Roma e Città del Vaticano

As I write this I’m about 37,000 ft. above Greenland and as you may have gathered, I’m heading back to America again.  This makes twice in a month, a bit out of the ordinary from our usual assignments.  Usually we get sent somewhere where the job is listed for about a six week duration, and it ALWAYS runs longer (hence our 7 months in India); however, as my luck would have it, we get sent to a super nice location and it finishes early. 

The highlight of this assignment was seeing the beautiful beaches of Sardinia, but we only got to see that because my wife got most of one day off in two weeks, so we made it count and found some remote beaches that were truly amazing.  Since the project went faster than expected, we flew to Rome to await our next assignment.  Now, I’m not going to use any names, but one of my wife’s managers doesn’t seem to enjoy checking their e-mail and responding in a timely manner.  Well, his lackluster job of responding to e-mails only gave us a reason to hang out in Rome for three days, with most of it paid for by somebody else…no complaints here. Anyways, as you might imagine, Rome is awesome, minus the fact that it’s more expensive than a weekend binder in Vegas, excluding that side trip to the Bunny Ranch of course.  And yes, you say it’s Europe and everything is expensive, which is true, but compared to Athens, Greece, Rome is at least twice as expensive, if not more.  Rome has turned into a giant tourist trap, but a really nice tourist trap, unlike Cairo.  If you have the opportunity to go, then by all means, do so.  Seeing the Colosseum and Vatican City were awesome and well worth the hassle, but just be wary of restaurant owners tacking on hidden fees, we ended up with a $75 lunch near St. Peter’s Basilica, and people trying to get you to buy all sorts of cheap tourist souvenirs.

Other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed the trip, except for the getting lost part, which happens all too often with me.  Usually getting lost provides an opportunity to find and experience some unique things off the beaten tourist path; however, in my case it usually ends up in a back alley or dead end street in the worst of neighborhoods late at night where sketchy guys in a van offer you a ride to your hotel…(key the ice cream music).  Apart from that, I’m ready to get home to enjoy some true Mexican food.  We found a Mexican restaurant in Rome that we thought would be nice to stop in have a beer and some nachos.  How in the world can anyone screw up nachos?  It almost seems impossible and it should be punishable by public floggings, but that restaurant sure did a fantastic job of messing up one of the easiest things to make. So, I’m about 3 ½ hrs from landing in Chicago, I haven’t been able to sleep at all on our flights home (Rome-Frankfurt-Chicago), and since we forgot about daylight savings time and woke up at 3:15am instead of 4:15, I’m going to be running on fumes and looking like a zombie; just another reason to justify an immigration inspection.  

Other than that, I could provide some funny stories of things and people we saw the past two weeks, but I don’t have the time and I’m sure you don’t have the sanity to read much more.  School has been progressing, and to be quite honest, I think I have a bit of senioritis kicking in.  I’m ready to finish off these classes and be done, but I have to get focused and plow through it, it doesn’t help that my adult ADD makes it more difficult, and I don’t think trying to get out of a paper using the Jedi mind trick on my professor will work…this time. 

As an update to my previous post about the sneaky ninja spider, I killed the thing, with my shoe, and with me wearing all the necessary safety instruments.  The only thing left was a shoe print on the ceiling, and a grand feeling of satisfaction, until the next one showed up an hour later…Round 2.

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Bella Italia!

WOW, so another week has passed and a quick one at that.  I got settled into another hotel room and tried to put myself into another routine, which is a little more difficult that it seems.  Our hotel just happens to be about 5k from the city center so I don’t have a car to drive anywhere; my wife takes it to work.  I can’t walk anywhere because we’re next to a highway with not much around.  So, I just spent most of the week trying to work out in the smallest of gyms and getting my school work done so that I could focus on a research paper for next week.  All in all, it hasn’t been that bad for me; however, you may receive a different response from my wife who seems to be having some communication difficulty with the Italian refinery workers. Of course, it doesn’t help that her main contact just happened to be gone this week.

The bonus part is that we’re not in China or India, so the food is basically awesome. My wife has been here before, but to the mainland and traveled all throughout northern Italy.  Her comparison of the food thus far has our circumstance rating below her previous encounters; but my take on it is that whatever we eat here, it sure beats pigs’ feet and beef lungs covered in traditional “Chinese Herbs.” 

Regardless of our TINY hotel room, the even smaller gym, and my inability to head into the city except via taxi (€15), we’ve had a decent week so far.  My wife gets home, and unlike the Chinese, the Italians eat late, much like the Indians, so our “feeding time” has changed a bit.  We now just stroll around the city for a bout 30min before we start looking for a restaurant, which usually opens at 7:30pm, at the earliest.  Now once dinner is over, its time for one of my favorite things in life…Ice Cream!  My wife has exposed me to “Gelato” before, when we we’re in Greece, and it was amazing.  Fortunately for us, they have “Gelaterias” on every single corner. Gelato is basically whole milk/fat/cream etc. that makes ice cream so awesome, and a slight (rather HUGE) difference from the “non-fat, non-sugar” stuff we’re used to in the states.

