The Amazing Race

Random Thoughts:
So I was running on the treadmill this week when the Amazing Race caught my eye. They are in Sicily for 2 weeks. They were in Palermo and Segusta this week, but next week's episode...they will be where I live. They showed that the main mission will be in Catania (which is only like 10-15 from the base) and I'll probably have been to all the places they show them driving through. SOOOO.. if you have time, you should totally watch it to see where I live and hang out. Ciao for now! I'm leaving the country for Malta in a few hours. I'll be there all weekend so I'll tell ya how it was when I get back next week. Party ON!
This internship manual that I have to write is killing me! I've typed over 65 pages for this thing already and I still have so much more to do. I've been kinda a hermit lately in my room, but I have no other choice. Would anyone like to help? Just kidding, I'm actually almost finished with the manual part of it.
ITT ia taking a group skydiving in Palermo next weekend. Ive been thinking about it and if they offer it again before I leave, I think I'm gonna do it. When else would I ever be able to say I skydived in Europe? Probably never. It is really expensive though compared to in the States...so I will have to think about it. Never know...

Agrigento and the funniest Circus EVER!

Fri. March 24 - I worked almost completely on my special project today at work so I could start advertising and sign-ups on Monday. Final Project is: Weekend trip to the Aeolian Islands (April 7-9, 2006), ride the ferry to the island of Lipari, stay two nights in Bungalows, rent scooters for the island for Sat morning/afternoon, do an all-day and all-night excursion to Stromboli to see the active volcano erupting at night, spend Sunday around the island, visit the famous archaeological musuem, head back to Milazzo on the ferry, and drive back to Sigonella. With Government Subsidization funding, I got the trip down to a very inexpensive $99. Im hoping it does well and sells completely. After work, Matt and Matt came over and we hung out all night until I went to dinner with Josh, Joe, Adam, and Kelly for Josh's Going-Away Party. We went to a Mexican restaurant in Catania called Poco Loco. It was really good but I had to get home b/c I was exhausted and had a big weekend ahead of me.

