Bibione/Venezia

Annie has become quite popular in Italy...

Bibione/Venezia (Venice)

Eventually I need to post up my photos from last "weekend"--Tuesday/Wednesday trips. But in the meantime, here are just a few.

....in ITALY!

Thursday we spent the day in the Airmen Support Center or something like that which provides a class on getting accustomed to Italian culutre.  Among other things we learned some Italian, how to haggle in the markets, how to give gifts, and how to travel safely. Friday we spent the day out and about on the "Benvenuti" (welcome) tour. We had a big tour bus and started with visiting a nearby spring. Next we went to a market in Porcia which was kind of small and we weren't really there long enough to take a good look around either. Then we got back on the bus and drove to Pordenone which felt more like the Italy I was expecting to see this summer. Cobblestone streets and colorful storefronts led us to a chocolatier and eventually the Pordenone church--GORGEOUS. Below you can see a pic of the chocolate dress! Then our guides Sergio and Christina showed us how to use the train and we took it to Sacile. Our bus met us at the Sacile station and we took it to a fancy Italian hotel/restaurant for a 3-course lunch. After lunch we went wine tasting which was pretty interesting. The daughter of the man running the vineyard was 17 and she pretty much explained the whole process to us in fragmented English. 

Saturday was our first day of work and I wasn't scheduled to open or close so I went with the majority of the group at 11:45. We completed all of the opening procedures and then everyone showed me the ropes in everything from guard rotations to parallel parking the shelving inside the guard shack. On my 3rd rotation in (pardon the lifeguard jargon) it started rainng pretty hard. If its raining hard enough to not see the bottom of the deep end, we have to close the pool until it dies down. If it thunders, then the pool has to close for 30 min, and for lighting, an hour. So around 16:40 we heard some thunder and closed everything up. We went over to the bowling center for a half hour and on our way back to the pool we saw some lightning. Community center is a little bit further walk from the pool, but we went there to spend the hour we had left to wait. Kari and I broke out Guitar Hero on the Xbox 360 and I definitely see myself spending more time over at the community center. Policy says that if weather is still bad at 6, then we just close the pool early because the chance of someone coming during that one hour is not very high. So we closed everything up, and went back to the dorms. Sunday I was scheduled to open for lap swim so Kimi, Karen, and I went out around 9:30 but it was raining to hard to open when we got there. Sylvia, our pool manager, met up with us at the Deja Brew coffee place and we talked for a while before deciding the pool would be closed for the day due to t-storm advisories by the command post. Mondays the pool is closed to the pubic for guard training so in a few I've got to suit up and get ready for that. Then tonight=mandatory fun hours. If you have photo requests let me know, because I'm thinking about making prints soon!

 

Day 4: Exploring Aviano