa to take my picture with him, but I figured, if they’re hiding out in Houston in jeans and t-shirts and her with no makeup on, that probably means they really don’t want to be bothered. And even though I’ve loved Harry Hamlin since he was fighting the Krakon and saving Andromeda (probably before Lisa Rinna even MET him, so I can call dibs, right?), I thought I’d let them be. I’ll just have to live with the memory! ;-) While at the mall I made several successful purchases – one pair of throwaway white pants for Pamplona (where I would be heading in July), and some jeans.

For some odd reason, ALL women’s pant styles in Italy presume that ladies here have legs like little toothpicks. For the most part that is true, and you always hear everyone say, “There really aren’t many overweight Italians despite the fact they eat lots of cheese all of the time.” Well, most Italians aren’t overweight, but I’ve definitely seen my fair share of “muffin tops,” one of my particular pet peeves. Girls here SQUEEEEEEZE themselves into jeans that barely fit their thighs, which leaves all of their chub to be compressed upwards, creating a splendid spare tire perched on top of their designer jeans. At some point I will be compiling collections of both "muffin tops," and the ever-present-in-the-summer SPEEDOS! ;)

Anyway, purchasing some pants in Houston where they have regular people sizes was nice. It’s normally too depressing to go pant/jeans shopping here! I could go on for days and days talking about the fashion here, but I’ll just leave it by posting some of my favorite pictures spotted in Rome…

I think I found the grown-up Pippi Longstocking...and she lives in Rome.

It's Mr. Rogers's dorkier Italian cousin... the one that didn't get his own T.V. show.

This one isn't so much his clothes, but that hair. No, there was no fierce wind blustering through the piazza. He blow dried and gelled it like that.

Golden Boots? Really.

They also make some hideous furniture as well... What IS this? An Indiana Jones netting set of designer leather rocks? A pirate ship baked potato? Whatever it is, it certainly doesn't look very comfortable.


And I just thought this was kind of funny... this was a phrasebook in a tourist shoppe in Rome. It has been there since BEFORE I WAS BORN. I think it said copyright 1973 or something. Guess those Swedes either (1) don't care to learn Italian, OR (2) they're so prepared when they come to Italy that they already know enough of the language to get around! I look forward to meeting bunches of Swedes in August when I go to Kicki's cottage in Henan!

AFTERSHOCK!!

So just when I think the earthquake is over, the AFTERSHOCK hits! I'm sitting on my bed yesterday evening, around 7:45 p.m. ish munching on my buffalo mozzarella and tasty cherry tomatoes, and the bed starts shaking, plate glass in the windows bangs back and forth a bit (don't even TALK to me about Italian construction!), and about 10 seconds later it's all over.

Fortunately, I was awake for this one, so I was fully aware of what was going on. If I needed to take action I would have been much more ready to do so than I was at 3:30 a.m.! I sent a text to a friend asking if he felt it, but he said he was in the pool....so he was blissfully unaware, obviously! People in downtown Naples felt it, but those in Bacoli/Monte di Procida didn't, interestingly enough.

The poor city of L'Aquila is just rescuing individuals from the 6.3 earthquake that rocked the city on Monday, then come a fresh wave of aftershocks on Tuesday. It's almost Easter, one of the eventful holidays in Roman Catholic Italy and these individuals have to deal with being pulled out of rubble!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30083979

If you check out www.usgs.gov (which I fully don't expect you to do, but the nerd that I am, I now check it out for the latest seismic activity), it shows multiple aftershocks. I'm surprised I didn't feel more than I did.

However, the fact that I had a spectacular three-hour-seafood dinner with a great group of friends (that I think included eating sea monkeys, or what looked like sea monkeys in my opinion) in Monte di Procida, and that I'm now sitting on my exquisite terrace facing the water with the smell of Nutella crepes wafting up from the cafe below seems to make it all seem a bit better.... ;)

EARTHQUAKE!!!!

...3:30 a.m... 5 April 2009... Jocelyn's first Napoli earthquake. Hopefully the first and the only! This morning an earthquake hit the town of L'Aquila, approximately 60 miles east of Rome. I'm located in one of the "suburbs" of Naples, just a bit northwest that is covered by a light turquoisey-blue blob in the map above.