Sat. March 25 - Today was one of the best days I've had since I've been here. Matt and Matt had a car rented for the weekend again b/c they had some friends who needed rides to the airport so we took advantage of it and headed down to Agrigento for the afternoon. They came and picked me up at 9am b/c it takes about 2 hours to get there. Agrigento is known for its Greek ruins that I've heard are better than most in Greece. We got down there and the weather was perfect. A nice breeze and the sun was out shining. The ride down there (its in the middle of the southern coast) was awesome. The rolling hills were bright green and it looked like pics from Ireland. There were wineries everywhere for the later half of the trip. We got into the city and finally found a place to park. We had to walk about 2 km to get to the park entrance. It was 10 Euro to get into the "Valley of the Temples" and the archaeological museum further down the road. We first did the east side of the park where the 3 big, major ruins are. The pictures I took turned out gorgeous with the bright blue sky and white clouds in the background. On this half was the famous Concordia Temple. This is the temple you see on all the guidebooks for Sicily. It was huge. The only bad part about these temples is that there is a lot of scaffolding on them b/c they are trying to restore them. There have been a lot of earthquakes in Sicily's history and they are starting to crumble. These structures were from 530BC. They were amazing though. We snuck under the fences a few times to get some better pics. I will try and get the pics up by next week, but my internship paperwork is kicking my butt. Ive already typed over 40 pages just for my reference manual and still feel that I havent made a dent on it. After the Concordia Temple was the Juno/Hera Temple. We headed back towards the entrance and made it to the Hercules ruins. Those were amazing. It reminded me of the columns at Mizzou, but of course way better and 2000 something years older. Another really cool part of the whole day was that barely anyone was there so none of my pics have ugly tourists in them. Even when there was a school group at the Hercules Temple, I got up on the top rock and just grazed over all of their heads to get a pic without them in it. We had to leave that entrance and head over to the western entrance. Here was the Temple of Zeus/Jupiter, the Temple of Castor and Pollux, and a really cool rock creation that looked like a giant man lying down. It was actually an example of what the statues looked like along the sides of the Concordia Temple. It was such a cool site to visit and the beautiful weather made it even better. I took about 50 pictures, but you have to in a place like that. That is by far my favorite historical site I've visited since I've been here. I dont know if any other place in Sicily will top that. When we left the temples, we walked up to the archaeological musuem. Let me just say, their museums are nothing like in the States. This musuem was a few glass cases with random pieces of pottery, terra cotta, and statues scattered around. Matt was craving McDonalds so we tried our best Italian to figure out if there was on in Agrigento. There was (theres only 5 on the island and his mission is to visit every one of them) and we eventually found it. Their McDonalds are awesome. They have a full cafe bar in them next to the normal counter. The menu is different (and expensive) and has a lot of cool extras on it. The Big Macs are good, but the States' are still better. They try though. We headed back towards Sigonella around 4 and got back at 6pm. After we got home, they let me try and drive the manual transmission again. This was a good training day. I learned how to start and stop like I would in traffic, how to stop and go on a really steep hill at the hospital (that was really hard and time consuming), and a variety of other things. I made a lot of progress today in the parking lots and around base. They were pretty impressed. They are both realy good with cars though so I understand more of the mechanics when they teach me. We then just hung out in my room until Matt wanted to head home since he had duty all day tomorrow and we had day light savings time tonight so we were losing an hour of sleep on top of that. Josh and Adam called me and asked if I wanted to go to the Circus in Catania with them. We saw it last night when we went into Catania for Josh's going-away dinner. It started at 930, so Matt and I followed their car at 8:30 since we knew parking was going to be horrible. We had to idea what to expect. The Carnival was nothing special so we just laughed about how bad a Circus could possibly be. We found pretty good parking and everyone walked over to the circus together. It was 15 Euro to get in, but we had nothing else better to do. *Warning: what I am about to describe to you was freakin hilarious and probably way more funny if you would have been there* The show started at 930pm and the place was pretty full. The show started with dancers and a clown, pretty sane right. But then, after the dancers left the stage, the clown brought out a BABY HIPPO. it was like their version of a pot belly pig. What is GOING ON HERE? Are you serious, thats a hippo walking out in the middle of the stage....Is this legal?.. Anyways, the show must go on. Let me remind you, we are by far the only Americans who had the guts to experience this event. After that, they bring out 4 giant CAMELS which women on them. Besides just having camels in a circus, they were DANCING CAMELS! How did they possibly train these 2,500lb creatures to dance. I mean tap dancing with rhythm and all. My stomach was hurting so bad from laughing. After the camels and some dorky clown acts, a guy came out with a horse. What kinda horse? A DANCING HORSE. It was dancing on beat, moving its legs like humans and bouncing around shakin its butt and head. We were all amazed at how they possibly trained these animals to do this. The entire time I was sitting there, I was regretting not bringing my camera with video recording. A few normal animals came out, but then the tiger show began. Not just a few tigers, 10 of them! Giant ones. Mean ones. We were all sitting at the edge of our seat to see the trainer guy get eaten and we weren't too far off. About 1/2 way into the show, 4 of the tigers started to attack each other. They jumped off their pedastals and started fighting, seriously. The trainer freaked out and pushed them into their cages. Once it calmed down a bit, he whipped one of them right in its face. It was animal cruelty 101. It was pretty sad actually. After that passed, came the trapeze artists. They came out in the tightest, skimpy little body suits ever. it almost looked like liquid latex was painted on these people. It was 3 guys and a woman. Here in Sicily its normal to see naked women on billboards and on the beach, and thats definitely what these kids almost got outta this woman. She had on this leotard thing that was a thong, high cut in the front, no back, and barely covered her boobs. I was in shock. The guys with me were lovin it though. They were really good though and ended the show on a great note. The circus ended up being 2 1/2 hours long so we were extrememly satisfied with our decision to come here. It was one of the funniest times Ive had here and it was surprisingly really fun and entertaining. We all left the show and headed back home. This was maybe the coolest day Ive had here. It was so much fun.

The famous Concordia Temple at Agrigento

Greek Temple of Hera

Smitty, Sticky, and me on the Temple of Dioscuri (A.K.A. Castor and Pollux)

Sun. March 26 - My entire day was dedicated to working on my internship manual.

Best Bowling Game EVER!!

