Aeolian Islands: My Special Project

Planning
Early into my internship, I started to brainstorm on what I wanted my special project to include. Before I came to Sicily, I was looking in guidebooks and researching Sicily and discovered the absolutely breathtaking Aeolian Islands. I knew from the second I saw the pictures in the books that I wanted to visit them during my trip. As early March arrived, I started to research the islands and find out what activities and tours I could include on a weekend trip with approximately 13 customers excluding Rosario and myself. James Shipp and I decided to plan this as a Liberty (single and unaccompanied sailors, E5 and below) trip so we could get government assistance with costs and aim the trip to the younger community. I have worked with many of the single-sailors since I’ve been here and felt very confident that I could escort that population the best. Rosario and another local national in the office had been to the Islands in the past so they gave many suggestions for me to look into and Rosario told me that he would volunteer to drive my trip at no overtime costs. That gesture right there was a giant stepping-stone because drivers are very hard to find for a weekend trip and there are a lot of overtime and per diem costs involved. I wanted Rosario to attend my trip for so many other reasons, but the most beneficial would have to be his Italian/Sicilian translations during the entire weekend.
Since lodging is usually the biggest factor in determining prices, location, and availability, I immediately started looking for a nice, but affordable place to stay. With the single sailor community, I wanted low cost over luxury. Shortly into my search, my bosses told me about a place they have stayed at with previous ITT trips called Baia Unci. I found their brochure and website and had Rosario call them for prices and availability. Baia Unci offers camping and apartments (they call them bungalows). They were very interested in having our group stay with them and they quoted us a really low price of €15.50 per person per night. That was great news for my project and it gave me a good feeling about being able to make this a low-cost trip for the single-sailor (Liberty) community. The only thing I would have to do with Baia Unci from that point on would be to keep them updated on my room list and the size of apartments I would need.
After confirming the Aeolian Islands as a quick getaway and having my lodging guaranteed, I started to look up activities, guided tours, museums, and popular tourist spots that we could visit during our 2-day visit. Originally, I chose sea-kayaking around the islands, but a few weeks into that decision, the weather never started to warm up and the local nationals told me that I should probably find a new idea. After that major change in plans, I wanted to add a big tour and museum into the trip. I found a lot of information about guided boat tours to Stromboli to see its nightly volcanic eruptions. The prices were high, but I had to remember they were all day/night excursions on private boats. I knew that this was going to be a good addition to the weekend. The tour company we ended up using was called Paloma and they gave us a rate of €30 per person for an 8 hour tour of three islands. They later told us that they would cook a big dinner for the group for an extra €10 per person, but I vetoed that idea. The excursion was already going to cost the same as the apartments for 2 nights. I later went online to look for good museums on the island and immediately found great reviews about the archaeological museum on Lipari. The hours of operation were good and I figured that I could add that to the last day’s activities right before we left on the ferry back to Milazzo. The prices were also listed online so we had an exact figure available for our expenditure request.
After planning the activities, I started to figure out the transportation issues. Our ITT van was available at no cost for my trip and I wanted to be able to bring it onto Lipari so we had a vehicle to get us around the island. After that issue was solved, I started to look up ferry information. I did not realize it, but there are 3 different ferry companies that work out of the Milazzo Port. Since the timetable for the trip was during the low season, there were limited ferry departures to the Aeolian Islands. I had to find a time that would coincide with the customer’s work schedule and allow us 2 hours to get up there. After looking up each ferry company and their winter timetables, I decided on a company called NGI for the ride to Lipari on Friday night at 9:00pm. This would allow me to advertise the trip to leave at 5:15pm after everyone had time to get off work, drive to Milazzo, stop at an AutoGrille for dinner, and arrive in Lipari by 11:30pm. Since people could sleep on the ferry or hang out and play cards, I figured everyone would be ready for an exciting next day. For the ride back to Milazzo, I had to choose a different company. The second company, SIREMAR, is better known and has more departures on Sundays than the previous company. I found one that left at 6:00pm, which was perfect for a descent arrival time back to Sigonella. Salvo and I tried to call and fax the ferry companies, but they never responded with price quotes or confirmations. When Leslie, Salvo, and I tried to determine the expenditures for the ferry, we compared them with past ITT trips that they had made to the islands. Just to be safe, we overestimated the costs a little. The ferries are very risky during the off season and sometimes don’t run if the weather is bad or they haven’t sold enough tickets to cover the costs of fuel and labor.
