Mood:  happy

So today, after we went to the Dining Facility (DFAC, from here on out) for Sunday brunch (rapidly becoming a tradition) and wandered around the PX for a little while, we decided to drive out to Marostica. 

Last week, Kimberly took part in the ACS (Army Community Service) welcome program called Benvenuti, which took her on daily tours ranging from a day at the commissary, to a day in Venice.  They also spent a day in downtown (old town) Vicenza, and a day in neighboring townships, one of which was Marostica.  The neighboring townships day was Kimberly’s favorite (Venice was rainy that day).  Kimberly told me that they found this place that had a cool castle, with walls that still extended down the hill and surrounded the old town.  In the old town center, there is a giant chess board.  On this chess board, each September, the town gathers (along with a LOT of tourists) and plays a single game of chess, using people fully dressed in character as the pieces.  Apparently, the original game was played by two men, wanting to marry the same woman.  The men, not being able to decide who should “get the girl,” decided the winner of a game of human chess would marry, with the losers consent.  Apparently, the woman in question either had no say, or wasn’t very decisive.  Either way, a crowd grew, somebody won, and suddenly a new tradition was born.    Kimberly wanted to show me this place because she knew I would like it.

So again, after lunch and some light shopping, and having nothing better to do, Kimberly noted that the weather was really nice today, and we should go see this village.  Cool.  Off we went! Andiamo! –as they say…

What a walk!  No kidding, that wasn’t easy.  It was short; only about 20 minutes, but Holy Cow!  Anyway…

We made it to the top, scrambled along the castle walls for a bit, took some pictures, and then walked back down to the town square, back to the car, and came home.  All in all, not a bad afternoon.  We were bored, so we went and toured a village dating back to the 1300s…Stood on the original castle walls, and listened to the church bells ringing.  Where can you do THAT in the states… J

Take care,

- Ryan

Posted by kisajaja at 5:44 PM CET

Updated: Sunday, 25 January 2009 5:52 PM CET

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Mood:  happy

This weekend we took our second ITR trip since arriving in Italy.   We arrived dark and early to board the bus enroute to Milan, often described as the “Italian Big Apple,” particularly by those Italians that are proud of Milan, but have never actually been to New York.  –Or the States.  –Or have seen a movie about either…

Seriously, there isn’t much there, unless you want to go name brand shopping, and even then, it’s not like 5^th Ave.  We saw plenty of Armani, Gucci, Prada, etc, etc, but they didn’t have the large windows with larger than life displays.  It would be hard to “window shop,” there, but if you knew what you wanted and where to find it, you could pay a small fortune for it, in Milan!  All kidding aside, Milan is the most expensive city in Italy.  It is considered (here, anyway) the fashion capital of the world.

This sort of shopping isn’t really our thing, so we set ourselves to the task of seeing the sites.  We found the Gallaria, separating the Duomo (Cathedral) from the Opera House.  We walked through the Duomo and Piazza surrounding it.  We walked a good distance around Milan, saw the Castle, and then ended up around the Duomo, again, got a small snack and then headed back through the Galleria to the Opera House and found our way to the bus stop for the trip home.

It is worth noting two things about the Galleria.  First, McDonald’s is directly across from Prada, in the dead center of the Galleria.  That’s just funny.  Next, there is a tile mosaic of a small bull (the ‘Torino’), which you are supposed to step on (someplace thoroughly uncomfortable for the bull) with your left foot and spin in a full circle, also to the left, to bring you good fortune in the next year.  We (all three of us) spun on the bull.  Good fortune should abound…

Our next trip (the February trip) is to Viareggio, which will be hosting the Carnivale Parade, complete with floats, while we are there.  Carnivale is done big-time in two places in Italy.  Viareggio is the other one.  Then, a few weeks later, we’ll have the opportunity to do Carnivale properly, in the old stomping grounds of Casanova himself, Venice.