I was sound asleep and the rumbling actually woke me up! I could feel these weird shifty vibrations for a bit, and remember thinking, "Wow, that must be a really big truck going by in the street for me to feel it!" Yeah, well, not so much a truck as the earth shifting underneath me! I thought I must be crazy for thinking it's an earthquake and that no one would believe me at work when I told them I felt it. However, as soon as I got to the gym this morning CNN was showing footage of the poor destroyed small town! So, I felt a bit better that I wasn't imagining things. But then that quickly turned to... great, I leave California managing only two small tremors, possible tornadoes in Texas, brave an almost-hurricane in Mississippi, now I'm dealing with earthquakes AND a volcano in Naples! THE FUN NEVER STOPS!!! I'm hoping that earthquake wasn't a harbinger of doom for Vesuvius erupting again!

Fortunately, no damage to the building, just a bit of shaking. The shaking only lasted approximately 20 seconds from what I remember - just enough time for me to worry about what I should do, and then it stopped...

BUFFALO MOZZARELLA!!!

Paestum

BUFFALO!!

As I’m sure most people reading this blog know, Buffalo Mozzarella (mozzarella di buffala) is one of my favorite foods. I have been to the Paestum area of Italy 3 or 4 times (there are really nice temple ruins as well as good quality Greco-roman replica vases) and have had the mozzarella, but had never seen a buffalo. Mom and I had grown to be a bit suspicious of whether there really WERE any buffalo, or if it was just another Italian way to sucker us into buying something. My office mate, Jason, told me that he'd seen some buffalo, but I wasn't about to take anyone's word for it until I laid my OWN eyes on the animals. Well, last weekend I SAW THE BUFFALO!! My friend Luke was gracious enough to invite me on a group trip to Tenuta Vannulo (http://www.vannulo.it/) right outside the Paestum area. It’s an organic buffalo mozzarella, yogurt, gelato, and milk maker, and we had a great guided tour. Among the group of us who speak Italian, I think we managed to understand at least 85% of what the tour guide was telling us…

So, we were able to see through a glass window how they make the mozzarella by pulling and reshaping it multiple times. The guys stick their hands (no, Mom, they don't use gloves. As if that's a big surprise) in this scalding hot vat of water to get out the globs, put them in another vat, then re-transfer them to the original vat... it's all very confusing and labor intensive! They use the final glob to make a braided mozzarella, as apparently it’s a bit tougher than the earlier pieces. And OF COURSE, free samples per tutti!…

The best part (well, besides eating mozzarella and gelato) was seeing the buffalo. They live in a sort of large open metal shack, and are milked for about 265 days per year. The rest of the time they’re let out into the fields on the property to mill around and more than likely eat grass, I’m assuming. Our lovely tour guide told us that they give all of the buffalo names (which sound much classier in Italian) such as “couch,” (divan) “artichoke,” (carciofo) “Berlusconi” (the prime minister of Italy), and we were informed, however, that they don’t have an “Obama” yet, much to our surprise.

One of the buffalo had just given birth two hours before we had arrived, so we were able to see a baby buffalo as well (it was about the size of a full-grown Labrador, so not so “baby,” really).

During the tour, our guide showed us an old stool that the milkers would use back in the day… they would strap it around their waist and go from buffalo to buffalo, squat, get up, next, squat, get up….

But the most interesting thing we learned about was the milking machines. They’ve started the newer buffalo on this machine that looks fairly similar to a small car wash (the older buffalo prefer the hand milking method, apparently!). All the buffalo have a necklace with a microchip in it that the milking machine apparatus is able to read. They are milked at most three times per day, and the buffalo are allowed to just wander over to the machine when they want and get milked. If they’ve already done their three times per day, the machine diverts them out, and won’t let them be milked again. The machine is able to keep track of how much milk was given by that buffalo, when they were last milked, what teat was last milked, etc. It was quite amazing. After each buffalo, the machine self-cleans, and then permits the next buffalo to enter. If the machine senses there is something wrong with the milk, it does not dump it in with the good milk, it funnels it out, and the sick buffalo is corralled into a sort of infirmary area so it can be taken care of. One wouldn’t think the buffalo would be lining up to get milked, but there were several buffalo traffic jams when we were there – we couldn’t believe it!