After all of the decisions were made on daytime activities, lodging, and transportation, I had to start contacting the companies via phone and fax to confirm the reservations. At the beginning, we were estimating the costs and reservations for 14 people and an escort. I had Salvo assist me in making the phone calls and typing the faxes since they all had to be in Italian. This was a lengthy process, but everything except for the ferries were soon confirmed. Once the reservations were in, I had to sit down and create an expenditure request with Leslie to get the money for the trip. We estimated the costs, including covering all of the fees for Rosario and I, and came up with $114 per person. We decided to ask for a check request so I could carry cash during the trip and pay the expenses as it went. For the trip to get down to a catchy price of $99, I went to Gerry Morris for assistance with government subsidization. We talked about the trip, went over the expenditure request, and he told me that they would be willing to subsidize $15 per person through the Liberty program. Gerry and Leslie each gave me permission to start selling the trip ASAP. As soon as everything was settled, I wanted to discuss advertising the trip with the Marketing Department. Rebecca Wissler told me to come to her office the next morning to create flyers and posters so I could quickly get them hung up around base and in certain facilities. I met with her the next day and we created a fun, eye-catching flyer with a program called FreeHand. Before I started to hang them up, I headed to ITT to inform the staff on all of the details and told them to start selling the trip as soon as we got any phone calls or walk-ins. Rebecca called me over to the main office to pick up the printed flyers and I immediately started to hang them up around NAS I. I finished getting them up around our base and I got a ride over to NAS II to hang them up there and have a quick meeting with CeCe and her Take 5 staff. Her staff came in early for my meeting and they really responded well to the information and details I gave them about my trip. We were ready to sell this trip and I had a feeling it was going to sell out quick.
By the time I got a ride back to ITT Gear-N-Go, the front desk clerks told me that they had already sold 2 seats and had a few phone calls about the trip. I soon found out that an email from the Command Master Chief was sent out to the entire hospital staff. That was a great, unexpected helping hand. I sat at the front desk all day and the 12 seats for the trip were sold out by that afternoon. When we all sat back and realized that this was a huge success and a great offer for single-sailors, I started to plan for another 13 people to go to Lipari. The major task would be to find another driver for the van that would either volunteer completely or accept the least amount of overtime costs. I called CeCe at Take 5 and she was more than happy to accept the offer to drive for free. Since she was going to drive the second van without charging MWR overtime costs, I made sure to pay for her activities, excursion, ferry fees, and some meals to help keep her costs for the trip to a bare minimum. She was excited to help with the trip since Liberty is her program and she knows much of the community. With this settled, Rosario set aside another van for the weekend and we began to write up another expenditure request. Leslie only had a few days to get the check approved so we sat down and made sure all the costs worked out for 26 people and got it sent over to Pam at the financial department at the main office. Everything was looking great and we started to advertise that we had another van going to take more customers. Once again, the seats sold quickly and we had a waiting list forming by the next day in case there were any cancellations before the final payment day. After the trip sold out, Rosario began to worry about how much room we would truly have available in each van if each customer brought one bag and a cooler with them for the weekend. Each seat in the van was going to be full, so he thought about bringing the Forino with us up to the islands to help carry luggage and coolers. The Forino is a small truck with a large covered truck bed on the back of it. CeCe brought up the idea of having her husband come along on the trip to drive it at no cost to us. The idea went over well with my managers and we figured that we would have enough money to cover his costs during the weekend. Rosario began to feel much more comfortable with the luggage situation and we could easily bring a large BBQ pit with us for the beach now. With the luggage situation as a constant problem on short, weekend trips, I wanted to be able to conduct my Packing Demonstration before the trip. I have seen these young guys bring so much junk/stuff with them on a 2-day trip that it’s absolutely ridiculous.
Once all of the seats for the trip were sold out, I started on my rooming list for Baia Unci and my contact sheet for sending out important emails. The rooming list changed a few times due to people canceling and replacing them with new customers, but Baia Unci was very flexible with us since we were their main group of customers for that particular weekend. I created my contact sheets on Microsoft Excel so I could keep up with their payments and contact info such as phone numbers and email addresses. Once the list started to settle down and the cancellations were complete, I started to send out emails with important information for the trip. I created my documents for my meeting and mailed those out to the customers also. I really wanted everyone to have all of the information for the trip, including the correct times and location of departure and my contact information in case they had any last minute questions for me. The day of departure finally arrived and Rosario and I worked together to prepare the vans for the trip. Each van was clean and full of gas and CeCe’s husband, Eric, had the Forino with him at Take 5 prior to the trip so he could get the vehicle ready. CeCe was on time to ITT Gear-N-Go to pick up her van and we were soon on our way to the NAS I pick-up spot.