Sat. March 18 - Woke up around noon and went and watched movies with everyone chilling out in the barracks. I watched a History of Violence with Murphy and it was really good until the ending, we also watched Madagascar with everyone down in Adam's room. We still had Murphy's birthday for tomorrow, so we planned a night of bowling here on base. I havent been bowling here yet, but we have a 10-lane bowling alley in our Midtown complex where I work. It was cosmic bowling from 9-12, but we had to get there at 8pm to reserve 3 lanes. We had 16 people coming, so it was about to get a little crazy. They come bowling up here all the time, because you can't beat a Saturday night for $10. It was cool, everyone got there on time and the lanes were all lit up. I met a bunch of new people tonight that were at the lane next too us. We had to play league style, but it was cool. Its just hard to have over 20 people drinking and paying attention to whose turn it was. My first game was alright, it had just been forever since I've been bowling, and cosmic bowling on top of that. It really makes a difference when those lights are off and the lanes are flashing. I scored a 116 my first game, which is normal, but it was the 2nd game that was amazing. I don't know what came over me, but I was on a roll. I was getting strike after strike and spares if I didn't get that. I was starting to beat all the guys and from the 5th frame on I had the highest score on the board of 20 people. I know you won't belive me (AMY), but I scored a 190! I was jumping up and down. Thats like 40 more than my highest score ever and that was only once. It was awesome, I was in such a good mood. We left at 12am when it was over and all headed back to our rooms. Everyone was still really tired from the night before and we were all gonna have a BBQ for Joe's 21st B-Day tomorrow.

Sun. March 19 - It's Joe's B-Day today so Adam, Sarah, and I had been planning it out for the past two days. We were gonna do a BBQ outside in the pits next to our barracks. We had everything planned for people to get there around 6, but as the day went on, the weather just kept getting nastier and nastier. We decided to change the plans around and just bring him out to dinner, but that didn't work either. By 5pm, we finally decided to just buy him a cake and throw a little celebration in Chris' room (hes the Resident Advisor, so his room is the biggest). It was pretty cheesy, but Joe didn't care. About 10 people showed up and he opened his present and ate some cake. We all ended up going to see a movie afterwards and just ended the night early. I had a bunch of work to do, so it didn't bother me.

St. Patrick's Day

Friday March 17 - Work was awesome today, everyone was in such a good mood for St. Patty's Day. I came into work all green-ed out, like usual, all chipper and happy that it was Friday and St. Patrick's Day on top of that. Work was just a good day overall, a bunch of my regular customers came in and we just talked for awhile. The day was just laid back and everyone couldn't wait to leave work and hang out together. All the staff was going to JOX later tonight since we had authentic Irish Dancers flown in last night to dance all night. I convinced a bunch of my friends to head up there for a little bit since they were going to have Guiness on tap. I got a ride over there from James and James with the van and the Irish dancers who were rooming right next to mine. We got over there and then I met up with Matt to go eat Subway. We all got to JOX around 8 and I found all the MWR staff and friends that I knew would be up there. It was cool. My friends from the barracks had a few Designated Drivers so we headed into Catania for the rest of the night. We went to the two Irish bars downtown and celebrated Joe and Adam's b-days. It was so much fun and this was definitely a good St. Patrick's Day.


St. Patrick's Day celebration at JOX Sports Bar.



We all hung out here, drank green beer and watched Irish Dancers straight from Dublin. I later went out with some friends into downtown Catania for 2 b-day party celebrations.

SeaBee Ball Pictures

This is Matt and I at the SeaBee Ball at a restaurant in Palagonia.



This is Matt (Sticky on the left) and Matt (Smitty on the right). They're roommates in the barracks on NAS II. We're all going to Malta together at the end of March.



Matt and I by the palm tree. The landscaping at this place was gorgeous. There's was a huge pool behind us.
These are all the guys that work together at Public Works.

