Posts Tagged ‘camp darby’

Part III: Memories

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

Just arrived in Goteborg.  Returned the car to Volvo.  Ships out on July 4, and should be in Irvine by your early August. Weather is  fantastic.  At the same hotel we stayed at when we arrived…SAS Radisson.  We Leave Wed. AM.

We have found that familiarity breeds contentment, making a place feel like “Home” seemed to be our comfort zone, while living on the edge was not.  So our many trips to Camp Darby in Pisa, or even the other military bases were even safe zones. Returning to Goteborg and this hotel feels good. But we have done a good job of enjoying everyday as we countdown to take off.  I would not delete a day of it, and we intend to make the most of today and tomorrow (we are headed to the Spain vs Finland soccer game in an hour).

We were to have the car until tomorrow, but the GPS came across some road construction it couldn’t understand.  Our 11 minutes to our hotel was 45+ and we were still lost.  At that point, we knew we could find Volvo, and walking would be a lot less stressful the remainder of our time. They went over the car, we signed some papers, and they taxied us into town with no expense to us. They will pick us up and take us to the airport on Wed (I like being taken care of too).

The car will be fine, safe, cleaned and it will give me some time to deal with the used car lot we currently have at home!  I was sad to leave Montalcino, but I am ready to be home, be of help to Debbie Powell and Aaron’s wedding this weekend, and get my knees looked at  (and get back in shape).

cloudsSo if I always look at something in the future as a challenge, I don’t have to look backward.  Any way , any big event is 3 parts:  planning, happening, and memories.

We are just moving on to part III.

A Piece Of Pisa, Per Favore

Friday, April 3rd, 2009

When we saw the forecast for lots of rain, we made a route change and went to Parma!  It is a big city, but very nice and friendly (featured in John Grisham’s  book “Playing for Pizza“).  The Cinque Terra we figured would be all washed out, so why not head a mere 2 inches in the guide and see why Mr. Grisham fell in love with this place.  Those two inches contained the French Alps, just a few miles from Turin (site of the 2006 Winter Olympics).  

leaningsteveBeautiful, breathtaking, and…”Coast, we are nearly out of gas!”  Due to all of the switchbacks, we almost ran out of gas.  We arrived and had a great hotel and an awesome italian meal and a long walk around Parma before we headed to our reservation at Camp Darby in Pisa (a little-known military base with beautiful accomodations).

So heading out early we had to cross…guess what?   The Italian Alps!  But this time we took a major highway with buckets of tunnels and incredible engineering feats. 

We were scheduled to be in Pisa around 1 pm, but we got in at the ususal Morales-time table of 4:30 (at least it was still daylight).  We managed to go against the traffic, swimming upstream, and see the bapistrypisasights in town with fewer tourists as it was near closing. With the start of Easter week and school breaks, this place is bedlam.

We passed on climbing the  Tower, but were moved by our time in the Duomo and in the Bapistry.  The acoustics in the bapistry is such that every 30 minutes a guide comes in and sings a trio of notes spaced apart, but because of the echo and it’s 10 second length, it comes out sounding like 3 people singing at once (a full chord)!

It is amazing to actually be here and see this all in person.  And it blows me away to see and to know the effort, talent, devotion, and faith to build it all. Amazing!

Buongiourno

Friday, April 3rd, 2009

A rough couple days, but we have just arrived in Pisa.  We are headed into town to see and then back to Camp Darby (awesome accommodations) to catch up!