Fri. April 7 -
From the start all the way to the finish, the trip went absolutely wonderful. From the first pick-up at NAS I, I had a good feeling going about it. We were on time to the first pick-up and everyone that had originally signed up for this stop got on and the luggage situation was working itself out nicely. After a short drive to NAS II, we picked up the remainder of the group and took some group photos before leaving for Milazzo. Everyone was divided evenly into the vans and we had plenty of room for luggage and coolers thanks to the extra vehicle available. We were immediately on our way towards the Autostrada and we had time to spare so we took it slow and stopped at the AutoGrille on our way through Messina. We arrived to the port in Milazzo around 8:00pm and Rosario and I had to find the ticket company for our ferry ride to Lipari. Everyone got out of the vehicles to stretch and walk around while Rosario went to pick-up and pay for the ferry tickets. Since the ferry company had never faxed us back with confirmation prices, I did not know exactly how much they were going to end up charging us. The total was higher than we figured, but it was alright. I started to get a scary feeling about the price coming back to Milazzo. The loading time soon rolled around and everyone got back in the vehicles to drive onto the ferry. After we parked the vans and Forino, I got out to inform the group that they had 2 ½ hours to relax on the ferry until we would arrive in Lipari. I paid special attention to remind them to not get off at the first docking, which was the island of Vulcano. We locked up the vans and headed to the upper deck with the group. The ferry ride was smooth, a little chilly outside, but a great bonding time for everyone to get to know each other. I had a really diverse group of people sign up for this trip so it was fun to get to know everyone and where they worked before the trip truly got off the ground. We played cards, hung out on the front bow, drank cafes and beer, and shared stories until we started to pull into Lipari. The ferry was on time and everyone got back into the vans in a timely matter also. When we drove off the ferry, I had to meet the owner of the company that would be conducting our boat excursion to Panarea and Stromboli to pay him a €200 down payment. We found him easily, paid, and then met up with an employee from our hotel, Baia Unci, to drive us to our lodging destination for the weekend. They were waiting outside for us at the hotel and everyone got their bags and headed to the front desk. There, I met with Francesca and we divided everyone into their assigned rooms for the weekend. I switched a few customers into different rooms until everyone was satisfied with their room arrangements. The rooms were really nice and way better than what I would have ever imagined for only €15.50 per person/per night. Most of the people went straight to their rooms to either hang out or go to sleep, but a few of us decided to have a BBQ on the beach. I bought BBQ supplies and meat for our dinners, so we grabbed the pit out of the Forino and started to grill. A few of us hung out on the beach for a few hours until we were ready for bed. I showed Rosario how to BBQ "American style."
Sat. April 8 -
A group of people were up pretty early in the morning along with Rosario and me so we decided to take a van out to explore the island and find a place to eat breakfast. Rosario has been to the island before, but it is generally very easy to navigate since it has one major road to get around the entire island of Lipari. We drove the island, stopped at some nice view points to take pictures, and ended up in the main city of Lipari for brunch. Eight of us ate brunch together at a small restaurant and then we went out into the town to shop for souvenirs before we headed back to the hotel. At the hotel, a group of people were up on the roof of our hotel hanging out partyin so we went to join them for a little bit before the boat tour. On my way up the steps after putting my brand new sandals on from Crystal, I slipped and fell directly on the edge of the step on my knee nap. It bled like hell right away and Joe and John told me I needed some stitches. For once, Joe forgot his sutchure kit, so they just closed it up with super glue and wrapped it for me. It hurt so bad and felt like I broke my knee cap. I crippled my way up the steps and hung out to take some pictures before we needed to leave. The night before, I informed everyone on the trip that they had to meet at the front of the hotel at 1:30pm to head out for our boat excursion. The excursion company decided to pick us up at a marina that was closer to the hotel so we didn’t have to drive to downtown Lipari. This eliminated our need for the vans altogether now. A handful of people had already rented mopeds for the weekend, so I asked if they wouldn’t mind driving each of us to the marina that was only about ½ mile away. Everyone agreed and in less than 15 minutes all 27 