I know that since I put one of my favorite “things in life” parts in this blog, I must reveal my most devilish fears.  I HATE, and am SCARED SH!$less of Spiders…long childhood story which can’t be detailed, or exposed, without the fear of certain humiliation.  The point is, you can’t trust them, and as a matter of fact there is one on the ceiling just above me, probably trying to look into my soul and read my mind, (thankfully I have my aluminum foil helmet on). I’d normally try to kill the thing, but when they’re positioned on the ceiling within 3-4 inches of the ceiling/wall corner then when you go for the hit, they only fall on you, which instinctively triggers my fight or flight response…I faint!!  So, I know this guy’s game…I’ll wait him out, just like he’s doing me right now.  Once he moves out of the “no shoe zone” I have a size 15 Nike with his name ALL OVER IT.  Granted, my size 15 may be the reason there is a 3-4 inch “no strike” zone but that’s not the issue here; the issue is that the dirty little prick will try too attack me before I can find an alternative solution (yeah, I’ve read the “Art of War”) and I know what he’s trying to do, therefore I anticipate…….with a hairspray can.

 My apologies for the random verbal vomit on my spider issue.  I do need to mention my unexpected trip up the coast today to Villasimus and Costa Rei.  My wife had to go in this morning for her 7^th day in a row (pulling that 70hr work week again), but the other managers didn’t show, but instead decided to sleep in, AND  NOT call my wife.  She shows up, nobody’s around and finds out that there had been a problem the night before.  A phone call would have been nice!  Regardless, this gave us the opportunity to take a day trip and see some of the amazing beaches that Sardinia has to offer.  We found about 5 beaches, hiked down a cliff to one, and drove up to others.  It was an amazing day, minus the fact they called my wife into work at 4pm.  We saw some great sights, had some more great food and thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity we had to see the scenery and countryside of Sardinia.

Now, I’m trying to get NFL highlights on the computer, and having our slingbox located in Greensboro, NC only gives us the 2 WORST games in the NFL, Carolina vs. Tampa and Kansas City vs. Washington…wow, why not watch figure skating, it’s has just as much talent.

I’ll keep you guys posted on the “Mussolini Spider” situation; chances are I have to revert to some sort of chemical warfare!

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You Can Always Go Home!

Normally I would kick off another blog by describing the useless tricks I do to keep my sanity in that remote area in China called Jio Kou River Town, BUT…I’m not there anymore and rest assured I’ve done the victory celebration that probably rivaled Ochocinco’s shenanigans in the end zone (if he ever gets there anymore).  That’s right; we FINALLY left that tiny village in the middle of nowhere and were sent to Xi’an (notice the Terracotta Soldiers on the right) to await our next assignment.  My wife got word that we were heading to Quanzho, China.  It’s in the south eastern part of China in the Fujian province and the city we were listed to go to was, by any standards, pretty nice so I didn’t complain at all.  However, my wife got an e-mail the next day saying the project was delayed two weeks so we were thinking of taking some vacation and going to Thailand, but wouldn’t you know, her boss told her to come home.  Given we haven’t been to the U.S. in over a year we weren’t upset at all about not getting any vacation and missing out on Thailand; I’m sure there are plenty of people who are glad they missed out on vacation for one reason or another, and probably plenty of sailors and marines who WISHED they had never went to Thailand. (we’ve all heard the stories). 

            So after we got the go ahead to come home I began to plan on how to surprise my parents; they still thought we were in China.  Another phone call came in with some even better news.  We we’re NOT heading back to China for the next assignment, but heading to Italy, specifically Cagliari on the island of Sardinia.  Of course, that just made up for the 5 months I spent wishing myself out of China and into a hallucinogenic dream world so I could forget the daily irritations and potential aneurisms I knew were coming (I can feel the BP and stress dropping).  So not only are we going to a good location but I get to sneak into NC and visit my family.  Unfortunately my wife had to stay in Chicago for the week to prepare for the next job, but her mom flew up and spent the week with her.  I flew into Raleigh, had my good friend pick me up and we headed to Carolina beach where my dad and brother were fishing.  I knocked on their door and the surprised look they had was priceless, especially considering I just talked to them two days ago from the other side of the planet.  We did some fishing, had some Miller High Life, and wished I had my surf board there b/c the water temp and waves were awesome.  I then proceeded to head home to give my mom the same surprise; she looked like she just saw a ghost.  I had actually called her that morning just to say hi and told her I was still in China, so it was a big shock, probably not one you should give your _9yr old mother. (Yeah I left the first number blank b/c I don’t want to get a phone call from mom tomorrow) Anyways, I spent the week relaxing, catching up on sleep, and doing school work in between kicking the soccer ball around with my niece and nephew.  I don’t know what age you transition from soccer to rugby…but I hope it’s soon.

            I flew back to Chicago Saturday, grabbed some more great American food and then started packing.  We left Chicago on Sunday evening for Italy.  It took forever considering we had two layovers in Munich and Rome, and then when we arrived they had lost two of our four bags.  Fortunately, we got them back late last night and now it’s back to the routine of school work, exercise, and some hopeful sightseeing in between, granted I minimize my uncanny ability to get lost using the simplest of directions. (I’ll keep you posted on that)  So far, this place looks promising and exciting.  Even though this assignment is only 2-3 weeks, I’ll try to take in as much sights and food as possible, because there’s always that very promising option of heading back to China.  I’m just glad I’m doing my MPA online b/c there is no way I’d be able to do it any other way considering we always make travel plans at the last minute and having never been to Colorado, I’m sure I’d get lost there as well.

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