Night on the town: sushi, Irish beer, and dancing

Fri. Feb 24 - Work today was crazy, I was running to and from ITT to the MWR Admin office all day with paperwork, time cards, etc. Leslie is leaving for 2 weeks on Sunday so we're trying to get ahead for the next week so it's not too crazy when she's gone. I had to go to the Admin office to talk to the big guy too about snowboarding for the rest of the month. The weather has been really rainy (which means snowing on the mountain) and stormy and Leslie and really worried about all the recent accidents we've had on the mountain. The south side of Etna (the side we go on) gets hit by the sun everyday so it ices over every night. I had to talk to him about whether or not we would cancel the trips for the future. We advertised them throughout the first month of March, but its not looking like their going to continue. We got our last order of boards in today (10 of them, their really cool looking) and that was the main argument point for the guys over at Admin. They want us to make some profit on them before the seasons over, but Leslie is convinced that the season is over. Anyways, after a lot of arguing (not with me though) we decided to cancel the trips for the next week and I just have to bring up a group of sailors from the USS Kawahawa to the mountain on Saturday. I got back to Gear-N-Go and started to wax the new boards. I got 4 of them waxed and I'll keep working on those next week if I find some time. My friend Joe came in a gave me a CD that he burned of all his pictures from Calabria. That was really nice and theres a bunch of videos on it of everyone jumping the ramp we made on the mountain last weekend. Mack and James asked if I would like to go to dinner with them in Catania at a Sushi Restaurant. I convinced Leslie and Amber to go to and we planned that out before we left work. They were going to pick me up at 8:30 so we could get down there by 9. I went home and got kinda dressed up since this place is really fancy and costs about 60Euro a person. They said they'd buy me dinner. Okay. It's kinda weird and I tell them no, but they make fun of how much I work and how much money I don't make. Mack always tells me I'm making like $3/hour when it's all said and done. The resturant was called Oxidana. We got there and I ordered Tamaki with tuna, avocado, and rice and Terriyaki Chicken for my main course. I ate some battered veggies, tried crab and fish roe. It was alright, the fish roe was too fishy tasting. I realized that Japanese beer called Asashi is really good. After dinner we went to Waxy O'Connells which is the Irish bar in Catania. It was crowded with so many Italians but we found a quiet table in the back. We stayed there for awhile but then headed back towards base. Before we got to where they were gonna drop me off, we decided we weren't done for the night. Theres a club called Strike across from NAS I so we went in there to go dancing. I danced of course and the music is actually American music. The disco was crowded and by the time we left, my bosses all left in a cab. You have to blow in a breathalyzer to get into housing or onto any base. I got home at 3:30am which is crazy cuz I have to get up in the morning to go snowboarding with that ship. Leslie leaves Sunday, but I think the office should be okay for awhile while she's gone.

Time keeps going by faster at work

Tues. Feb 21 - I went into work today itchin the back of my leg. I was there with Leslie all morning by myself and she is really an awesome boss. My leg was bothering me all morning so I went and visited a friend of mine at the hospital to look at it and he said it was two spider bites. They just put some cream on it and I went back to work. A bunch of boards were getting returned from the weekend so I spent a lot of time in the back. I helped do the paperwork for the trip over the weekend. I had to attend my weekly managers meeting with James at the Admin office and that lasted for almost 90 minutes. Those are getting kind of boring, but they really help me see the total picture of MWR at Sigonella. Back at ITT, James came in with a big package and told me that if it wasn't for me, he'd never get any mail. I've been receiving letters and packages so it's pretty fun. This one was from mom and dad. Thanks. I'll have a sugar buzz for like a month with all the candy in there. If anyone would like, you could send me gummy worms and sour gummy worms if you get bored. They don't sell those over here at all. After work I went and saw Fun with Dick and Jane with all the people from the trip. That was freakin hilarious. I love Jim Carrey. You should all definitely see it if you haven't. Sorry, our new movies at the movie theater aren't exactly new to you. After the movie I went back to my room and fell asleep. I'm still trying to make up for the sleep I didn't get over the weekend.

Wed. Feb 22 - I started on my special project today at work finally. James told me not to freak out about it since it'll be a small group that I'll be taking. When I first received my internship, I went out to lunch with my friend Kendra and she gave me a Top 10 guidebook to Sicily. I was flipping through it and saw the blurb about the Aeolian Islands and that you can sea kayak around them. I told myself that that was going to be one of those things on my invisible "checklist" of things I must do while I'm here. It's five gorgeous islands with an active volcano on one of them. I immediately thought about that and that's what I'm going to plan around. I asked the Italians at ITT if they knew of any details and they told me about a campsite that they use when they go to the island of Lipari. It's got bungalows and their not badly priced. We own 11 kayaks so I figured that with a driver and myself, I'll only be able to plan the trip for 9 people. That's okay though, I'd rather keep it small and be able to have more control over the situation. I looked up the bungalows online and they will work out great. Its right on the beach looking out at the sea. I went through about 5 books to find a bunch of information about the island and called Liberty (single sailor program) to tell them to block out the weekend of April 8-9 for my trip. The trip to Malta is the weekend before that but it gives it another week to get a little warmer. Rosario told me he'd like to take the trip with me and he'd be the driver. It's gonna be a blast. I already know a bunch of friends that said they would like to go. The Liberty program is subsidised by the government and is only for single sailors E1-E5. This way I can make the trip a lot cheaper than if I did it through ITT. After work I went and partied at my friends Adam's barracks room and met a ton of new people. We had like 9 people in this tiny little room. Its always nice to meet more people that live on this base now. It took 5 weeks to finally meet people who live on NAS I, but it's working out now. The nights are starting to go a lot faster now that I actually find something to do.

Thurs Feb 23 - The morning at ITT felt like a day at the tux shop. They asked me if I would like to decorate the office for Carnevale to help advertise our trips. I immediately busted out the construction paper, decorations, and make some flyers on the computer. It looked really cool and I cut out "ITT DAY TRIPS: CARNEVALE" in big bubble letters. I found some Mardi Gras colored streamers and masks and finished in about an hour. Everyone was very impressed and told me that I get to decorate the board every week. Leslie didn't think I had that kinda talent I guess. After that I settled down at a computer to catch up on my school reports. I did a weekly report for last week and started on my case studies. It takes so long to write these papers, but I'm really getting into the case studies I'm writing. I worked on my special project some more and everyone is really into what I'm doing. The ladies at the front desk have never gotten to plan a trip so their kinda envious. I forgot tomorrow was Friday since the week was going by so fast so I spent the end of the day getting the boards ready for pick-up tomorrow. There aren't too many boards getting rented this weekend, the weather is looking pretty crappy.

Snowboarding Pics from Etna

Here are some pics of the groups I've taken up there. The first one is Kim and I on the ski run at Etna. The last one has Mack, Amber, and Kim (MWR employees) and the one next to Kim is her husband Mike. The guy on the right is Justin who I've met through everyone.

These are going from the town of Messina to the Reggio Calabria and vice-versa. Messina is where the Campari factory is. In the 4th pic, you can see the island of Sardinia in the far background.

Ferry Ride and Scenery

Reggio Calabria Pics

Here's a few pics from the weekend. I've got plenty more on the way. This ski resort was in the Altomonte National Park.