But the funniest part of the day was one particular buffalo… In the corral area they had two sort of car wash scrubbers where the buffalo could scratch their itches. One particular buffal was just goin’ to town on one of the scrubbers and wouldn’t let any of the other buffalo take a turn. Every few minutes another buffalo would try and get in on the action, but this one buffalo was having none of it. Either he’s totally selfish, or he really had a lot of itches to scratch…

We ended the day with a great meal and a stroll around Paestum (then a big nap later)!

Euro Food, Part I

Those of you who have been to Europe are usually in two camps: the “OMG the food is SPECTACULAR” one or the “Why is all the food here so WEIRD?!” one. Well, I happen to have one foot firmly in each camp. Every once in a while you’ll encounter a meal that is fantastic – one for which you’d have to search endlessly in the United States. Most of us LOVE Nutella, which you can now get in the U.S. I’m always particularly interested in the ever-increasing size and creative packaging that Nutella employs to sell its product. There’s mini Nutellas, HUGE Nutellas, etc. It’s crazy….

My personal favorite dish (which I realize is a bit odd) is from when I was in Stuttgart, Germany. My buddies and I would pop by the SI Zentrum to the little restaurant for some “Maultaschen” – sort of a German version of ravioli. Summertime in Stuttgart is Spargel (asparagus) season, so you would be able to get Spargel Maultaschen. Absolutely fantastic. I’m hoping to find an equally desirable dish here in Italy…

But now, for the WEIRD food… I’m sure I’ll come up with more as time goes on...

(1) I’m searching for Activia yogurt, one of my particular favorites. I go to a shop to find the available flavors of prune, plain, fig, and kiwi with cereal/fiber. Really. No strawberry, no berry, no peach… So, I’m up for a challenge, and I decide on the kiwi. Well, I get home and pop open that bad boy and what does it taste like? Hmm? COLE SLAW. Yes. Creamy KFC COLE SLAW goodness. Good thing to know that I can slap some on some shredded cabbage and have a home-away-from-home treat.

(2) ENTRAILS! Well, yes, I do realize that there are many cultures that enjoy the tasty delicacies of tripe, etc. But rarely does one see them displayed so openly on a city street! One day, while driving through a small town near base, I happened to glance to my left… I said, “Mom, I think I just saw a display case of entrails.” She said, “Stop the car – you HAVE to get a picture of this!” So, I pulled over, walked back, and took a picture. The entrails were marinating in a display case that seemed to freshly shower them in a lemon marinade of some sort, making them even MORE tasty looking! Haha. Just as I was snapping the photo the lady who owned the store walked by and said, “Ciao!” – translation “Why is this idiot American taking a picture of this totally normal display of delicious lungs, livers and intestines! She must be crazy!”

(3) Ok, this isn’t particularly weird but my mother and I both thought it was a bit egregious to charge 3.40 Euros (approximately $4.35) for the Filet-o-Fish sandwich below. Really, I know everything in Europe is more expensive, but how can McDonalds justify a mini slice of cheese, some bread and a small filet for that much money??

(4) It’s always interesting to see what weird names different countries give their products. Now, if I were to introduce a new type of flaky chocolate tube with chocolate inside, I probably wouldn’t go with “Tronky” as my top choice…. Makes you wonder what the names were that DIDN’T make the cut…

House-hunting - "The earlier in time you go, the better things were built."

Well, sadly I've had to lower my expectations quite a bit (I’m sure this comes as a SHOCK to those of you who know me…!) ;-). I have had to come to terms with the fact that "Yes, I am living in SOUTHERN Italy, not NORTHERN Italy," so my idea of my fantastic dream villa/home/apartment has been shattered to bits. Having a good friend who works in the State Department, I have heard all of these wonderful stories of what huge houses, nice patios and gardens, proximity to work, etc., one can get overseas with the allowance provided. Well, apparently who I work for has different ideas…