of us were at the marina ready to catch the boat. By this time, I knew I was definitely going to be renting a moped before I left that island. We walked to the boat together and took a group picture before loading. Our group took up the majority of the customers on the tour so we all headed to the upper deck to enjoy our ride to the islands. The tour started off by driving around a portion of Lipari to get to Panarea. The ride was kind of rough, but everyone was having a good time taking pictures and relaxing. Some of the guys who had been drinkin all day got sick, but it was totally their fault for taking shots of Tequila before loading the boat. It took over an hour to get there, but once we got there, we had an hour to enjoy the island. Most of us walked to the large rocks and cliffs to get in the water and take some beautiful pictures of the Tyrrhenian Sea. A few of the guys jumped in, but I wasn't prepared to freeze my booty off and then hop right back onto a boat. After that, we all stopped at a small café to enjoy ice cream and beverages. The boat announced that they were ready to load up and head to Stromboli. Stromboli is one of the most active volcanoes in Europe and displays famous nightly eruptions. The boat ride to Stromboli was breathtaking and we saw many giant rock formations along the way. We arrived in Stromboli and had 2 ½ hours to explore the island until the started to set to see the volcanic activity. The group split up and some went shopping, some went to eat at nearby restaurants and cafes, and I headed to the black sand beach with Rosario and Jow. We hung out there the entire time and we burried each other in lava rocks. Rosario ended up fishing with the locals for awhile. Everyone started heading back to the boat. The sun was starting to set and the wind was getting colder. The boat had plenty of seating on its lower deck and everyone sat at the tables for the last leg of the journey. The boat went around a small side island called Strombolicca for photo opportunities and was then on its way to a small bay directly below the crater. I got some awesome pics of the sun starting to set around this cool little island. The boat never stopped moving, but we were able to watch the volcanic activity for almost 45 minutes as we rode back to Lipari. It was an amazing site to see and we had a few great eruptions that some people were able to catch on video. Almost everyone slept on the ride back, but I stayed awake keeping an eye on everyone. We arrived back to the marina at 9:30pm, but some members of the group were sea-sick from the long day. I made sure to pay the company and we all headed back to the mopeds to ride back to the hotel. From the hotel, some people left on their mopeds to explore the island and the other half had a big BBQ on the beach. Before everyone went their own way, I had to tell them about the check out process. Check out was at 10:00am and each person could put their bags into the designated room that the hotel was providing for us. I also told them about our departure time of 4:15pm. I was very upfront with everyone when I told them that they had to be on time so Rosario and I could get to the port to buy our ferry tickets. The group agreed and no one had any questions for me so they were on their way. Rosario and I cooked again, but this time we had a crowd of about 15 people. It was a lot of fun and kept the morale of the group high. I got everyone’s feelings about the excursion and we all talked about what they wanted to do tomorrow afternoon before we left the island. I started to get some great feedback about the trip, its low price, how much fun everyone was having, and received a few questions about Liberty and ITT. The BBQ went for a few hours and afterwards they all wanted to go out to a club or bar before they went to bed. I had to remind everyone that it was the low season and there are not many things to do on this island after hours, but Rosario asked the hotel staff if anything was open this late. He found out there was one club open in downtown Lipari, so we all made arrangements to get down there before the night ended. Once again, we rode the mopeds to Lipari and finally found the club. I rode with Rosario and he let me sit in front of him so he could teach me how to drive it. Let me just say...Rosario is freakin nuts on a moped and I was scared to death with his sharp little turns and no-hands. After awhile though, I got a little more comfortable and I started to drive pretty well. It was a lot of fun to ride the mopeds through town and by the time we arrived, everyone was determined to rent them all-day tomorrow for exploring the island. The club was nice but we did not stay for long since we were underdressed and beginning to get tired. We each had a drink and wanted to get back. Most of them told me that they would rather get some sleep tonight to be able to wake up early and ride all day tomorrow. We got back to the hotel safe and the group worked out a time to meet in the front.