Reggio Calabria Ski Weekend

Feb. 17-20 - President's Day Weekend Snowboarding Trip
Fri. Feb. 17 - Hi, sorry its taken so long to get on here and write. I was just seeing if you were paying attention Dad:) Just kidding. It's been crazy around here though and I've been really busy. This weekend was awesome though. Friday at work was completely spent on getting ready for the trip to leave at 4pm. I was working in conjunction with Leah getting all the paperwork, waivers, hotel reservations, etc ready. It was all going really well and it was nice to finally spend some time with Leah. Her husband was coming along and Amber was rooming with me at the hotel. We had 22 people signed up and the time flew by on Friday. We were rushing around buying beer and stuff for the nights since there is NOTHING in this "town" where we were going. I packed the coolers and we got some food and snacks for the ride. I waxed and sharpened my board and had to bring Amber's and mine to the bus. Some people showed up 15 minutes late, but we left at good timing for 22 people. We called roll and Leah gave some basic instructions and details on our weekend stay. The bus ride up there was nice, I got to see Taormina from the highway and we had to go through Messina to get to the port. It took about 2 hours to get to that point due to rush hour traffic. We got in line for the giant Ferry and in about 45 minutes we were parked on the lower deck. The ferry ride took about 35 minutes so you're allowed to get out of your vehicle and walk around the decks. This was the largest ferry that crosses the Mediterranean at this point. It was 4 levels, had some restaurants and little pastry shops. Everyone got off the bus and by then it was really dark. I went by myself to the upper deck to watch it float across to the mainland. It was so peaceful and eye-opening. I've never felt so free and relaxed in my life. I just stood there facing the mainland with the wind blowing and the cold air hitting my face just smiling and realizing where I was. I was peacefully sailing across the Mediterranean and felt that I was completely alone on this ship. My mind blocked out all the sounds and all I could do was smile and think. I'm halfway across the world and hopping from the island of Sicily and getting to the mainland of Italy. The lights from both cities (Messina and Reggio Calabria) were gorgeous. I didn't want the ride to end. I only imagined how much more wonderful that ride would have been with some friends exploring Europe. At this point of this entire trip and internship did I feel the most proud of my self and independent. I could totally do this forever. I would enjoy other travelers with me, but just being alone and having no one else to help me or talk to is a big experience. I loved it. I know it sounds corny but I knew my life was changing at that moment in time. This was going to be a great weekend already. We docked and headed up for the town of Gambarie where the ski lift is. It was windy roads in a giant bus. Two things that don't combine very well. It was actually amazing that we didnt get in a head-on collision going up those curves. That was only another hour and a half and we had arrived. Things are so different at night. I couldn't wait to see it in the daylight. I was already anxious to see the ferry ride during day light. We got into the hotel, put our bags away, the rooms were really nice for being an Italian hotel, and the hotel had dinner waiting for us. I got my board all set up and we headed down to dinner with everyone. They had two nice big tables for us that we'd sit at the rest of the weekend for breakfast and dinner everyday. That was all included, lunch was on our own. When your snowboarding all day from 9:30-4 you don't even think about taking time out for lunch. We ate dinner, 4 courses, it was really good, and then headed up stairs to start the party. We played Cranium for a few hours and everyone was ready to go to bed. I found out that Leahs husband is a complete jerk and is a boardgame-Nazi. He pissed a bunch of people off that night so I dont think I'll be hanging out with them for the rest of the trip. Kim and Leslie called us to say HI and we all needed sleep for tomorrow.

Sat. Feb 18 - I woke up at 7am because breakfast was at 8. I went ahead and got dressed for the slopes since the lines are usually pretty long to get passes and get on the lift. Since we got in at night I didnt see the slopes. Before eating I went outside and took the only picture I took for the whole weekend. It was really inconvenient to take my camera up on the slopes. I'll have to get em from everyone else on the trip. I'll definitely find some though cuz it was beautiful and breathtaking at the top of the mountain. Breakfast was typical Italian, a pastry and a bunch of coffee. Shortly after I headed for the slopes and went with Amber. The ski lift was 18 eruo and it wasnt too busy. They only had two runs open and one of them is a toe-rope. I'll get to that in a minute. The lift was really long and the ride was awesome. You could see northest Sicily and just imagine how large the island really is. It was such a clear day that you could see Mt Etna peeking out of the clouds. That was the one picture I really wish I could have gotten. It was awesome, it literally looked like it was floating in the ski. The ride was interesting since you have to ride with the snowboard attached to your foot. That was an interesting first-time experience. The top and getting off the lift was hilarious. I fell as soon as I slid out of my seat since you have to go down this hill with one foot attached. I almost did the splits. I didn't care, a bunch of other people in our group had never done that before either. I figured I had all weekend to work on it. The slope was great and I realized I would really be able to work on the skills. It was powdery and not too crowded. I met up with the really good snowboarders in our group and started to hang out with them. I boarded all day and then a few of us got the bright idea to go down the slope with the toe-rope. I had no idea what I was in for but the guys who have been boarding for years said its really hard and frustrating. The problem was was that this hill was a 64* slope for about a mile. It was insane to go down, you couldn't even see the path in front of you sometimes since the slope was so steep. I did a lot of cris-crossing down that hill. I got the the bottom, it ended up being a really fun and long ride. The other run was too short. It took like 10 minutes to get down and then you have to stand in line for 35 minutes to get back up. I got to the bottom with some friends and started trying to get up the toe-rope. You have to have one foot in your bindings and then the other one has to sit on the center stomp pad on the board. Then you have to proceed to grab this pole thing with a little plastic disc on it which is all connected to an extending wire. The problem is that for snowboarders your riding this thing up sideways. Skiers have no problem cuz they just put in between their legs and ride up facing forward. I tried it 3 times and the furthest I got was a few hundred feet up this gigantic slope. I didn't even make it a 10th of the way up. I wanted to cry cuz I was so frustrated, but no one could really get it. I finally gave up and started walking up the hill cuz there was so other way to get back to that first run and the ski lift. Not a good idea. I felt like I was hiking Mt Everest with really uncomfortable boots, sweating, and carrying a 10 pound board. I was getting no where and every step I took I sunk into the snow. I was probably gonna go into shock or something if I would have continued to try and walk up this hill. My friend Josh came down and gave me some Gatorade and took my board for me. He was skiing, so he brought my board up the toe-rope with him so I didnt have to carry it up. I was hiking for about an hour, sweating and not being able to regulate my body temperature with the outside temp so I just layed down to rest for awhile. I still had another 20 minute hike to go. Josh came back down and told me he found me a ride. I just had to snowboard back down to the bottom and they would drive me back to the hotel. Basically, if you couldnt get up the hill you were stuck. Luckily the guy gave me and another guy from our group a ride b/c we could not get up that hill. The car ride was hilarious and all I wanted to do when I got to the hotel was take a shower, take a nap, and eat some lunch. I didn't get to take a nap cuz I got a 2nd wind so Josh and I went and ate lunch. The party started early but it was so much fun hanging out with this new group of people. Amber doesn't really like to party and these guys were all my age or near. They were so much fun and reminded me of so many people back home. It was nice to finally meet some people that live on NAS I with me. The two girls were really fun too, I'm gonna hang out with them more often when I get home. We partied, ate dinner as a group, it was alright but pretty much the same thing as the night before. After dinner we all made our drinks, played some board games and card games, and headed to the park down the street to keep the noise down at the hotel. Tonight was the disco at the hotel. The open up a room and hire a DJ and dancer. We all hung out there until it closed. Italian dancing is freaking hilarious. Its like perverted line dancing. If we would have taped all that dancing we could have won Americas Funniest Videos. They think they are soooo sexy, but its complete laughter. It went pretty late and I was dancing the entire night to the funny Italian music. After that, a bunch of people went to bed (the older ones) and we all stayed up to party. We played BS in the lobby for a few hours and just had an awesome time. It was 5:45am when we all finally went to bed. I knew tomorrow was gonna be painful.