Mt. Etna, BBQ, & Taormina

Sat. March 11 - I left for Mt Etna once again to escort a snowboarding trip this morning at 8am with Rosario and a full van. I sold all of the seats this week at work, a full van load. The weather was looking good at first when we got up there, but of course it was too windy to open the lifts. Some people actually got one run in, but by the time I got up there after having a cappucino, they decided to close the gondolas. Good thing they did b/c it just got windier througout the day. Some of the customers were walking up the hill and just boarding down a few hundred feet since it was most of their first times anyways. I stood in line waiting for them to open the lift for about an hour, but later gave up and went and ate lunch with some friends that were up there. I had my first foccacia. It was really good. It was salami and cheese and they heat it up on a grill. We all just hung out at the little restaurant for a few hours before the weather started getting really bad. I talked to Rosario and he asked me to go find everyone so we could head out. It was starting to snow really bad and the winds were making it like a blizzard. It took almost an hour to get everyone rounded up, but we finally got out of the parking lot. As soon as we tried to move (we were one of the last vehicles up there to leave) our tires couldn't get any traction. I hopped out and helped Rosario put on the snow chains. It looked like I was growing icicles from my hair. I was so cold and my ears were frozen after just spending 10 minutes putting on the chains. We finally got going but couldn't see more than 50 feet in front of the van the blizzard was so bad. We drove for almost 15 miles at about 20kmh. We finally got out of the snow, took off the chains, and headed straight into rain all the way until we got back to Sigonella. We got back a little early so I went home and took a shower and a nap. I was invited to a BBQ with some friends that work at the gym ealier this week that I really hadn't hung out with yet so I wanted to go to that to be able to meet them a little better. I called Matt since he still had his rental car and asked if he would like to join me for the BBQ. He came and picked me up and we watched EuroTrip before we headed to the BBQ. Before we went to the BBQ, he tried teaching me how to drive a manual for an hour. I did alright, he started teaching me last time I went to his hockey game. I didn't do too bad. We went to the BBQ and met all the people. It was fun to see them outside of work and the food they had was really good. We only stayed for a little bit because Matt had 24-hour duty in the morning and I had some laundry and cleaning to do at home. He brought me home and I got a call from my friends Kelly, Adam, and Josh at midnight asking if I wanted to go dancing. I got outta bed and put some jeans on and headed over to the dance club. It was fun. I just danced for a few hours and hung out with some friends. We went to a really cool club called the Dome. Its about a mile from base and it fits about 10,000 people. I was one of the 20 Americans there, but they had a room for House music and a room for Hip-Hop. It was so much fun. I just kinda babysat all my friends that had been drinkin all day and we rode the shuttle back to base around 4am. It was a lot of fun though.

Sun. March 12 - I got a phone call from Matt this morning saying that he got out of duty, so I jumped in the shower and we made plans to go to Taormina for the afternoon. I didn't wake up til almost 11, so we were on the road by noon. He had the rental car until tomorrow, so he didn't want to waste a day with a car in Sicily. I knew how to get up there from giving directions so many times for ITT, so we headed north and got there in about 45 minutes. We got past the toll and headed down towards the beach first. The sky didn't look to clear so we knew we had to take advantage of the sun while it was still out. We walked down the beach, a little park, and took some pics of the sea. It was near a really cool island called Isola Bella. Its a really popular spot during the summer. I got some cool pics of the beach though. Its really dirty during this time of the year, but they'll start cleaning em up next month. We left there and headed up the giant hill towards the tourist-y city of Taormina. It's one of the top places to visit while in Sicily, so we figured we'd see what the fuss was all about. Getting there was interesting, we had to park in a public garage and then figure out how to catch the free shuttle bus up to the city. The entire city is on a hill, so your not recommended to drive up there. We finally figured it out and immediately headed for the famous Greek Ampitheater. It was 6 euro to get in, but luckily we beat the big tour buses and we got some awesome pics with barely any tourists in them. It was beautiful. It was built in 200 BC by the Greeks, but most of the actual remains are Roman. It was placed right on top of the hill side with an amazing view towards the ocean. My boss told me that all ampitheaters look towards the ocean or the sunset. We played around in there and I got my favorite pic so far taken of me standing in the bottom of the ampitheater and you can almost see the entire theater with little ole me in the middle of it. It started to rain really bad as we were walking out and the 3 tour buses were entering the theater as we were leaving. Eventhough it was raining, we stayed and walked down the main street with all the shops and restaurants. The shops were all big-designer names and everything was really expensive. I was starting to wonder what the big fuss was about this town. It was gorgeous architecture and roads, but the stores were way over priced. I did buy a few fun things, but we just continued to walk the strip until we were soaked and really cold. I bought some cool presents and we got some really cool shots of us with the MED behind us. The view from up top was awesome, you could see for miles down the north and south coastline. I wish it wouldn't have rained so bad b/c then I could have gotten some really cool pics of Mt. Etna from Taormina. I tried to upload the pics I took, but my blog is being really strange with uploads lately. Ill get em up there eventually though. We left Taormina around 4 because he needed to get back to base and take over for his friend that was taking his duty for the morning. The drive back cleared up a little and we stopped to eat at an AutoGrille. That drive along the coast is breathtaking for sure. He dropped me off and I went and saw a movie with some friends. I got home and worked on my homework for a little bit. I have to prepare for my green-week at work in ode to St. Patty's Day. I'm going to wear something green everyday!