Naples has had a problem with severe overdevelopment, so as a consequence many of the apartments are shoddily built, poorly maintained, and more than likely aren't wired properly (I've seen at least one that isn't - despite EU law mandating proper grounding, etc. - SHOCKING! yeah, right.). They build similarly styled buildings, in a sort of communist-blah style, and then only paint them approximately every 10 years when they are supposedly required to by law. So, while many buildings may have beautiful views of Sorrento, Mt. Vesuivius, etc., they also have their views severely blighted by the eyesores of hundreds upon hundreds of tenements. If only they would build them in a bit more attractive manner, then they would also get the benefit of looking at something beautiful – not peeling paint, rusty railings, and sometimes crumbling balconies that look like they’re just teetering on the edge of dissolving. Also, for some totally bizarre reason, the Italians down here complain about high heating and utility bills, but continue to construct buildings with NO insulation. Concrete does not count as an insulator. There’s a reason the Roman Empire built things several layers thick, with several types of masonry. Apparently the fall of the Roman Empire also led to the disappearance of decent architecture and proper civil engineering. It’s like everyone forgot what they were doing and said, “Hey, let’s just start from scratch here, and throw up some concrete pilings, cement ‘em up, slap one layer of paint on ‘em, and yep, wow, Marco, that seems right! That should last a few months or so.” Also, there are no carpets on the floors, only stone or tile, so you have to put multiple rugs down and have fairly sturdy curtains if you expect to keep any of the heat in! (This picture actually makes these apartments look decent... I'll have to take some more up-close. Then you'll be able to see the patios bulging with old toys, decrepit appliances, and granny panties drying in the not-so-clean air.)

In order to find housing here, you have to work through the "Housing Office." You can look at their database of available homes, and then they help you negotiate the contract, or you can call individual "Landlord Reps" and they drive you around from place to place. Some people have "the feeling" about a place early on, and some people much much later (after seeing 30+ places!) I think at this point I've seen about 20 places, and I've had a good "feeling" about three of them, and one in particular stronger than others. There are only a few places to live near the water that are considered fairly safe and have a more youthful vibe – Pozzuoli, Arco Felice, Bacoli, and Monte di Procida. The further you drive from work, the prettier, bigger (relatively speaking), and safer the places get. It seems you have to sacrifice quality to live closer to work, and in order to get a really safe and healthy-sized place you have to live a good 35 minutes away on the morning drive and an hour or so plus on the drive back in the afternoon/evening. Since this place has a 50-60% unemployment rate, I’m wondering why the HECK they’re all on the ROAD when WE who are EMPLOYED need to be! ;-)~

The Landlord Reps are an interesting bunch, and it seems to be a rather cut-throat business. They get very miffed when another rep has shown you an apartment already, especially when the owner had supposedly given them an “exclusive” right to show it to prospective tenants. My understanding is that they get the first month's rent, so they have a pretty good incentive to make your rent fairly high, rather than negotiate for a better rate. I’m hoping that’s what the Housing Office folks will help out with (yes, I’m remaining optimistic, while I pretty much feel that’s not what’s going to happen). While I was out one day with a rep looking at a place that's around 1300 Euros (my “cap” is 1400 Euros), I asked the rep how much an Italian person would expect to pay for this certain apartment. The rep stated, “Oh, around 800-1000 Euros.” I asked, “Why would I be expected to pay 1300 then?” The rep responds, “Oh, well, that is because the Americans want kitchen cabinets (this particular place already had them installed) and light fixtures (also already installed) and things like this.” OK, REALLY, I’m fairly sure I could pop down to the local Auchan (Europe’s version of Wal-Mart) and get some lighting fixtures, then pop down to whatever home improvement store was in the area and get some kitchen cabinets for MUCH less than a 500 EURO A MONTH overage. I’m hoping to nail down a place soon, and am going out with another rep tomorrow to see what they day offers…

Oh, and if you expect to get anywhere AT ALL around here, you need a Garmin or a Tom Tom. I’m currently figuring out which one is better. Apparently Panasonic has one as well, a CN-GP50N Portable Navigation System. If anyone has any suggestions of how I can find out which one really is better than the others, please let me know. :-)