Sun. Feb 20 - I woke up bright and early at 7:30 and headed for the shower and breakfast. I was actually feeling okay, just sore from my extreme mountain hiking yesterday. My groin was killing me too from constantly doing the splits trying to get off the ski lift each time. It was all funny memories though so I didnt mind the pain. Sundays are like holidays for Italians so needless to say, the slopes were packed. Amber was skiing today so I just hung out with all the "Cool Kids" all day. It took almost an hour to get my lift ticket today. The slopes were wonderful again, but the standing in line for the lift started to get really annoying. Luckily I had all these guys to entertain me while we waited. They are nuts. When your standing in a giant line with pushy Italians, you just stand there and make fun of them and yourself. I have never laughed so hard in one day in my life. They would just stand there and yell out crazy things in other languages and dance around and just be goofy. The Italians couldn't stop staring and laughing at us. Half way through the day, they made a giant ramp that was about 8 feet tall. We just sat there for a few hours and watched them all do jumps and stuff. I took a few runs down by myself to improve. I asked them all for some tips and by the end of the day I could do everything. It was a great feeling. I have everything figured out now and now the seasons almost over. I'll get one more weekend in for sure at Etna though before the ice really starts to hurt people. I got a phone call from Leslie saying that they had to Helicopter another guy off of Etna this weekend with our trip. Today was awesome and we were all surprinsgly more awake than we thought. They took some really cool videos and pictures of the day so I'll have to get them. I stood under the ramp while someone flew over me. That was pretty cool. We got a few more runs in and had a hundred snowball fights throughout the day. We also had some wrestling matches for the Italians' entertainment. They love the tricks the Americans do. Thats why the USA rocked the Olympics in snowboarding. We got down from the mountain, showered and headed to the pizza place. 6 of us hung out and ate pizza over there while everyone else were taking naps. We got everyone up and we started playing cards again and goofing around. The hotel was pretty crowded so it didn't matter how loud we were. We walked around the "town" which took about 10 minutes and later headed to dinner. I tried swordfish for the first time. It was alright, not fishy tasting. It actually tasted like really tender chicken flavored with lemon. Dinner was an absolute blast. The funnies conversations were going and everyone was so slap happy from being tired. We ended up sittting down there for awhile just laughing with everyone. After dinner we went up to play a final game of Cranium. I couldn't convince anyone to play Phaze 10 all weekend since it involved too much thinking. The Cranium game was intense and the whole gang played. Well the 12 cool people ya know. The older people and Leah and Amber were drinking wine in the restaurant all night. The game went for a few hours and then we all just went and hung out in the big quad room. We watched some Italian MTV and a weird movie while we were in there. The night ended pretty late, but we had nothing to do in the morning except get on the bus at 10am.

Mon. Feb 20 - I slept in til 8:30 and went and ate some breakfast. I had a chocolate croissant. Its really strange, but I really enjoy the coffee over here. I think in another way though I feel forced to drink it since there's nothing really else to drink. I did have some blood-orange juice though. That was tasty. Everyone met up in the lobby to check out and the lobby was a mess with all of our gear and bags. I played the cafe (espresso) game with 3 of the guys. Its really stupid but I drank 4 shots of espresso in like 5 minutes. I knew this was going to be an interesting bus ride home. We loaded the bus and I sat with all the younger people in the back this time. I really wasn't too happy with Leah and her husband so I avoided sitting up front with them. I knew I'd have an entertaining time in the back. The ride down the mountain took forever since you cant see cars coming around the bends. I took a few pictures coming down of the landscape, but the bus never stopped long enough to get any really good ones. It was gorgeous though, I just stared out the window for about a half hour knowing that I probably wouldn't see it again. The espressos started to kick in and a bunch of people were getting car sick from the curvy ride to the bottom. We got on a small ferry and headed back to Sicily. The water was really rough from the winds but it was a really cool view of both the mainland and Sicily. You could see Sardinia (the other Italian island) it was so clear. The ride was beautiful and the ocean was clear blue. It took a little longer to get across since it was smaller and the winds were pretty bad. After we crossed we stopped at an AutoGrille (truckstop with a cafeteria). I got some pesto pasta and everything was way over priced there. It only took about an hour to get back to Sigonella. The bus ride was fun but everyone was starting to get really tired near the end. We got back, I brought everything back into ITT (it was closed for the holiday) and unpacked when I got home. I had a massive pile of laundry to do. They offered me to go to dinner at this really good Chinese restaurant in Catania that night around 8. I had time to do laundry, shower, watch some tv, and take a nap. We left for the restaurant and were on our way to Catania. These guys have all been here about 2 years so they know all the fun things to do. This Chinese restaurant was really good and the floor of it was a giant aquarium all lit up with flourescent lights. It was a lot of fun and wrapped up the weekend nicely. It will be so nice to have these guys to hang out with now on NAS I. I think I'm gonna get a ride to Carnevale with them this weekend after we go snowboarding on Saturday. As soon as I got home I crashed. I was so tired. The weekend was so much fun and for $130 you couldn't beat it.

My Submarine Tour and Kim's Going-Away Party

Thurs. Feb 16 - I met with the MWR Director, James Baker, this morning at 8:30 am to head to NAS II to attend a monthly Advisory meeting that I need to attend for my MWR Program. The meeting lasted about 45 minutes and had representatives from MWR, the Navy Exchange, the Commisary, and Safety. Most of the questions were geared to the NEX/Commisary but James was asked a few questions concerning the skatepark. After the meeting was over, we headed back to the Administration Building to head out to Augusta Bay for our Submarine tour. We got one of our 8 passenger vans to use for the trip and all the big dogs and me piled in and were on our way. It was the MWR Director, some of the big-time managers that I hang out with all the time, and little ole' me. They are the coolest group of people to hang out with, they are hilarious and love making fun of each other. We got down to Augusta around 11am and walked onto the pier where the gigantic USS Emory S. Land was anchored. The Land is a tendor ship for subs that just floats around in the Mediterranean when it's not docked in La Maddalena. We had to walk through that and down a giant 40 ft ladder to get onto the submarine (USS Toledo). The USS Toledo is a nuclear powered attack submarine. The sub looked to tiny compared to this ship, but only 1/3 was out of the water. It is 360 ft long, 30 ft in diameter, and has a 20ft sail. As soon as I got on it, 3 guys from my tour yesterday shouted out my name and started talking to me. It was pretty cool cuz it was right in front of my bosses. They were like "damn miss popular." It was funny, the guys kept talking to me and one of them gave me a cool photo of the sub in a nice Navy folder. They broke us up into 2 groups to fit through the sub and be able to hear the guide. Amber and I were in one of the groups so of course being women we got the full-details, secret rooms, too-much information tour. No women are allowed on any sub in the US due to difficulties with birthing and grooming reasons. It was so cool. This guy, Minter, gave us like a 2-hour tour of this tiny ship. We weren't suppose to go in a bunch of rooms, but since he had the ladies we got a little further than we were really suppose to. We got in the torpedo birthing room which holds 19 out of the 36 torpedos on the ship. The sub is from Connecticut so they have only been at sea for about a month. Its crazy but these guys look like ghosts since they never see the sun. He brought us into the captains quarters, sonar room, torpedo rooms, birthings, dining hall, control room like in the movies, and the computer room. It was really amazing to actually see how these guys live. I don't know how they do it. Theres 165 shipmmates on this sub which is only made to fit 110. You can't even walk straight down the halls, you have to turn constantly. If you were over 6' you had to duck the whole time. It's insane what they have to sleep in. They share beds (take shifts) which are so small that you can't sit up in them. It's almost sad that they aren't allowed better conditions. Everyone was really nice though and didn't mind us touring the ship. We got to tour all three levels and the upper deck. You can walk all along the top deck, I'm so glad they let me come on this tour with them. They leave port tomorrow. Italians don't ever know when nuclear subs come in luckily, they are too hidden in our port. I've heard that carriers start a hissy-fit around here. You can supposedly see them from over 5 miles away in the ocean. I wonder if we'll have one of those come in while I'm here. We never know about ships arriving until a day or a few minutes in advance since they're not allowed to reveil their port until they get there. It's all really cool to learn about. After we got back we all went and ate lunch and needed to get to work. I went into ITT, got some boards ready and worked on my blog. Leslie came me the final count for Calabria, 20. I'm really excited, I need to switch out my boots for the more comfortable ones tomorrow before we leave. I booked some day tours while I was up front at the counter and Leslie started talking to me about a job with MWR. She was asking me about college and what my plans were when I finish this internship. She was wondering if I would work over here for a few years if I could get hired. James told me the other day that its really hard for new people to get an overseas job at first. He basically said it would be impossible for me since I have no experience with them. Leslie said thats a bunch of crap and with my degree actually in recreation and tourism that she thinks I could. We talked for awhile and she's really got me convinced to try for Kim's position or something close to it. There's a lot more details I need to find out, but if I could start when I'm finished, I might as well try for it to be in it for the long haul. There's a lot of money and benefits to working in this program. I'll check it out more next week when I get back from my trip. I walked over to the main office to pick up the plaque they had made for Kim. It was really cool. Leslie asked me to go to the NEX and buy some wrapping paper and a small bouquet of flowers for her party tonight since she had to get home and change. I had a 5X7 picture printed out for her that I needed to get a frame for of a few of us snowboarding last weekend when her husband got in town. She always says they never have any pictures of them together. I left work and did all that. Wrapped her presents and got her a card saying Thanks for everything she's helped me with. Amber picked me up and brought me to the restaurant. About 12 people showed up and it was a lot of fun. We had wine and 3 courses. The Director took my credit card away and told me that I wasn't allowed to pay for my dinner. That was cool, two nights in a row of other people buying me dinner, I'll take it. They couldn't stop thanking me for yesterday and Leslie and Kim were bothering James and James all night about hiring me on. Today and yesterday were absolute awesome days. I got a ride home from Justin and threw in some last minute laundry so I could pack in the morning before work. I talked to Jeff for a little bit about the idea of working over here. We'll talk more about it later when I get some more details. I leave tomorrow at 4pm for Calabria. It's about a 4 hour drive, I'm so excited!!!!