Posted by kisajaja at 5:25 PM CET

Updated: Sunday, 25 January 2009 5:43 PM CET

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So last night, like everybody else, we stayed up 'til midnight to welcome in the new year.  At roughly the stroke of midnight, the entire town (small though it is) lit up the sky with fireworks.  We watched from an upstairs window, and while the show was much better from our townhouse in Germany, it really wasn't bad!

Shortly before the fireworks started, it began snowing.  It didn't stop until about 10:00am today.  We woke up to about 6-inches of snow outside!  Kimberly and I went for a walk around the village and took some pictures.  Then we came home and spent a quiet New Year's Day. -Not like we had a choice...Everything everywhere is closed!  :)

While I'm on the subject, I've read a couple of news articles that talked about how terrible 2008 was for everyone.  "Worst year in memory for everyone under 70 years old," one story said.  Rubbish!  I'd just like to say that for us, 2008 was one of the BEST years EVER!  -And we are looking forward to an exciting and productive 2009!

Happy New Year everyone...Enjoy the photos.

Posted by kisajaja at 7:10 PM CET

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Mood:  happy

Merry Christmas, everyone! 

We are in our house now and have received the Jeep in good working order.  That means we are mobile, and have a roof over our heads.  Life is good!

We don't have a TV or radio, or internet connection, for that matter, so we get out of the house whenever we can think of something to do.  Right now we are sitting in the on-post library, which has several computer terminals available for publc use.

Our stuff isn't here, yet, so we are on loaner furniture which isn't all bad.  It'll get us through until our stuff arrives in February.

Our next trip is planned through the ITR.  We are going to spend a day in Milan, which ITR describes as the European Big Apple.  I've never been there, so I guess we'll see.  :)

Anyway, this post is just to say Merry Christmas to everyone, so, uhm, Merry Christmas!

- Ryan

Posted by kisajaja at 1:53 PM CET

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Mood:  happy

My last two entries have been a little “punkie,” so I thought I’d write a little bit to talk about how thing are going.  We didn’t go anywhere fun or take any pictures since Florence, so this entry is just me typing.

Italy is nice…Or at least I think it will be.  The fact is that it has rained every day since we arrived a week ago.  The only decent day we’ve had is the day we went to Florence.  It’s supposed to stop raining tomorrow evening, and then stay pretty nice for the foreseeable future.  That would be nice.  While it isn’t terribly cold here (in the 40’s), we are all tired of being wet. 

Jacoby is back in school, and has attended each of his classes, once.  He is now about half-way through his Freshman year, but will not receive credit for this first half, since he just arrived.  He appears to like his school, at least initially.  All of his teachers are American, so he isn’t dealing with a cultural/language barrier there.

We have received our house for the next three years.  We will get to move in with “loaner” furniture on Monday .  It is a nice house, in a nice little town, next to a grape field and a castle on the adjacent hill.  No kidding, it’s a great little place.  That being said, it is an awful drive to and from work. 

It’s not that it’s crowded, or traffic is unbearable, or anything like that.  It’s that the roads here are terrible.  They are not laid out well, and the signs/markings will take some getting used to.  We’ve ended up on two “impromptu tours” in the last two days, because the maps in the GPS are out-of-date and the signage isn’t sufficient to make up the difference.  Like I said before, I will eventually get used to these roads, but right now, they are source of constant frustration.

There is a GREAT gym on post, and it’s right next to my office.  Fantastic.  I’ve been working out every morning, trying to fend off all of the “transit food.”  I’m looking forward to getting in the house and getting back into the diet program.   I just feel better when I eat right.

The Jeep is expected to arrive tomorrow.  I hope so.  It’ll be nice to have it back, although I still have to deal with these roads…We will also get Kimberly’s Mini back soon, although I don’t think she’ll be too excited about driving it, for the same reason.