Day 3 - Being Talked At

First day of our class, which went by rather quickly. Briefs, turned in papers, got talked at, the usual. Part of getting housing here in Naples includes meeting with various "Landlord Reps," which involves being driven around the area from place to place looking at different apartments and homes. Most of them speak fairly good English, so it makes it easier when I can't think of random particular Italian words in a pinch! :) Called a few today, and will be going out on some visits very soon. I'm hoping to find something fairly nice, since we do have a good chunk of change to spend on our places. They warned us about one area, Lago di Patria, at which there was some "criminal activity" in the past year... some sort of immigrant-mafia encounter, but apparently since then it has been considered "safe." Thank heavens not "safe" enough, as the Housing office has you sign (among 10 other papers) that you rent there at your own risk and understand that Housing strongly advises against it. Who would rent there? How great could it REALLY be when you know there's been some type of "incident" that made the base CO strongly advise that people not move there? Seriously. Who's asking for that kind of trouble?... well, apparently people still do rent there... (**sarcastic eyeball-roll**)

Met another fellow LT, so I'll have someone to pal around with and go on housing visits. It's still a bit weird for me to ask people, "Hey, what's YOUR rank?" to figure out who I can and can't hang out with long-term... I'm pretty outgoing and like meeting everyone, but I still need to know who can be a good friend, or a once-in-a-while-acquaintance, so as to not worry about "fraternization"... ugh. So, we all end up skirting glances at each other's random paperwork to check out the "rank" box!

Nothing too exciting today, just bounced around the base, going to the commissary, exchange, and visiting the library (which will be closed for the next 20 days for carpet replacement). TWENTY DAYS. Granted, I understand books have to be moved, but TWENTY DAYS? Geez. K, I'm taking a deep breath. I already know everything here moves a BIT more slowly than the rest of the world... ;)

Day 2 - 29 Jan 2009 - It Begins...

Ventured out this morning to take the bus from the support site to the office. Was quite a nice drive, and had an opportunity to check out the local area and get my bearings. Met another few people at the office, and had lunch with my coworkers Jason, Joe & Chris. Surprisingly, the small food court downstairs in our building is quite tasty (and kind of expensive)! Later on, back at the support site I set up my new Italian telephone number and popped by the Commissary. I only brought one bag to keep me from buying too many items, but of course that didn’t stop me from purchasing 30+ lbs of food and drinks, then having to drag it back to the lodge. At least I got my exercise for the day!! ;-)

Now that I’ve had time to sit down, check and send email, I went to one of my favorite websites, www.hulu.com, which legally streams television shows as it shows short commercials during the programs. I click on a show, Fringe, that I’ve started watching and it tells me “We’re sorry, currently our video library can only be streamed within the United States.” I was none too pleased.

Tomorrow is “Mass Check-in”… nothing like feeling like a sheep.

Day 1: 27-28 January 2009 - The Departure & The Arrival

After a fantastic weekend in Charleston with my friend Lauren Faust and some new Navy Nuke buddies, I drove another 6 hours to Norfolk, VA. I stayed with some Gulfport buddies, Bev and Eric. They're such fabulous hosts and were very patient when I was frazzling out about the weight of my luggage! :) My passenger manifest stated that my 2 checked bags had to be 50 lbs. or less. Well, as most people know, there's no way my luggage will ever be the correct weight. My uniform bridge coat (a longer version of a peacoat) weighed about 10 lbs just by itself! The manifest also said I could bring on 1 carry on. Of course, I had two. Fortunately, there were no hassles at the airport, and everyone there was very friendly and helpful....

I was told to report to the airport by 1835 for a 2135 flight. Not quite sure why I had to be there THREE hours early, but we made it in time. I think Bev and I made a loop of the entire Norfolk base trying to find the AMC terminal. I had heard varying horror stories about the AMC flights: "you'll be in a loud cargo plane," "you'll be stopping every 2 hours," and the dreaded "there will be TONS of screaming babies." Really, the only one I was concerned about was the screaming baby issue. I usually can sleep through anything, but after dealing with children kicking the back of my seat on several trans-atlantic flights, my tolerance level with that has significantly plummeted.... so, I thanked Bev profusely for helping me out the past day or so, and proceed to the departure lounge. One of my friends told me that I'd be there for a long time without any food, so I packed my carry on with about 30 Luna bars and was raring to go. The lounge was fairly empty, so I called a few friends, hopped on the internet, and patiently waited. Not a baby in sight. YES! But, of course, just as I relax about 30 minutes before boarding babies started coming out of the woodwork... one, two, three, ten... noting their disapproval of the impending flight in various stages of loud gurgling, sobbing, crying, screetching, and screaming. ahhhh!!! And then the kid sitting next to me decides NOW was a GREAT time to start singing. Needless to say I was a bit hesitant about this flight...