Sun. April 9 -
The last day was already here and at 8:00am there were almost 20 people outside ready to go rent mopeds from down the street. Rosario came with us and in a short time we were all ready to explore the entire island. The first stop was breakfast. We all drove together to Lipari again and sat down and ate a big breakfast. More souvenir shopping followed the meal and we headed back to the hotel to put everything away. In no time, we were on our way and we headed in the pumice caves direction. Of course with my luck, my moped died up the first hill. I was the lucky one out of everyone who's tank had no gas in it. There was a huge group waiting to explore, so I decided to leave my moped on the side of the rode to pick it up later. I ended up riding on the back of Rosario's all day, which worked out better anyways so I could take pics and video of everyone driving around. It was a short drive to the pumice mines, but we took our time to get off the bikes and explore the crystal clear water along the coast. After taking some pictures, we headed down to the dock where the pumice is shipped out. Here, we all relaxed for awhile and some people jumped into the sea before heading out for the rest of the day. I jumped in of course! I was doing front flips and we were doing group jumps. The water was freezing, but it was a fun memory to add to the weekend. It was really cool because I had someone takesome time-lapse photos of us doing jumps off the pier. We continued on around the island for a few hours, occasionally stopping to take pictures and to walk along the beaches or cliffs. The entire island tour on mopeds took about 5 hours and everyone had a blast. I got some absolutely breathtaking pics of all the islands. From Lipari, you can see all of the other 6 islands. The skies were clear and the weather was perfect. The day on the mopeds was by far one of the funnest days of my life. Everyone just had such a good time driving around and stopping every 1/2 mile or so to take pics and enjoy the views. The mopeds had to be back by 3:00pm so everyone rode back into the town of Lipari to do any last minute shopping they wanted to do before we left. All of the mopeds were returned and I started to pack and arrange the vans for our departure. After everything was packed and people’s bags were in the vans, Rosario and I went to the main office to pay the balance. The company was great and we got some more information from them about rates and dates to possibly create another trip before I leave since this one was a huge success. Most of the group was on time to the van but I did have a few stragglers. The problem was resolved quickly and I took a head count in the vans before pulling away from the hotel. We arrived to the port and they had an hour to go get dinner before loading onto the ferry. Rosario and I went to pick up the tickets and once again, the ferry was more expensive than we originally had planned for. It was alright though; we had some extra money from not going to the archaeology museum. I decided earlier this weekend that we would only offer the museum to the people who wanted to go. In the morning when I asked everyone about it, no one seemed interested, and of course in the afternoon, no one wanted to leave their mopeds early. I had also heard a few comments after the boat excursion yesterday that some people wanted more free time to do things on their own anyways. We got the tickets and went to grab some dinner. Everyone was back in the vans ready to head home on time. The ferry loaded and I informed everyone that we only had a 1 ½ hour ferry ride this time around. I asked for everyone to be back in the vans as we pulled into Milazzo. The ferry ride home was much nicer. The company we used on our way home, SIREMAR, has large couches and chairs, a faster motor, tables to play games on, a larger upper deck, and overall a smoother and more enjoyable ride than NGI. I sat on the upper deck the entire ride home and watched the sunset over the islands. This was my first real "Sicilian" sunset I've seen since I've been on this island. It was beautiful. I sat there by myself, listened to my IPod, and was mesmorized by the gorgeous sunset. I took almost 15 pics of that alone. All together from the entire weekend, I took almost 225 pics. We pulled into Milazzo at dark and headed directly home for Sigonella. Halfway into the drive home, we stopped at another AutoGrille for people to grab some food and drinks for the remainder of the ride home. We pulled onto base at exactly 10:30pm, which is the time I originally had planned for. All of the vehicles had to come to NAS I due to the large amount of people to drop off, but only one van and the Forino went back to NAS II. I thanked everyone for coming and made sure the vans were clean and no one left anything behind. Many of the customers thanked us back and told us they had a great weekend. It was a really good feeling to see everyone go home happy and talking about the fun they had. Once everyone from NAS I headed home, CeCe and Eric headed to NAS II to end the night. The weekend was a huge success and I could not thank Rosario, CeCe, or her husband more. They really helped me out a lot and made this trip a definite success. I am so glad I decided on the Aeolian Islands for my school special project. I hope to make it back up to the islands before I leave so I can do some swimming and sea kayaking.

Malta Pics

My Mediterranean feet
Joe and I being sexy on the rock as the sun was setting right before we left Malta
We found the fancy Hilton Malta and went and hung out in the private marina that they offer to their guests. We saw multi-million dollar yatchs and sailboats.
This was the bay right outside of our hotel in St. Julians

Jumping off the cliffs into the Mediterranean Sea
Standing in Sliema Harbor looking up to the capital town of Valletta
This is Grand Harbor where the movies Troy and Gladiator were filmed
This was my favorite little bay near St. Julians. It totally reminded me of what Greece would look like.
Here's me on the last day on the way back to the hotel with the Sea. I didn't want to leave Malta so soon.