We are almost finished with our in-processing.  We are done visiting all of the important places and handing out copies of my orders. This week has been spent in Head Start, which is supposed to teach us survival Italian and a bit about the local culture.  While the quality of teaching is questionable, the material is VERY worth knowing, and the class is having a positive impact on us.

So, in short, we are here.  We are still happy to be here, although that excitement is tempered by the annoyances previously mentioned.  I’ll get back to work on Tuesday to being my transition with the outgoing SIGO.  As always, life is good!

Posted by kisajaja at 8:38 PM CET

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Mood:  happy

We signed up for the trip with the ITR people (ITR stands for Information, Tours, and Recreation).  They sponsor several trips in and around Italy for fairly low cost, since all they really provide is the round trip charter bus and a tour guide.  We heard about several upcoming trips including Christmas in Rome, Cheese tasting in Asiago, and a trip to the Christmas markets in Florence.  We signed up for Florence “to get our feet wet.”

We left fairly early in the morning (for a Sunday) having to meet the bus at 6:45a for a 7:00a departure.  We drove for 3 hours and change, stopping once on the way there and back for a snacks and a leg-stretch.  While in Florence, we walked to three of the major weekly markets and down to the Christmas markets.  With the little bit of extra time, we had a late lunch and then did some of the walking tour stuff that we remembered from the last time we were here.

Posted by kisajaja at 5:29 PM CET

Updated: Monday, 15 December 2008 5:43 PM CET

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Mood:  happy

We have arrived in Vicenza, Italy, after a few marathon flights and a five-hour layover in Dubai, UAE.  Let's see, the long leg of the flight was 14-hours.  Then it was the layover.  Then it was the short 7-hour flight to Venice.  Finally, it was a brief hour long drive fron Venice to the guest house, where I am now sitting and typing this entry...

Today, we managed to get downtown and see some of the Christmas markets, some of the local normal markets, and walked along some very old streets, just to "get a feel" for Vicenza.

I think we are going to like it here!  -But I'll know more tomorrow.  That's when I finally get back to work. :) 

Posted by kisajaja at 6:16 PM CET

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Mood:  happy

Interesting weekend...We drove up to Bathurst in order to ride on the Zig Zag Railway.

Peter and Jo McKaskill wanted to take us up to the Blue Mountains.  We had gone a few weeks ago, but what they wanted to do was different than our 3-Sisters trek.  They wanted to ride the old steam train along its original route through a portion of the Blue Mountains near Lithgow, a suburb of Sydney.  The route is called the Zig Zag Railway because there was no way to build the track on the slope of the mountains in order to get the passengers from the top to the bottom.  To accomplish this, the track makes a big “z” on the slope and the train has to stop in two places along the descent, the engine then changes ends of the train, and then they switch the track and continue along the next leg of the “z.”  In doing that, the train makes it from the top to the bottom without having the required switchbacks (re:  hair-pin turns) in the track.  The route takes two-and-a-half hours for the round trip.

The only downside of the weekend...well, there were two, but the first was that Jo wasn’t feeling well, so she had to stay in the cabin with a cough while the rest of us rode the railway.  The other down side was the weather, which was uncharacteristically cold.  It actually snowed in November, in Australia...Weird!

Posted by kisajaja at 4:19 AM CET

Updated: Monday, 24 November 2008 4:32 AM CET

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Yesterday, we went to Eden, which is a smallish town to the south east of Canberra, about 3 hours drive.   Like most Australian cities, it is on the coast.  Each year, about this time of year, a large population of humpback whale transits the area in order to get from their winter breeding waters to their summer feeding waters.   This transit takes place less than a mile from the shore/town.  Therefore, Eden has its Whale Festival each year, about this time.  (http://www.edenwhalefestival.com/Eden_Whale_Festival/Home.html, for more information)

Eden, like I said, is a little town.  The festival area was tiny, but they made the most of it that they possibly could.  There were a few food booths and one or two carnival rides.  There was a parade, made up of classic cars and large shipping trucks.   There was a marching band, and even the Carlson Draught beer horses and wagon (think Budweiser Clydesdales and you’re there).  The parade went for about 20 minutes, I’d say.  The rest of the festival took about fifteen minutes...There were two stages set up.  One was for the local “battle of the bands” competition.  The other had some drummers troupe on it at one point, but we didn’t stick around for too much of that.   They went on to have fireworks that night, but again, we didn’t stay.

