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.
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.
1 comment:
hey annie...did u hear about the monkey that got lost in stl..yea..one day when i was going to dads..there was a sign that said..lost monkey...and it was a small monkey...we like, we should find it and ship it over to annie...40 pages!!! that is alot
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