Wilderness First Responder on Mt. Etna

Wed. Feb 15 - I got ready this morning and had to be waiting at the front gate at 7am for my pick-up. I waited and waited and finally at 8am, the bus came to pick me up and be on our way. We headed for Augusta Bay and of course were already running super late when we hit an accident. That took awhile but we finally got down there at 9:30. It took about 1 hour 45 minutes to get up to the mountain. I had 50 people signed up but only 35 showed up. They were all from the USS Land and 3 of them were from the USS Toledo (Submarine). They were really fun and I introduced myself and told everyone what was offered on the mountain and gave them where I'd be in case they had any questions throughout the day. They had a guide with them, Jeremy, from their base in Sardinia, La Maddalena. He was really cool and knew the two interns from MWR that I met in Millington, TN. The ride up there was fun and I got interviewed by their TV crew that was with them all day. We finally got up there around 11:30 and I headed straight to the mountain after I showed everyone around real quick. I met Amber and Rosario up there and Amber and I went snowboarding. We got in a few runs and stopped to eat lunch with our groups at 1. After lunch we headed back up for a few more runs before we each had to leave, but thats when all hell broke loose. I just got my snowboard on and went a few hundred feet when I heard my cell phone ringing. It was Leslie from back at ITT confirming that I was Wilderness First Responder Certified and she had a mission for me. You can pretty much guess what came next... Someone from Rosario and Ambers Create-A-Trip got hurt about 1/3 of the way down the mountain. I hadn't reached him yet so I didn't hear or see anything about it yet. She told me that she got a call from Rosario after a few people came down to him to tell him that someone was hurt and they think it was his back. I hung up the phone with her, snowboarded down to the accident to find this guy lying on his side and a huge crowd was already gathering around him. As soon as I got to him, I told everyone about my certification and another there had the same thing. He was really awesome and thankfully knew Italian and English. He was our only source the entire time that could translate anything. He assessed him and took all the necessary action to make our decisions. The problem was everyone else around him that had to put in their 2 cents. Tons of Italians kept coming by and telling us what to do and getting in the way. My first concern was that this guy had on a t-shirt, a thermal, and a pair of sweatpants. He was already getting soaking wet and the wind didn't help the situation. He was on his side and everyone was trying to get him to turn over onto his back. It was his back that was hurt! His chief was with him and he was telling this kid the exact-opposite of what he should be doing. The Sigonella ambulance had been called and so was the Catania Helicopter. Everything was on its way, you just have to accept the fact that its going to take at least an hour to get anything immediate or actual medical attention. There is a ski patrol on the mountain, but somehow there were no doctors on duty today. Hmm.. gotta love Italy! This guy and I did what we could and had it figured out to a lower back injury. We both agreed it was probably just his tailbone. He fell from a standing position, but it was pretty icy today. I couldn't get a signal on my phone to assure everyone and him that help was coming so I walked up a little ways to get one. As soon as I turned around, I noticed that the guy turned himself over onto his back. By then some snowmobiles came down, but they didnt have a stretcher or any blankets with them. It was freezing and this guy was getting more and more wet at the minutes went by. I was really scared he was going to go into shock or get hypothermia before the helicopter got there. I was pissed that the kid rolled himself over, but at least that helped prove the fact that it wasn't a spinal or neck injury. People were making a much bigger deal out of it that it should have been. We finally got a blanket delivered and we recruited 5 other people to help us get him on it. The helicopter finally arrived. That was a cool site to see. It was big, yellow and red, and reminded me of a flying Oscar Meyer Wiener-Mobile. It landed right on the ski path and 4 guys jumped out and immediately got him onto a stretcher and into the chopper. We tried to get Amber to go along with him, but the Italians weren't down for that and there was no room in it anyways. We got ahold of Sigonella again and told the ambulance which hospital he was going to be brought too. They will only fly them to hospitals in Catania, not into Sigonella. We cleaned up and headed down the mountain to fill out any reports, etc and I had to get back to my bus soon and bring the 35 sailors back to Augusta Bay. Two guys from Sigonella showed up at the bottom of the mountain to file the report. Everything was being taken care of and the guy was on his way to the hospital. The Create-A-Trip left and my bus left around 4:30. Altogether the accident took about an hour and a half. Italian medical attention is nothing compared to the US. It's quite scary how non-advanced they are. That is why we tell our customers to wear warm, waterproof clothing, and not to hurt themselves. We tell people flat out that it takes over an hour to get any serious medical attention on the mountain. It was fine, now things were out of our hands and into the base's ambulance and the Catania Hospital. I finally got to my bus and everyone was slowly getting on. We left right on time at 4:30 and everyone had a really good time. Most of them saw the helicopter, but only 5 of them went skiing during the day. We left Etna and stopped down the hill at a house thats completely covered by lava except the roof. The all really enjoyed that and from then on we were on our way back to Augusta. Traffic was pretty heavy but we arrived around 6:15. I finally got back to base at 7pm. That was a long freaking 12-hour day. James called me when I got back and told me he'd like to bring me out to dinner. Amber came along, I ate some really good tortellini and drank some red house wine. It was nice to sit and relax after that kind of day. I knew I'd be asked a million questions in the morning. I went home, made some phone calls to Crystal and Jeff and went to bed.

Good news about the Calabria Ski Trip

Mon. Feb 13 - Work was alright, I've been working the front and the back about equal. We have a bunch of ships coming in this week so everything has been crazy trying to create trips for them with ITT. I was told that we might have snowboarding trips going Tues-Fri this week. Luckily, by the end of the day, they had only booked ones for Wed and Fri. I didn't want to work on getting the snowboards ready for our Create-A-Trip for Wednesday since I didn't know about Tuesday yet. I worked with Leslie a bunch at the front counter b/c we were pretty much there all day by ourselves. I booked a few more reservations for Calabria so that trip is definitely going. Leah, the girl who is going to escort it is still deciding whether or not she's going to go. If she doesn't find a babysitter, I get to escort it and get it fully paid. If not, I'll just tag along, learn how to be the escort and just pay like a hundred euro. Not bad for a 4 day weekend. It was really quiet around the office, a few employees didn't show up for work today. It was fine though, I got to hang out with Leslie. Kim stopped in for a few minutes today, but she's officially done with work. After work I headed to the library to check some email. I saw Kim and we hung out there til it closed. I got her email address and all that. She told me we're gonna have a going-away dinner on Thursday with everybody. That should be pretty fun. I went to my room and watched the Olympics and the Biggest Loser Finale. I think it's pretty old though.