So where were we?  We went whale watching!  I’ve never been whale watching before, so this was something new.  We climbed aboard the Cat-Balou, and headed out onto the water for a two-and-a-half hour cruise.  (http://www.catbalou.com.au/, for more information)

We didn’t know if we’d see any whales, but there was a half-your-money-back guarantee, so we figured we’d give it a whirl.  Turns out, we did NOT get half our money back!  There were whales.  A LOT of whales.  –Or maybe a few whales A LOT of times...Either way, we saw them.

Mostly we saw them swim, which is to say we saw their big humps come up out of the water in order to breathe.   For a while, this was all we saw, which was cool, but I was hoping for more “action shots.”

Then, for whatever reason, they decided to breech for us.  Apparently it doesn’t happen often, but breeching is when the whales jump out of the water and make a huge splash.  We saw them breech three times.  The cat balou people said that they can go weeks without seeing even one breech.   They (the whales) do this without warning, and its blink-and-you-missed-it fast, so photography was hard.  We missed two really good ones, but caught the third. 

Enjoy!

Posted by kisajaja at 11:27 PM MEST

Updated: Monday, 3 November 2008 3:08 AM CET

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Mood:  happy

So this Sunday, we drove to Sydney to participate in the annual “7-Bridges Walk” around Sydney Harbor, so called, because you have to cross seven bridges along the 27-km (17+ mile) route.  We woke up around 6:00a or 6:30a, got ready, and then headed on down the road, arriving in Sydney around 10:00a-ish.  The first thing we noticed is that the parking lot in which we usually park was hosting an exotic car show.  No problem...They still had spaces available, so with a flick of the $20 parking fee, I parked our antiquated Holden Commadore amongst the Ferraris and we headed over to the walk sponsor’s tent.

Kimberly signed us up for this walk over the internet, so the registration process was a matter of picking up three “passports” in which each of the seven bridge stations and seven village stations would affix their stamps upon our arrival.  We filled up our water bottles and away we went!

I don’t know all of the names of all of the seven bridges we crossed, but it took us from The Rocks, around to Darling Harbour, over to ANZAC Bridge, around to Manly Harbour, across another bridge, through the woods, up a few hills, and finally, across the Sydney Harbour Bridge.  As I said above, it was about 27km (17+ miles), and it took us about 5 hours to complete.

I carried a few small snack foods in my pack, along with the water bottles.   The plan was to stop somewhere en route to eat.  We passed by several cafes and bistros, but we knew we wanted to wait until a specific point before we stopped to eat.  The deal was that most of the bridges occurred during the first half of the walk.  The second half, we thought, was going to be pretty boring going from neighbourhood to neighbourhood, so we figured we’d eat somewhere in that part of the course.  Well, that didn’t work out so well for two reasons.  First, there wasn’t much over there.  Second, by that time in the walk, our legs where getting a little worn.  Not worn out, mind you, but we began to wonder what sort of motivation we’d have left after we sat for any lengthy period of time!  Like I said, I had snack food, so we broke out some of that, and I had a Zone Bar, so all was good. 

Once back at the car, we headed back home, stopping on the way for some dinner.  We made it home around 9:00p, cleaned up, went to bed, and then it was back to work/school Monday morning.

It was a great walk!  -One that I would happily do again if it ever became available to me.  Even Jacoby made it with little to no complaints.  Truly a great day!  For more actually information, see the website:  http://www.7bridgeswalk.com.au/

More planned this week-end, but I’ll write about that then...

Take care!

Posted by kisajaja at 9:13 AM MEST

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