Welcome to Sicliy!

Benvenuto! So, after my rather relaxing weekend in San Diego, I was off to Sicily for my 2 year stint with no real idea what to expect. I boarded a plane in San Diego around 8am and flew to DC where I sat around for about 3 hours in the International wing with a tons of high school kids and smelly Euros! Hopped on a plane, about a 9 hr flight, to Rome and then a quick 1hr juant into Catania, Sicily, arriving around 2pm on June 10th.

I was greeting a a guy from the base to take my to check in and finally get some much needed sleep! After running around from NAS 1 to NAS 2 seeing the Mobile Unit and filling aout some paperwork, my fellow EOD tech, Nick, and I grabbed a quick bite and were off to bed by about 7pm...

Nick's friend is here on the island for another few weeks, so we hooked up with him and his wife to get the tour of some of the island before indoc started the following day. I have to say, this is Europe! It is rather dirty, the Sicilians drive like absolute maniacs, the roads are horrible, and I'm sure I will get lost at least once a day for the next 2 yrs I'm here!!! Went went up to Motta first. A quaint little town just north of base where alot of Americans live. In fact it use to be part of base housing, but since then 2 housing complexes for the married folks have been built closer to base, and now a lot of single sailors and the like live in Motta. Not a bad spot, up in a steep hill, very narrow roads, and a little bit of theivery...

From there we ventured off to Aciterreza, just north of Catania right on the Mediterranian ocean. This is where I am going to look mainly for housing. It is a nicer area then Motta, right on the water, and very close to Catania. A much younger more ecclectic crowd lives here, and even though it's about 30 mins from base, the "Aci" region is where I'd like to call home for the next 2 yrs. That is when I'm not deployed to Germany, Africa, Iraq, Afganastan, Sweden, Switzerland, France, yada, yada, yada, or one of the many other areas we either opererate or just train in.

As we drove through the outskirts of Catania we saw 2 car accidents in about a 1 mile distance, and probably saw about 50 more potential ones. It is unbeleivable how these people drive and don't kill everyone the pass! In the states, beeping your horn is usually in anger, here it's liek they are saying "hey, I'm here, I'm goign to pull off some 5 lane swirve power change to pass you, just so you know"...with a smile and not even a glance in your direction! The cities of Aciterreza and Catania are actually very beautiful and riddled with a ton of history! I took a few pics and will be taking a great deal more and will upload some when I can.

The food is very good, but very different, especially since most of the menus are in Italian so it takes a bit of thought to figure out wheat you are ordering, but most of the people here do speak some english and are very helpful. The wine is amazing, much better and stronger then in the states. There is one particular red wine that you can only get on the island that is very good... Nero d’avola.

We started indoc today, which was the most borring thing ever! I'm going to rest a little and the do a Wod, since I have not done anything since Saturday! I will post more probably this weekend and am going to try and get out and about some more so i can learn some more Italian, visit some beautiful places, and meet some great locals!