Greek/Roman Ampitheater in Taormina

Looking south down the coastline from a piazza in Taormina

I FORGOT TO TELL YOU THE GOOD NEWS

I've been so freakin busy I haven't really be able to write on here in awhile, but I have good news for you all. (I Hope!). I have officially been extended as an intern until July 7, 2006 here at Sigonella. It should be awesome to experience a summer here in the Med. I'm so excited. I've heard some fun stories about the beaches and boat cruises. Today, Leslie told me I was basically going to be the Recreation Aid until I leave since the real job position never filled. No one was qualified enough. It should be really fun and a great resume booster for me. I'll be creating and leading outdoor recreation trips such as camping, boat trips, beach trips, hiking up the volcano, and visiting some national parks around Sicily. I'm really happy she asked me to do this because now I'll feel a lot more confident and comfortable applying for a Rec Aid position with MWR when I get back to the States. I am sorry in advance if I miss anything back home, but I promise I will make it up. You'll just have to remind me. I miss ya'll already and will be missin you like crazy in the next few months. Remember to email me if anything is going on back home that I'm missing out on.

SeaBee Ball

Fri. March 10 - My friend Matt invited me to go to the SeaBee Ball with him this past week. The SeaBee Ball is another version of the Naval Ball, but it's for the Public Works Command. He bought my ticket and his roommate and himself were gonna rent a car for the event. I had heard some great things about this dance/dinner/award ceremony and everyone said that this was a more-fun version of the Naval Ball. **Fast forward to Friday** I went to work today with intentions of leaving around noon so I could go to my hair appointment that was at 1pm across the street at some German lady's salon. I ended up leaving around 12:30 but made it over there with plenty of time to spare. I was growing out my nails all week so I painted them hot pink since that's Matt's favorite color and of course, he had to wear his fancy dress blues (they're actually black though). I went and got my hair done and he came and picked me up from my barracks shortly after. My hair looked alright, it was a little fancier than I've ever had it done. I brought my dress and shoes over there since we had a few hours until we needed to leave for the dance. We were planning on leaving at 5:15 to allow ourselves some time to find the place. Once I got over to NAS II, we walked around and went to the NEX and the computer lab so I could check my mail. We ended up just hangin out at the dorms and I started to get dressed and get all perty around 4. I helped them iron their uniforms and it was a lot of fun getting all dressed up again. I borrowed some shoes from a lady at work and man by the end of the night I had 2 bad blisters. Oh well, I needed to borrow them really bad. I wore my black dress that I wear to weddings, pink eye shadow, pink toenails and fingernails, and my green and hematite bracelet. I looked pretty cute if I say so myself. They all looked so handsome in their dress blues. I was going to a dance with two little sailor-boys. Just kiddin, no wait, really. We got in the car and headed towards a city called Palagonia to a fancy little restaurant/hotel. We got lost a few times, but eventually made it there. I surprisingly saw a bunch of people I knew that I had no idea they were seabees. It was cool, we took a bunch of pictures and found our seats. Everyone just hung out outside and eventually went in for the ceremony that started at 7pm. They had a MC who was absolutely annoying the entire night. There were some guest speakers and awards given out before dinner. It was really neat to see the color guards, everyone standing at attention during the National Anthem, and so on. It was really formal and fancy, but it turned into a huge party shortly after all of that. The food was not too good, barely any of the guys at my table ate the food. I knew what a bunch of it was from workin at Tony's, but the service was really slow and unorganized. After dinner, they had more awards and gave away some awesome door prizes. I won 3 bottles of wine in my goodie bag. Matt was up for an award. Hear this, he is the youngest SeaBee at Sigonella. AWW, how cute. He's a fresh 19. I joked with him and his friends all night that I was his "older" date. His friends are really fun and we all hung out all night together. Matt got an award and had to cut the cake with the oldest SeaBee, the Admiral, and his Command Master Chief. It was cool and I got a bunch of pictures of the night. After the awards, the party and dancing started. We all danced for hours and went home around 1pm. They are really serious about drinking and driving on this base, so everyone had to blow into a breathalyzer before leaving if they were driving. Matt offered to DD tonight so I didn't want to party to hard without him. His roommate Matt was pretty drunk by the end of the night, but altogether it was a total blast. I'm really glad I brought a nice dress over here in case that kind of event did come up. I had snowboarding in the morning so we all just crashed on NAS II to get over on NAS I by 7:30am so I could have time to change and take a shower.