Tues. Feb 14 - Happy Valentine's Day! Work was cheerful today and everyone was in a really good mood. I signed up 2 more people for the trip and Leah decided that her and her husband are going to go. It was fine, Amber told me that we could share a room and Leslie figured out the price we had to pay. It only came out to $130 US Dollars. She just took out the charges for the single room (now we have a double) and the transportation and hidden costs. That was cool, I already paid for it. We're all really excited. It should be a really fun trip because I know almost 60% of the people that are going. They've all been on past snowboarding trips or other trips I've escorted. I've heard its a quiet little place with nothing in the town but this one ski resort. There's 2 courses and lifts. We'll be playing a lot of cards and stuff like that at night. I'm excited because the courses are pretty simple and I'll be able to practice my "moves." Since now snowboards were needed, I went ahead and got all of them ready for tomorrow. It took awhile since the boards hadn't been waxed and repaired in two weeks. I waxed the 8 boards we needed just to be able to get that batch looking better. I also got my board ready and I spent some time on sharpening the back-edge. I have to take it home with me because I was told today that I get to escort a 50-passenger van of sailors (USS Land and Toledo) up to Etna for the day tomorrow. That'll be awesome, I'm kinda nervous. Leslie told me I can snowboard even though none of the sailors wanted to. They can ski and sled if they want when they get up there. Some of the sailors were already on base and wanted to go to the skatepark. That thing is getting used a lot, its awesome. I made some last minute park passes for them and we closed up shop. I loaded the van for the trip tomorrow (not mine) and brought my board home with me cuz I have to be out in the front waiting for the bus at 7am to ride to Augusta Bay and pick up my peeps. I watched some more snowboarding and saw the USA dominate in the halfpipe (men and women). That was fun to see. I rented a movie called Red Eye and watched that after I finally figured out how to plug in my DVD player in the room. It was really good, you should check it out. I hadnt even ever heard of it in the states before I got here. I've got a busy day tomorrow ahead of me, so I'll talk to you all later.

Speed Dating and Snowboarding, what a combo...

Fri. Feb 10 - The Olympics start tonight. I'm going to try and watch snowboarding as much as I can. Our team is supposedly gonna beat out everyone. Today was another typical day at work, but I got some free time to work on my school reports. It was surprisingly slow for a Friday all day, but more than 80% of the snowboards for the weekend were being used for our trip and a Create-A-Trip for a boy scout troop. We got enough people to sign up for our Calabria Ski Trip for next weekend so I think I'm gonna go ahead and go on that. Their trying to find a good price for me if I can get my room paid for. The Olympics road trip doesn't look too promising. No one wants to sit in a car for 12 hours. It's alright, just kind of disappointing. I should be getting my visa/No-Fee passport in the mail soon. I got a package today from Jeff. He shipped my blanket over to me. It was sweet and just in time for Valentine's Day. I didn't do much work on the snowboards today other than load up the vans for this weekend. I'm going again tomorrow of course and a bunch of our employees are coming along to for the day. It's fun to have people to hang out with and try stupid jumps along the way while falling on your butt. The customers have been really fun lately and a few of our regulars are going with us tomorrow. I left work a little early to meet up with James so I could get a bunch of questions answered for my site evaluations for school. I couldnt find any of the answers for it, so I sat with him in his office for about 2 hours getting everything answered. Luckily no more site evaluations, just weekly reports, a few case studies, my project, and some other small things. It's been a lot of work keeping up with those and they each take about 4-5 hours to type. Dr. Cole wrote me back and told me that they didn't need to be so long. As you can see from these Blogs, I tend to write a lot. Oops. I got back to work and finished up some stuff. I went ahead and left work at 5:30pm to head over to Jox Sports Bar to set up for our first experiment of "Speed Dating." We had 20 people sign up and we wanted to decorate a part of the bar to look nice for the event tonight. They asked me to help them set up to get a girl's touch. They went all out. They bought an arch with flowers, some lattice for along the walls, white table cloths, roses, vases, candles, and some other romantic stuff. It was starting at 9pm, so we definitely got there too early to set up. Oh well, it was alright, I had nothing else better to do. So 9pm finally arrived and we were 5 people short from what had originally signed up. I bet you can guess what happened next.... Yes, they begged me to play. I had already told Jeff about it, so I went along with it finally after a lot of convincing. They finally rounded up 9 guys and 8 girls. Yes, so I had to talk to 9 guys for 5 minutes each. It was so cheesy, yet hilarious. I got maybe 4 good questions throughout the whole night. No wonder some of these guys can't find a date. Well that and theres only like 10 good looking girls that live at Sigonella. We got free drinks all night and it turned out being a good time. Here's the part that really convinced me to participate (well other than my bosses begging me to do it). The winners got a 100 euro dinner out in Catania and were going to be choufered (can't spell) in a brand new 2006 Jaguar all night (Dad and Bill would be so proud of me!). I knew one of the guys so we put our names in together (yes he has a girlfriend and he knew about Jeff) at the end to win. We didn't win of course. I watched some of the opening ceremony tonight on the tvs there. The night finally ended and I got home around 12:30. I needed some sleep for snowboarding in the morning.

Sat. Feb 11 - Snowboarding again today! 4 times in a week ain't bad, huh? We had tons of people going today and two extra vans than usual with the Boy Scouts. Our van was absolutely full, but we made it up there in good time. You can tell the snow is starting to melt and we're probably not going to get many more good weekends to get up there. I wish it would have a good snow again. We haven't had to use our snow chains since Rosario and I had to that first week I was here. The lava is starting to get exposed on the path and the snow thats there has turned into ice. It's kinda hard to get traction on a few of the spots since it's so icey. I'm gonna take some time this week and sharpen my heel-edge on my board that I've been using. It's still fun though and for 12 euro you can't beat a day on Etna. I've heard some good things about the other side of the mountain's ski lodge and lift so I wanna get over there before the snow disappears completely. Today was really fun though hanging out with a bunch of the MWR staff. I'm really starting to get the feel for transitions. I only landed on my tailbone hard once today. I'm getting better for sure. I hope the ships that come in this week decide to plan some trips all week. If they do, I am going to have to go on each of them because Kim's last day is Tuesday. They'll have to find drivers and then I'll be the escort who goes on the mountain to be able to fix peoples stuff and in case of any emergencies. It was awesome. The weather was cold today and cloudy, but I think I've just been spoiled from this Wednesday up there. After we got back, I went and got dressed while they were unloading the vans so I could go with Kim and her husband over to Marinei. Thats the complex they all live in that got flooded in December. Leslie and her husband Jake were having a BBQ so I just rode with Kim and hung out at her house until they got ready. The BBQ was fun and I got to hang out with everyone from last weekend. I met a bunch of new people too. It was fun and crazy of course. We hung out on their roof, had a campfire, ate some BBQ ribs and steak, and had a good time. I finally went to bed around 6am in their big fluffy guest bed.

Sun. Feb 12 - I woke up around 10am and they brought me home. I fell asleep in my room for another 3 hours or so and had to wake up so I could get to the library and commisary before it all closed. I got to the library, wrote some Hello Emails, and headed to the grocery store to get some water, Dr. Pepper, pasta sauce, and some other goodies. I needed more breakfast stuff since I'm gettin really good with eating breakfast everyday with my vitamins. After getting some dinner and snack stuff I rented a movie called Red Eye. It looks kinda good, its got Rachel McAdams from the Notebook in it. I figured I'd give it a try since I never saw it advertised in the States. By the time I got home and made some dinner, I fell asleep to early to watch a movie. I did watch some Olympics updates though between waking up and falling asleep. I ended up getting a lot of sleep yesterday to help prepare me for the crazy week this week. I'm hoping to see a sub early this week down at Augusta Bay.

Time is going by too fast!

I can't believe I've already almost been here a month! Time flies when you're having fun I guess.