Fortunately, after boarding, there was only one baby in my section of the plane and it was fairly peaceful. I snuggled into my window seat and sat back and relaxed. We seemed to be sitting on the tarmac for a fairly long time, so I took the opportunity to text several friends, knowing texting and calling wouldn't be cheap on the other side of the Atlantic... one of my friends called me and I spoke as quietly as possible, so as to not be "that girl" talking on her phone. Well, even though they hadn't called the "turn off all electronic devices and cellphones," the male flight attendant gave me the stink-eye as he passed by me. So, after quickly hanging up, I went back to texting. ;-)

The flight consisted of a 4 hour flight to Lajes AFB, located in the Azores off Portugal. During the flight we were well-fed (I haven't had an airline meal in quite a long time, and frankly, this one was pretty tasty. It could have been the bonus Sara Lee mini chocolate chunk cake thing that tipped that scale). They put on a movie, Hellboy II, and then I took a nap until we arrived in the Azores. Now, I fully expected that there would be some sort of gift shoppe where I could buy at least a keychain or koozie for the collection. SCORE! GIFT SHOPPE! While the selection was rather minimal, I managed to get some postcards, a shot glass, a keychain and a magnet. I thought I had been to some tiny airports in my time, but this one really took the cake. What we were supposed to be doing for 2 hours in this airport, I have no idea. The muzak did a FULL CYCLE, and I realized 1. 5 hours in they were playing the same song as when I had gotten here. We arrived in the dark, so we couldn’t even see the island or take any touristy pictures.

Two hours later, we're back on the plane, fed again (!), and I was asleep pretty soon thereafter. We arrived in Naples, Italy an hour EARLY (!). We were greeted by the base CO, and then I collected my luggage while I awaited a pickup from my sponsor. I managed to decipher how to use the DSN phone on the wall thanks to an individual near me, so I called a friend or two and the parents to let them know I was safe and sound.

Jason, my fantastic sponsor and co-worker, and my new XO picked me up and showed me the office, introducing me to those hard-chargers still at work at 1630! ;-) Jason then took me on a drive to the support site where I would be staying, helped me check in, and dragged one of my bags up to my room. I soon discovered why people never want to move out of the Lodge here. Granite countertops.... oriental rug... nice furniture... and free internet downstairs. I laughed for a good few minutes when I saw the base restaurant was an APPLEBEES! YES. An APPLEBEES. Well, after seeing the look in my eye, Jason and I ventured out into Gricignano to find a restaurant. After realizing that neither of us had any Euros on us, the waiter indicated that there was an ATM in the piazza. I remembered on our quick drive through the town that we had passed a Banco di Napoli at some point. Jason asked if it was within walking distance, and I said sure, of course. I think MY impression of walking distance is drastically different than the average person, so it was a good 15 minute walk or so to the ATM. As my parents will attest, I always used to complain about walking on our European trips. Apparently on one trip after being told our itinerary in the morning I responded, “Will ANY of this involve WALKING?” Needless to say, I formerly was not a fan. Now, I’ll bound around tiny cities without hesitation… So, we made it to the ATM and back to the restaurant, enjoyed a nice meal, and then Jason dropped me back off at the lodge. While I didn’t feel jetlagged, after watching an episode of 30 Rock on my computer I was out like a light…. Until 0300, when I decided that this would be a good time to iron my uniform for tomorrow. So, I got the ironing board out of the closet and set it up. Two seconds later it CRASHES down on my toes, and probably waking up the poor people below me. I whispered “SORRY!” as if that was going to make a difference, and then properly locked the thing into place… I fell back to sleep a little while later, then looked forward to Day 2.