Etna and another costume party

Sat. March 4 - I can't believe I've been here for 7 weeks already. I have so much more stuff I want to do and see. I'm trying to get on the trips to Malta and Corfu, Greece that are coming up in April and May. I went to Mt. Etna with Rosario today and a big group of people that I finally convinced to get on the ITT trip. We got up there and the ride up was clear and blue skies. Once we got up there, we saw vans and cars coming down and the gondolaz were not moving. I figured it was closed due to the wind because it's been closed all week for the same reason. We got up there and the van was shaking from the winds being so strong. The people on the trip were kinda disappointed but I made the most efforts I could. I'm pretty good friends with a few of the ski patrol and they told us it would not be opening all day. I asked if the North Side would be open, but they said that was closed too. We decided to all just hang out at the shops and eat some lunch/breakfast before we headed back down the mountain to go home. It was a short day since we got back around 11am. The entire time I've been here, I've never actually been home on a Saturday afternoon. It was a strange feeling, but everybody was gonna hang out and watch a movie. As soon as I got home, the tired feeling hit. I went to my room and laid down for a few hours since there was another party tonight. I headed over there after I ate some dinner and had a good nap. The theme was an Office Party. The guys had to have ties on and the girls had to have a skirt on. The party was fun, but only like 6 people showed up. We still made it fun and we played some Dance Dance Revolution for about an hour. I'm so bad at that game, but it is humerous to watch. I finally got to bed around 2am and had a nice Sunday of sleep ahead of me.

A long week of ITT

Mon - Fri. Feb. 27 - March 3 - This week at work at long and boring in general. We had some really busy days, but I worked the front desk almost the whole week. We did get in 10 new boards though again and they are puurty. I love em. The one thats my size is green and white. I've been waxing and sharpening them and a few of them went out for the weekend. It was crazy, but every board that we own went out this weekend. I have so many friends here now that come and rent on a weekly basis. I went and saw 2 movies this week at the movie theater. The Family Stone was alright, but Hoodwinked was a little better. They were cute though. I got enough people to sign up for the Saturday Etna trip so I'll be escorting that and meeting all of my friends up there. The weather was absolutely gorgeous this week. I got really good news on Tuesday. James asked me to go to lunch with him and he offered me an extension to my internship. I told him "Of Course" and we decided on Fourth of July weekend. That way I can be here to help plan the huge festival they throw for the 4th of July. Its called the Freedom Fest. I have run into a problem with extending my Visa though. My Visa expries on May 20, so we are trying to get an extension to it in my passport. If it doesnt work, I will only be here until May 20. It's alright though, we'll figure out in the next 2 weeks. I also got good news on Wednesday. My friend Matt asked if I would like to attend the SeaBee Ball with him on Fri. March 10. It's the fun version of the Navy Ball, but is just as formal. I'm really excited, it should be a great time. I've heard its a total blast. Luckily I brought my black dress, now I'm just trying to find some shoes. I'm getting my hair done at a salon across the street. It's a big group of people going and we're renting a van. I'll have pics from that for sure. I went to a crazy party on Friday night, it was so much fun. Everyone was dressed up and it was a bunch of people on the second floor of one of the barracks. My half-way mark of my internship paperwork is due at the end of this week. It's been so much work, but James is writing my mid-term evaluation over the weekend. I need to mail Dr. Cole all of my paperwork on Tuesday when the Post Office opens for the week.