Tues Feb. 7 - I went into work a little early so I could meet Leslie again and see how everything is going around the office after being off yesterday. All of the boards were back from the weekend but Meagan hadn't gotten any ready for our Wed trip or weekend rentals yet. I started on those and got all of the ones I could get ready finished. We got seven new boards in yesterday and they are already all rented for the weekend. Those boards are going like crazy and Kim and I are like the new popular "snowboarding chicks" on this mountain and among the guys around base. It's so funny, we'll go eat together and people will stop and say hi to us. They said this is the most successful that snowboard rentals have ever been, they almost sold them all last year because they were afraid they were making a bad investment in them. While I was working on them Kim asked me if I had my board ready for tomorrow. I had no idea they wanted me to go again tomorrow. I double checked with Leslie and James about it and they told me to go ahead and that they are requiring that 2 people go each time for safety reasons. Alright, I'll go again...I guess. I loaded up the van after getting all the Wednesday trip ones ready and we've got 8 going with us. I worked at the front desk for the rest of the day and booked some tours and overheard some bad news. Ever since the flood here last month, money has been tight. At the end of the week, we are probably going to have to cancel our Calabria Ski Trip and Dublin due to lack of participants. We are supposed to have at least 25 for each, but we've only got a handfull signed up for each so far. You never know though, they said people come sign up last minute all the time. Maybe I can find a 4-day weekend to go up there by myself, it just won't be during St. Patty's Day weekend probably. I've realized that flying in Europe once your over here is really cheap. I've been lookin up tickets and nothing is over $300 bucks round trip. I'll have to start askin around if anyone wants to travel somewhere with me. These two months are gonna go by so fast though, its starting to scare me. I don't wanna leave, I'm having too much fun and meeting some awesome people. I told Kim that I'd take her full-time job as the Recreation Aid of the department. Sicily for a few years wouldn't be too bad... Anyways, I'm dreaming. Leslie and her husband are going to have a big welcome back BBQ on Saturday so thats what I'll be doing when I get home from snowboarding. Kim will give me a ride over there and back, I don't know if we're going boarding on Sunday again, but I've heard these parties are crazy and will last til early in the morning. That should be fun. I also got an email from the C5 Air Force guys saying that they're coming back to Sigonella and want to go snowboarding and go downtown. I'll probably hang out with them next week if they are here for a few days. They were hilarious last time they were here. Work has been nice because I actually offer suggestions of how to change forms or programs and they agree with me and let me change some. I've already created a few new forms for rentals and changed some of the existing forms to make them easier to understand and eliminate a lot of useless wordage. I'm been averaging working over 50 hours a week since I've been here. I dont want to leave ITT now since I'm really starting to get into it and they are showing me everything. Leslie is going to be a really good addition to this intern, she's really into helping me, even just after today. She suggested that I go to "Coaching Star Service" (a customer service class for managers) instead of re-taking a 2-day customer service training class that I took in Millington before I got here with MWR. It's at the Navy base in Naples, so she's going to try and set that up with James permission. She told me not to rely on it, but it would be really good for my position that I'm working towards as a manager. After work, I went with Kim into Motta (town near Sigonella) and she brought me to two Iron-works places where she buys a bunch of stuff and introduced me to the owners. I got some good ideas for X-Mas presents tonight. She drove me around Motta and pointed out some good places to eat and hang out and then drove me back home. I ate some dinner and sat around my room watchin tv and fell asleep early for my next day of snowboarding. She's going to give me some phone numbers of people to hang out with for after she leaves. She knows I want to travel around Sicily on weekends and she knows some people who do that pretty often.

Wed Feb. 8 - Another day of snowboarding.... how sad? We got going picked up our people and headed for the mountain. I brought my Ipod and some speakers for our ride up there today. There are no radios or anything in the vans so we decided last week to figure somethin out for music. It definitely livened up the trip and made it go by faster. That hour drive is like nothing now. We've got it down. We're getting good at moving quick and getting everyone dressed and on the mountain faster. Today was the most beautiful day up here ever. It was just like the first time I came up here with Rosario but of course I got to go to the top today. You could see the ocean, Augusta Bay, all the near-by cities, and all the craters down below. It was cold and windy, but the snow was groomed and perfect. She told me today was the day to try and learn some skills. A guy Keegan hung out with us all day and he helped me learn the transitions and getting down the mountain switching from heels to toes and vice versa. I took some really hard crashes right onto my hips and butt, but I knew it would be the only way to learn how to do it. They told me I'll get the feel of it and how gravity will keep me balanced after I get it a few times. I was doing really good eventhough I knew this would hurt really bad in a few hours. We made it down 4 times and taught 2 new people how to board. It was a really fun day, it wasn't busy, and the snow and weather could not have been better. I brought my camera with me the last two runs to take pics, but I don't think I'm going to do that again Saturday cuz it's really risky if I would fall on it. We'll get some pictures of us riding down and get Kim doing some jumps, but that can wait a little bit. I want to practice those turns more. I was talking to Keegan yesterday about catching some MAC flights on the other base for free cuz he works over there for traffic control. Here's the deal, I can try and catch a space-available flight to somewhere in Europe (everyone suggested Rota Spain or Germany) and get a flight back. The catch is, is that the flights are only every week or so. I would have to take a whole week off work to risk catching a flight back. I can't do that, a week is too much to get off. My time here is technically 13 weeks, but a 3-4 day weekend would be more feasible. We'll see, I just really want to do that before I leave. We ate lunch, got a group pic, got more popular with the Italian ski patrol, had fun overall, and once again, met like 4-5 new friends. These trips are so much fun and we've got 5 ships and a submarine coming in the next two weeks, so I have a feeling we'll be taking more trips up here next week. WooHoo for me! We got back around 5:15pm and re-did the boards from today for the weekend rentals. Everyone hung out at work for a little bit tonight and Kim, Mack, James, and I went to the food court to eat and hang out before everyone went home to do nothing. I got home, took a shower, watched some tv and fell asleep uncontrollably. I was so tired and starting to feel the pain from today's falls.

I'm addicted to snowboarding!

- So I finally found someone who is gonna let me use their computer and Internet to get some pics online. I only had a short time to do those first couple pics, but I've got over 200 more to look through and get on the blog. I hope you enjoy them, I've got plenty more to take while I'm here.

Thurs & Fri - Happy Groundhogs Day! Work has been getting crazy and I am loving it. I hate slow, boring days and now that I know how to work the front counter and the back rentals, I stay busy and work over 50 hours per week at ITT. James told me I'm moving to my next spot next week. I'm not to happy about that but my bosses at ITT have convinced him to let me spend most of my time there. The snowboarding rentals and weekly trips are booking up so fast lately. Ever since Kim and I have been taking the trips and going boarding with everyone, the word has spread and we're getting some loyal customers to hang out on Saturday trips. It's been a lot of fun. A lot of our employees have been sick or having problems at home which is making the office pretty short staffed. It's alright though, we just have to work at a faster pace and move from the front to the back constantly. Friday was insane though, it was almost too much. Kim and I have been working all week from the morning and not leaving until around 6:30 or later. After the office closes at 5:30 is when we can actually get organized and get some work done. She ordered 20 more boards, but they still havent come in. We need them really bad because these boards are going on two times a week and their slowly getting ruined. It's alright though, we just come into work after we get back from our Saturday trips and get some more ready to go out again for the weekend. It's the most business they've ever done with snowboarding rentals since they've offered it here. She's leaving in about 2 weeks so I hang out with her for dinner and work since her house is pretty much empty and her husband is still out of town. Kim, Mack, James, Amber and I went out to dinner Thurday night across the street at the Days Inn Resturant. It was really good. I got home and watched to new season of Survivor, it was really cool. I can't believe they have a "Lumber Jill" on the show. I thought that was awesome....until they kicked her off first. What the hell? Come on, she's a lumberjack for crying out loud!! Oh well, Friday night we all ate at the food court together to discuss the snowboarding trip in the morning. We had a full van going and Mack, Amber, and this snowboarding expert Phil were going to follow us and hang out. It took me about 2 hours to load the van and try and somehow fit 14 snowboards and a set of skis in this 14-passenger van and still have room for all the guys coming. Kim is so fun to hang out with, I'm gonna miss her when she leaves. Shes fun to hang out with and actually likes teaching me how to board. She tells me I'm her entertainment and she likes to hang out with me too. I'll have to find a new friend after she leaves.