Random thoughts of the week

- I'm finally going to ROME! James gave me permission to take a few days off work at the end of April before it gets all crazy in May and June. I'm gonna head up there with 4 other friends and we're gonna rent a van for the weekend of April 28 - May 2. It should be a lot of fun. 2 of them have been up there before and know of the good spots to party and visit. I will make sure I visit every tourist spot there is. I'm also gonna try and plan the last day to the ancient city of Pompeii.
- I think I'm going to go ahead and get SCUBA certified while I'm here. A company is holding an Open-Water Diver certification course from May 9 - 23. It's going to include (5) 1-hour classroom lessons, (5) 3-hour pool sessions, and (4) open water dives out near Aci Trezza. It's only $320 and it's good forever. This would be pretty cool if I get to use it while I'm here. There are a lot of divers here and most of the women at ITT are certified too. This should look pretty good on a resume if I apply anywhere near the coast.
- My hair is getting really long. I'm deciding whether or not I want to cut it or let it grow out. It's been surprisingly cooperative and I think I wanna do some highlights. I don't know what to do. I'll see if it gets on my nerves at the beach.
- I got my final evaluation from James this week. It was really good and positive. He gave me 775 out of 800 points. Our new intern arrives in late May so James and I are working on a welcome packet for her and answering her questions via email.
- I'm gonna go to Citte Del Mare for Memorial Day Weekend as my extended trip. There were 3 to choose from, but I think I'll really like this one. I'm gonna escort it now since Leslie and her husband want to go somewhere else. It'll probably have 100-200 customers on it. Memorial Day Weekend is a huge vacation here.

Passport to Malta

Friday March 31 - Today at work was crazy because I was trying to get all of my work done and help inventory the back room, but I had to leave for MALTA at 3:30pm this afternoon. I was working with Leslie most of the day, but had to help a lot at the front desk because customers were coming in like crazy. It finally settled down a bit and we got the vans filled with gas and ready for the ride to the Catania airport. Aaron (from Take 5) and Leslie drove the vans so I loaded my stuff into the van, picked up the people from NAS I and then we all headed to NAS II for their pick-up. The trip was created through Liberty, which is a government subsidized program for single or unaccompanied sailors ranked E1 - E5. The trip cost $248 and included airfare, 2 nights hotel, breakfast, and transportation to and from the airport. The let me go as a "single sailor." We got to Take 5 (the Liberty building) and picked up a huge group of people. Altogether, there were 22 of us going to Malta. We got to the airport and all checked in and headed up to the "International gate." If you would see this airport, you would laugh. Its tiny and ghetto and their actually trying to make it into a liggett International Airport. Sitting in the airport was a blast, we were all meeting each other and I was hanging out mainly with the guys from Public Works (Seabees) and Joe. Our flight was ready and we had to walk down to the shuttle bus to ride 100 ft across the tarmack. Goofy huh? We were flying Air Malta. It was a really nice plane and we left at 6:00pm. The plane ride was gorgeous flying over Southern Sicily and watching the ocean. It was only about a 40 minute plane ride and damn....Malta is small! We flew in, grabbed our stuff, went through customs, got my passport stamped (YEAH, i can stay at Sigonella for 3 more months now!!!), and met up with the tour guide lady who was driving us to the airport. We crammed into 2 vans and headed to Bay Street in St. Julians. Malta is a British colony so yes, they drive on the other side of the rode and other side of the car. It was a trip the entire weekend. I almost got ran over a million times for looking the wrong direction. We got to our hotel, which was called Bay Street also and it was nice! Art deco interior and the rooms were really nice for what I had expected for $250 bucks. We all got checkin in and settled and 10 of us went and ate at the Argentinian Steak House that was near our hotel. Looking out my window in my room was a Hard Rock Cafe, huge arcade, millions of cafes and restaurants, clothing stores, etc. It was right in the middle of all the action and all the dance clubs and bars were right around the corner. Before we went and ate came the dreaded part of the trip. The ATM!!!!!!!!!!!!! ahhhh, scary..... Yeah, so they don't use Euro down here, they use the Maltese Lire which is 3X our money. SOOOOOO basically, $1 was only $.30. I told myself I wasnt going to spend much so I only pulled out 50LM. That was already $150. Everyone else (the guys) was pullin anywhere from 100-200 LM. I told them they were crazy, but oh well. We went up to the steakhouse and had a great time. I ordered steak kabobs, a few people ordered giant steaks, and 3 people ordered kangeroo. Crazy huh. I was definitely trying that though. We figured out it was going to be really expensive to eat in Malta. The meals were all 8.95-16.95, which seems okay in America, but you had to remember to times that by 3! Oh well, it came with a ton of extra food so it was cool. My kabobs were excellent and the kangeroo was really tender and had no fat on it. It was a little chewy at Medium heat, but it was different. I wouldnt be able to eat more than a few bites, but it was cool to say I've eated some. It was getting late quick and Joe hadnt been feeling good all day so we just went and walked around for a bit then went to bed so we could get up early and go walking on the beach and do some cliff diving. I really wasn't in the mood to go get wasted everynight at the clubs so everyone else came here to do.