Italian Roller Hockey

Sun. Feb 26 - I finally got to sleep in today. I really needed it, but after I woke up I headed over to the library for a few hours to work on some homework and update my Blog of course. Matt called and asked me if I'd like to go to his roller hockey game down in Siracusa today. I had nothing else better to do and his roommate, Matt, had duty today. I told em yes and he picked me up around 1pm. We went and grabbed some Subway before we left to go meet his team at a stop off the highway. We had to follow them because this rink was in the middle of no where and the town is about 2 hours away. We got to the highway stop and I met all the people from his team. They are all locals from Messina and two of the guys are from Sigonella. Matt and this guy Kevin are the only Americans on the team. They were a really nice group of guys and their wives were really nice too. We started driving there and the ride was beautiful. The scenery of castles and ruins on the sides and tops of mountains is amazing. We got there in about 1 hour and 45 minutes and the rink was seriously hidden in this town. It was a giant dome made of strong plastic and supported my metal poles. The inside was nice and he said that this was one of the better roller hockey floors he's played on here in Italy. We had to sit around for an hour before the game was going to start and after he got dressed I went on the rink and practiced with him. I didnt do too bad I don't think. I'm excited to see Jeff start playing again when I get back home. The team they were playing against was a professional Italian team and they were called Team Noto. Noto is the town next to Siracusa. These guys were no joke, they were all young, tall, and really good at hockey. Matt's team is a group of older guys and it's just a hobby for them. They told me that they'd lose, but after the game I was surprised how bad they lost. Matt is the youngest at 19 and the only other younger guy is 21. Everyone else is over 35 years old. The game was really good eventhough they got killed by the other team. There was one huge fight and man was it crazy. I think 50% of the players got hurt throughout the game. Those Italians sure know how to put up a fight. It was funny and the crowd was going crazy. The game finally ended and the score was a disappointing 21-2. Oh well. They just like playing hockey and its free for them cuz they have some big sponsor guy that pays for everything. After the game, I tried to learn how to drive a stick-shift in the parking lot. I did alright, but it was soon time to go. The team was going to eat, but here in Italy that means a 2-hour affair. I wanted to get home since it was already late and I still had a lot of work to do. It was dark and this was going to be a guaranteed adventure getting back home. Neither of us know the roads very well and in the dark, everything becomes more complicated. We got lost in about a half hour in Siracusa because roads were being blocked off due to the Carnevale ceremony and some other religious events. That definitely didn't help. We eventually found some road signs pointing us to Augusta. I am kinda familiar with Augusta so I knew that if we got there we'd be in better hands. He works the cranes at Augusta too so we could figure it out, hopefully. About 2 1/2 hours later, we finally made it back to Sigonella. He dropped me off and I went over to the barracks and played Dance Dance Revolution for an hour before heading to bed. My legs were tired from sitting in a car all day, but the day was a lot of fun. I never thought I'd be watching a hockey game in Italy. That was really cool.

Mt. Etna & Carnevale!

Sat. Feb 25 - I had to leave with Rosario to Mt. Etna at 7am to be able to get to Augusta Bay by 8. The ride was very tiring, but as soon as I got there and met the 5 people I was escorting, I woke up a little better. The ride was fun and got to meet them pretty well since there were so few of them. One of them was from Soulard which was pretty funny. We talked about St Louis for awhile and everyone asked me a bunch of questions about my time here. They were from the USS Kawahawa, which is a civilian supply ship. The sky was beautiful but once we got to the top, it soon became a blizzard. I met a few other snowboardin friends up there but the weather was absolutely nasty. We tried walking up a few hundred feet, but we eventually just gave up and boarded down. My face and eyes were getting bombarded by ice, snow, and wind. It was very frustrating and I was very sad that the whole day was now a waste. The ski lifts were closed due to the wind and it didn't look like it was going to clear up anytime soon. I ate some lunch and then just walked back to the van and took a nap. We had to leave the mountain by 3pm and I was so ready to leave around noon. Oh well, they all had a good time up at the sit-down restaurant sitting my the fireplace. We finally got back and I immediately went to my room to lay down. A group of us were gonna go to Acireale for Carnevale, but I couldn't get ahold of them. When I woke up from my long nap, they had already left. I called my friend Matt from an Etna trip and asked him if he wanted to go. We met up and left around 9pm. I have never been there and he just rented a car for the weekend so I knew this was going to be an adventure. I called some people to get directions and we got there in good time. Luckily, we could see the ferris wheel from right off the highway so we found the center of the carnival pretty easily. We finally found a parking spot and walked to the carnival. I was thinking this was going to be some fancy party with a parade and people dressed in costumes. Yeah, I was soooo wrong. This was a freakin school carnival. Kids running around, trashy carnies, drag queens, and people walking around hitting each other with rubber hammers and noise makers. We rode two rides, the ferris wheel and something kinda like the octopus. I ate a chicken and mushroom panini and we were the laughter of the panini stand. I couldn't understand a word they were saying and they couldn't understand us. We ended up getting a good deal and they asked us for some US dollars. I dont know why cuz it's not worth as much. It was funny though and the panini was delicious. It was getting boring and the weather was getting really cold so we left around 11:30. We got back and went dancing at Strike and met up with some people there. The night was alright, but the Carnevale was really disappointing. I can't believe thats what that was and people make such a big deal about it. Oh well, I'm glad I didn't cancel any plans for it.