Sat. Feb 4 - Ah, snowboarding again. 2nd time around and I'm excited to get up there. I met Kim at 7:30 and we were on our way up the mountain around 8:15am. The weather was absolutely wonderful today, you could see everything at the top. There was a bunch of snow up there too so I knew it'd be a good day. Phil taught a few of us some more trips and by the end of the day I perfected my toe-to-heal transition for switching sides down the mountain. I really liked the shorted board I had today and was cruising down the mountain like I had been doing this for months. I did really good and yes, I'm addicted to it now. We've made really cool friends on these trips and it's fun to hang out on the mountain with really cool people. By the end of the day, it was only taking me about 15 minutes to get down the mountain. Snowboarding is such a good workout for your legs, abs, and butt. My arms are killing me though, it surprisingly takes a lot outta your shoulders when you fall and prop yourself up from the sitting position. On our last run, we found this awesome trench and started trying to do jumps out of it. It was hilarious, but I was down for trying it. Kim was amazed that on my second time on a snowboarding, I was already trying to do jumps in this huge, deep trench on the outter path. Oh well, what did I have to lose? An arm, a leg. Oh well, I didn't hurt myself (knock on wood) and I had an awesome time. We left around 4 and got home in about an hour. The weather was still great when we left. It did start to rain though on the way home, which is good because that usually means it's going to snow on the mountain. The drive home is so funny, you look back into the van and see 12 guys asleep from a long, strenuous day. I was trying to find someone to go downtown to Catania with me for the St. Agata Festival, but no one was interested. We got the van back to ITT, cleaned it out for tomorrow, and put all the snowbaords away. It took awhile, but Mack and Phil stayed around to help us unload. After that, Kim asked me if I wanted to tag along for a Create-A-Trip that she booked this week for 5 old ladies that wanted to go visit Mt. Etna tomorrow afternoon. She told me we could cover it up and take our snowboards with us. We just had to drop them off and we could do some runs on the mountain while they are sight seeing and eating lunch. I agreed and she was pretty excited that she'd have somebody to board with and take the boring, wet drive up the mountain. We had it planned out, she was going to tell the customers that I was the new intern and she was taking me along on this trip for educational purposes and to see how this system works. She told me to dress normal and we'd sneak our stuff in the back of the van. They'll never know. Once we finally got outta work, they offered me to hang out with them for the night at their housing community (the one that flooded). I went back to my room, got dressed, and grabbed my camera and cord cuz Mack told me I could use his computer to get those pics uploaded. The night was really fun, we ended up hanging out with 6 people down the street who were having a party around their fire pit. Half of them were my age and the other half were Kim and Macks age. They were really cool though, they reminded me of all my Forestry Club buddies. They were farm boys from Louisiana and Tennessee. I got some of the pics uploaded before I went out, but it was taking a really long time. I'll just have to go back over there and spend some more time on it. I'm so glad it worked though. I went to bed really late and was scared I wasn't going to wake up and feel very good for the trip in the morning. We weren't leaving until 10 though, so I figured I'd be fine. I stayed the night with Kim in her bare house, but it was a lot of fun.

Sat. Feb 5 - Kim and I got up bright and early and headed back to base to get ready for our secret-intentions trip. I ran home real quick though to change and grab some warm clothes. We had kept our snowboarding pants and jackets at the office though to dry out during the night. We mopped out the van and we went and picked up the 5 people for the trip. It had been raining all night and the weather was really nasty. Half way into the trip, the weather started to clear up and you could start to see the mountain. Since Sundays are official off-days for Italians, there was an insane amount of traffic getting up the mountain. I've never seen so many people in my life, they were all sledding down the craters and just walking around. Not many of them were on the mountain skiing though, so we figured we'd get 2 or 3 runs in before they wanted to leave. They only wanted to be up there for 3 hours and by the time we finally got into the parking lot, it was already past noon. We still wanted to go and the half-day ski lift ticket was only 8 Euro. Today was the day I found out how rude and annoying Italians truly are. They arrive in huge buses and walk around in their hot pink, turqouise, and baby blue snow suits and walk right in the middle of the street. They don't move for cars and since we're Americans they are even more ignorant to us. Oh well, we let the people out and we drove around for another 30 minutes trying to find a parking spot. The parking and driving system here on a Sunday is practically impossible. There were probably 25,000 people up here today. We hurried up and got dressed and headed for the lift. It was awesome, we walked right on and saw some people from base so we boarded down with them. I did alright, but I like the shorted board I had yesterday better. I did have one painful wipe out though. A guy ran directly into me from behind and I fell down the mountain, hit the back of my head hard, and my board flipped all the way over my head and I did a backwards summersault. I literally laid there for about 10 minutes holding my head because I was so dizzy. My tailbone was killing me too. I got up though and finished the run alright once my pounding headache went away. We got 2 runs in when they called to tell us they were ready to leave. We hurried up and ran to the car to change. By the time we were leaving, it was snowing pretty hard. They got in, told us they had a great time, and asked us the question "did you go snowboarding?" We laughed, told them the truth, and they didn't care. They were really fun to meet and the drive back was filled with conversation and stories about their travels around Europe. It was still raining when we got back to Sigonella, so we figured there was more flooding around her (Kims) house. We got back, cleaned the van again, and I went back to my room to take a nap before Super Bowl tonight. She wasn't coming to JOX to hang out for Super Bowl, but my boss told me he'd find me a ride over there when I was ready. I went back, took a shower, finally got ahold of Jeff, and took a nap for a few hours. I left around 11 and finally got picked up and brought to JOX right before the game was starting. I was still really tired, but I wanted to go and have a good time. It was me and the big-dogs hanging out all night. It was so funny to see the MWR Director, my boss James, and some of the other Administration act crazy when they got drunk and hyped up about the football game. I saw two guys from the snowboarding trip last weekend and played 2 games of pool with em. There is definitely an advantage to being a girl over here, I never have to buy drinks. I only had 4 Bud Lights, but I only had to buy one. $2 for the whole night ain't bad! Overall, the night was fun, but long. I got on the microphone and gave away a bunch of prizes because my bosses were a little to intoxicated to complete the task. The game started a little after midnight and ended at 4:45am. James told me I had to take the day off since I've been working too much and told me to get some sleep and catch up on some school work. Amber drove everyone home around 6am. None of my bosses could drive, so the 6 of us fit in her tiny Hyundai. Yes, 4 grown men (2 are fairly larger) and her and I in this tiny car. It was a total clown-car moment for like 15 minutes until they dropped me off and another guy. I was laying across them in the back seat, but luckily security let us out the gate and on our way. There's no way we were going to get in trouble anyways, we had the most important people at MWR in that car. It was fun though. I finally got to bed around 6:45am. ***After the game was over, James told all of us that he has a friend whos parents left their house in Torino for a few months to escape the Olympics madness and asked if we wanted to all take a road trip up there and stay there for 4 days during the Olympics over President's Day weekend. It's a 13 hour drive, but we'll just use one of the MWR vans to get up there. This will be awesome if it all works out. Its the same week as that Calabria Ski Trip I mentioned, but we don't even know if enough people are going to sign up for it to go. I think I'd pick the Olympics trip over that anyways. We'll see. I'll probably find out my the end of the week if enough people want to drive up there together, it sounds good to me.***

Mon. Feb 6 - I went to bed at 6:45am like I said, but not even 20 minutes into my sleep, the fire alarm in our building started going off. This was the loudest and most annoying sound I've ever heard. I got up, but some flip flops on and headed outside. There were only a few other people out there, but the firemen and everyone else showed up. I was freezing. I had shorts and flip flops on. It took about 25 minutes for them to fix the problem and I impatiently went back and my bed to go to sleep. Oh yes, only 20 minutes later comes the alarm again! Once again, back outside, freezing and waiting. About 30 minutes later, I finally get to go back into bed. Back to bed and yes, again, this time a little longer sleep, 20 minutes later it's going off once again. I was so aggravated and the people in my building weren't looking too happy either. It only took about 10 minutes to fix, but come on, it was 8 in the morning and I had only been asleep so far for like 30 minutes. Luckily, the madness didn't happen again, but I woke up around 2pm. I called Jeff and talked to him for awhile before he got the work, but then I went and took a shower and got ready to leave. I headed to ITT to visit beause my real boss, Leslie, finally got back in from the states. She was really nice and I went and talked to everyone for awhile before I headed over here to the library. I'll be in here for awhile today, but I'm not really in the mood to work on my report. I'm just checkin emails and catching up on my blog. I might go see a movie tonight, do some laundry and cook dinner. I've got a long week ahead of me, and yes of course, Im signed up to go snowboarding on Saturday already! I'll talk to you all later, I miss YOU!