Sat. April 1 -Joe woke me up around 7:30 and we headed down to breakfast. We made some mimosas before we left the room and he decided to down a bottle of vodka by the time we were ready for the beach. He's crazy. Breakfast was delicious and we headed to the coastline right after. A few people were up and we all started to walk together. The beach was a few hundred feet from our hotel. We all started to walk around, but the group that was walking with us decided to stay at the beach in front of the hotel. Joe and I continued to walk towards the actual rocky coastline because we wanted to find cliffs to jump off. We entered the beach from a hotel and started our trek. We walked a few miles and then decided to jump into Med. It was so freakin cold, but it felt very refreshing. At that water hole, we started to hunt for sea urchins. They were everywhere. I had to wear my tennis shoes in the water cuz those things are sharp and they cover the rock surfaces underwater. We were pullin em off the rock and playin with em. I think we ended up catching like 25 of them. We threw em back in and headed further down the coast. We walked a few more miles. The rocks were giant and really sharp. I accidentally fell on one and now have a huge gash in my shin. We finally walked about 7 miles until we finally found some cliffs to jump off. The ones we found were about 30-35 feet high. Joe jumped first and I got some cool time-lapse photos. I got up there but chickened out. We jumped together. It was really fun, but wooooo, that water was FREEZING! After I jumped once with him I was brave enough to do it on my own. It was really fun. After a few jumps, we laid down on the lower rocks to sunbathe. Here is the problem. We both fell asleep for like an hour without ever turning over. Needless to say, the back of my body and legs FRIED!! It was one of those sunburns that just ruins your weekend. I could not walk later that night or the next few days. Anyways, back to the story. So after chillin out on the rocks like the Little Mermaid, we were starting to get really thirsty and hungry. We had no idea we were gonna be gone so long and walk like 10 miles, so we didnt bring anything. We walked another mile or so and came up to a little town. We immediately spotted a kiosk and they had the best ice cream ever. We each bought a 2-litre of water and a big ole ice cream. There was fresh cut fruit available and you could pick from vanilla, chocolate, or swirl ice cream. I got big slices of bananas, kiwi, strawberries, cherries, and chocolate syrup. We both agreed we were done hiking for the day and asked how to get back to the town of St. Julians where our hotel was. The guy told us to catch the public bus that runs every 30 min. We found the bus and totally missed an exit anywhere near our hotel. Oh well. It was definitely an adventure. The buses were great, cheap, and on time. We found out we got off the bus in Sliema. We decided to go ahead and walk around the town and find the hotel. We stopped and ate lunch, went into some shops, got a drink at the bar, asked a million people for directions how to find the Bay Street Hotel. We ended up getting back to the hotel in the evening and we all went and ate dinner at a fancy Italian restaurant (yeah, go figure...italian food). We met up with the original gang to eat. We were originally looking for a Mexican Restaurant (theres only one on the island and its in Sliema) but they werent all willing to hop on the public bus to find it. Oh well. They were startin to piss me off, but I think i was just hungry. The restaurant was really good, but yet expensive. After dinner, we all headed down to a pub and had some Maltese beer. It was really good. It was called 1565 and then there was another beer called Cisk. A little later, they all started takin shots of Sambuca and I was ready to leave. The back of my legs were so burnt that they were really stiff and rubbing on the back of my pants. I could barely walk and I knew it would be even worse tomorrow when I woke up. Joe and I headed back towards the hotel and walked around for a little bit. He wasnt feelin very good so we went back up to our rooms and chilled out all night. I wanted to get some good sleep and rest because we were gonna do the "tourist" thing all-day tomorrow.