Hydro-Speed in the Alcantara Gorge

These are from my hilarious Hydro-Speed Adventure in the Alcantara Gorge. Let me tell ya, its hard to look sexy in a full 5mm neoprene suit.

Trip #1 to Mt. Etna South

These are some of my pics from my first trip to Mt. Etna. You can see the lava rocks that are exposed the whole ride to the top, the craters that you can walk around, and on this trip you could actually see the Mediterranean Sea. It's usually to cloudy to see everything, this was a beautiful day.

A long week

Sorry it's been awhile, I haven't really had too many exciting things happening and I definitely haven't found anytime to write you all or my school report for the week.

Mon Jan. 30 - I went into work today and I was the only one there with Kim for almost half of the day. I got a lot of work done on snowboards and getting them returned to get ready for the trips this week. As of today, 15 outta the 21 are already rented for Saturday and a few for Wednesday. The only ones left are the really short ones and the two really long ones. They probably won't get used. By the end of the day, I had almost half of them waxed and ready for their rental and almost all of them booted and binded. I'm getting pretty efficient at sharpening and waxing the boards. We did have two come back ruined from the weekend and two more in desperate need of some help from Rosario. It was nice today without all the staff and we got a lot of work done. As everything was being returned throughout the day, I started somewhat of an inventory list. They have tens of thousands of dollars of equipment here, and no record of what they have. I wrote MWR on everything in that entire shop today. Coolers especially, tables, chairs, helmets, boots, etc. When Rosario came in, he taught me how to use P-Tex, which is like a hard plastic that you melt to fix any breaks or deep scraps in the snowboards. A lady from a big swim meet over the weekend came in and returned 98 folding chairs and about 15 tables, so I had to help put all of that away. The day surprisingly went by pretty fast. Near the end of the day, I sat up front and worked with the customers. We had to cancel our trip to Venice today because not enough people signed up for it. They were only 2 short and throughout the next day, we had over 6 calls about it. Oh well, these people have to realize that we need to book the airline and hotel tickets. We did create a new trip for the month though. It's a trip that they did the weekend I got here to Reggio Calabria. Its a beautiful ski resort on the southern tip of the boot of Italy. The girls all really enjoyed it and they said the hotel was awesome. There's a selection of ski hills (easier compared to Etna thank goodness), hiking trails, and other outdoor things to do there and its less than $300. Kim told me that I'll probably just have to pay what their cost it. She said around $200, so I'm definitely gonna go. Its Feb. 17-20. I guess it'll be my Valentines Day present to myself since I won't be able to be with Jeff. It sounds really fun and I'll finally be able to get some games of Phaze 10 in with the staff. After work, I just went to my room and hung out. I have no hot water in my room still so I'll have to hold off on a shower and laundry. Nasty huh, they promised me their getting it fixed by tomorrow.

Tues Jan. 31 - I pretty much did the same thing at work today. All the boards finally got returned so I've been a waxing machine. I know I finished everything for tomorrow's trip and I've only got a few more to do for the weekend. We have a big problem with the 4 that got broke over the weekend. They're all boards that need to go out. Hopefully, the shipment we ordered about a month ago will arrive by Friday (fingers crossed). Well today was freakin crazy, it's been raining for about 24 hours now and the winds have been crucial. There were rumors of possible flooding again at one of the big housing complexes that everyone lives in off base, so many people went home early this morning and everything was shutting down. Kim and I stayed at the office all day because everyone else at ITT either went home around 11:00am or called in. I had nothing better to do than sit in my room, and Rich (another supervisor guy) asked if I would help clean out rooms and set up cots for possible emergency evacuations and overnight stays. This was serious and people were freaking out because they are just got all getting moved back into their homes from the floods in mid-December. We ordered pizza for ourselves and got a lot of organization kinda work done around the office. She was happy to finally get some stuff done and have time to get her work done without everybody asking her a million questions. I think we were one of the only buildings on NAS I that didn't close down. We had to go ahead and cancel the snowboarding trip for tomorrow because rain was in the forecast for the next 24 hours. NAS II was completely shut down all day. I called the people signed up for tomorrows trip and told them it was getting canceled and to see if they wanted to credit their account to another trip. Everything worked out great and I sent emails to all the people signed up for the Venice trip to tell them it was canceled. We ended up closing the office around 4pm and it was another night of doing nothing in my room. I was finally able to take a shower and get my laundry done. Secret Window and Blue Crush was on tv so I just sat and watched those. I ended my night early out of boredom. These nights just sitting in my room are really starting to take a toll on me. Oh well, everyone else was worried about the flood getting in their house, so I couldn't complain. Goodnight.

Wed Feb. 1 - I overslept today because I wasn't feeling too good, but I got to work around 10:30 and was still one of the first ones there. Megan came back today from being off all week due to the cleaners fixing her house from the flood. Her house was in the Red Zone which was the block that got hit the worst. Her house is one of the last ones to get fixed up. Rosario was trying to fix the 2 somewhat-fixable boards, but by the end of the day he could only fix one completely. Still no shipment either. I guess Ill be calling those people tomorrow and tell them that they can't attend the trip. We got our shipment of rock-climbing gear in today for the wall in the gym. They really ordered some nice stuff so I've been trying to convince them that I'll volunteer my time on Saturday or Sunday mornings to belay kids that don't know how to rock climb. Its a great wall, but during the entire time I've been here, I've never seen anyone use it. They've got the gear at the gym to rent for no cost, but I guess it's hard to find a friend that knows how to do all of that. James got back yesterday, so I've been talking about that idea to him. He's back for good and told me that I can probably just go on that Calabria Ski Trip for free. That was good news to hear. We also got some word about the Olympics now. The Naval Base in Naples and Gaeta are taking sailors to Torino and their sign up didn't go as well as they thought. SO NOW, theyve given us the details and said if we can take the ferry to Naples, that they can shuttle us to Torino each day and we just have to find our own tickets and stuff. I don't know how feasible this is, but if it turns out that people are actually gonna go, I'm going to try and tag along. I've got other things that I need to work on right now though. I have to start planning my special project, that's starting to worry me. I'm thinkin a Strong Man Competition, Eco Challenge, or some sort of Mini Olympics. Any ideas? James pulled me outta work around 3pm today because he told me they finally found a room for me. Its a room with a kitchen in it, so I had to wagon all of my things into my new room and get settled in. I ran to the commisary to buy some groceries, when it dawned on me that there is no oven in the room. How weird is that. Its only 2 burners and a sink different than my other room. Oh well, it's alright. Now its just really hard to get adjusted to a new room, especially when all I do is sit in it all night and watch tv and movies. I cooked some pasta though, that was a nice change from microwave dinners and burritos. The bathroom is really nice and the room and actually a little smaller than the last. I got some upgrades, but I think I took more downgrades moving into this new room. Oh well, 2 more months and a week and I get to come home and sleep in comfortable beds and not be bored and lonely everynight. I think people have just been busy lately and I haven't met anyone that lives on this base. All the people I've met either live in housing or on NAS II. American Idol was on though, so at least I got an hour of hilarious entertainment. This weekend should be fun though. I might go snowboarding again and Super Bowl is huge here at Sigonella. I'm running late for work, so I'll talk to you all later. BYE