Sun April 2 - We both woke up early and everyone from last night was just gettin to bed around 6am. We got up and went to breakfast around 7:30 so we could get an early start and head to the capital town of Valletta. Breakfast was good and this time we planned ahead for our long day out. We bought drinks and snacks for the day. The bus wasn't leaving for the airport until 7:30 tonight so we had plenty of time to tour the island and get ourselves lost. We walked around St. Julians for alittle but and found ourselves in the Hilton Malta. It was beautiful, you could totally tell this is where all the rich people and celebrities stay when they come to Malta. It had their own private Marina for all the customer's yachts and sailboats. We walked all around their marina and followed it out to the sea where we hung out walking on the rocks. I had flip flops on so it was pretty tricky and on top of that my legs would barely bend because they were burnt so bad on the back crease of my knees. We could feel ourselves frying in the sun so we were on a mission to find sunscreen. We took our Hilton adventures inside the hotel and bought some sunscreen. It was like 15 euro! Crazy huh. We got some souveniers and used their fancy bathrooms. After the Hilton, we were ready to explore the main cities. We hopped on the public bus and headed for Valletta. We thought we got off at Valletta, but we soon found out that we accidentally got off early and stopped in the Sliema Harbor. Thats the harbor where all the day cruises leave from. We could see the city of Valletta on the other side of the harbor, but there was no way we could walk to there. We jumped back on the bus and headed up the hill. Good thing we didnt try walking, it was almost 4 miles straight up hill. The buses end in Valletta Square. We got out and walked down towards the flea market to do some shopping. The flea market was crazy, they were selling everything imaginable and even birds in little cages too. I bought some Maltese souveniers and after we left the market, we walked towards the Grand Harbour. Before we got to the harbor, we saw signs for the Lascaris War Rooms from WWII. There was a beautiful courtyard that we went to the edge and looked down at the harbor. From the Harbor, you can see the town of Three Cities and the port. The USS Arley Burke (Destroyer) was docked there that week and some large cruise boats. After taking a bunch of pictures, we headed towards the War Rooms. It was really cool to walk through underground tunnels and into these underground rooms. The museum was 6 Euro to get in. It was all about the attack on Malta and Sicily during WWII. They had little headphones to wear that explained the tour in English. It was pretty hoaky and old, but it was alright. The story was wayyy too long, so we ended up just walking through and took a bunch of silly pictures with the mannequins. We left there and headed towards the town square of Valletta. The town was beautiful and the streets are all enclosed by giant limestone walls. We walked through the streets, stopped and watched a street vendor painting, ate lunch at a cute little ristorante, enjoyed some gelato, and walked towards the edge of town. At the end of the town was the old jail, which is now a police training center, Queen Elizabeth's Bell, and the pier where Troy and Gladiator were filmed. An old man with a horse and carriage asked us if we would like a tour around Valletta. It was a little expensive, but we both had some money left over and figured we might as well use it before we left the country. It was really cool. The old man was a native of Malta and was really informative. He brought us all over the city and way more than what we could have ever covered by foot. Also, it was nice to learn the details of the history of the buildings, stores, Grand Harbour, Sliema Harbor, etc. We left Valletta and took the bus down to Sliema. We walked around a little, but the sun was really strong still and we decided to head back towards St. Julians. We rode the bus for a few miles and got off early to walk around and say goodbye to the beach and Med Sea. We walked around and got back on the bus towards the hotel. We were startin to learn the bus routes and directions around Bay Street. We stopped into a little pub that had Murphy's. That's Joes last name, so we had to get one before we left the island. I had the Irish Red, I am starting to love that beer. After that, we stopped into the hotel to see if anyone had arrived yet for the bus back to the airport. A few people were there already and they were all going to grab dinner and hang out on the beach a little longer. Joe and I decided to go to that Mexican restaurant that no one attempted to find. We knew we didnt have much time, but we risked it anways. We ran to the bus and got off at Tex Mex. The food was alright, but it definitely wasn't anything authentic. We walked down the street to the coastline to see the sunset over my favorite little bay with all the colorful boats and played around on the beach and rocks before we headed back. We realized we were running out of time and frantically had to catch the bus back to the hotel to catch the van at 7:30pm. We got back with a few minutes to spare and everyone was ready to leave. We grabbed out bags and loaded the vans. The ride to the airport was freakin hilarious and everyone was so tired that they were slap-happy. We got to the airport, waited in the lines and went through Customs. The flight back only took like 25 minutes in the air. We landed in Catania and the 2 MWR vans were there ready to bring us home. I got back to NAS I right around midnight. The trip was a lot of fun and I knew I'd be sleepin well tonight. Next week will be another week of leaving the island. Destination: Aeolian Islands for my special project for school!

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.