Monday, October 20, 2014

Senior Recognition Meet

A couple of weekends ago was Tommy's last home meet for his high school swimming career.  With swimming being a part of his and our lives for 13 seasons, it is hard to remember a time when our lives haven't revolved around meet weekends and swim practice.  



Tommy wishing a teammate luck before a race


Tommy has a few pre-race rituals….



Looking pretty intense after a hard swim



While Sam no longer swims, she keeps herself busy at meets taking awesome photos
This particular weekend, we host 2 days worth of swimming, and there is an award ceremony at the end of the day on Sunday.  Before the awards were handed out, our team had the senior recognition ceremony.  Since Tommy is our only senior, he preferred to call it Tommy recognition!  The team lined up and created a hand bridge for him to walk through.  We were supposed to have an entrance song, and it was to be Tommy choice.  He did a lot of searching for good walk-in songs, and thought about songs that mean something to him.  He had it narrowed down to 2 songs, Eye of the Tiger or Ghostbusters.  Both are kind of special to him, but he had concerns…Eye of the Tiger is kind of overused, and Ghostbusters is not a typical walk-in song.  So we got in the car to head over to the last practice before the meet and Tommy was flipping through the radio stations.  On some random Italian station, the Ghostbusters theme was playing.  I can't tell you the last time I heard it on the radio, it was definitely a sign!  Unfortunately, there were some technical difficulties at the ceremony, so no song was played.  However, now Tommy knows his walk-in song should he ever need it again!



Looking so gorgeous after 2 long days of selling concessions!

I waited for Tommy at the end of the bridge.  He had flowers for me and I escorted him to the front

As Tommy stood in front of everyone, his coach read his swim biography.  This part was a surprise to him.

 
After the senior recognition, he went on to win his age group at the meet.  His team gave him a standing ovation.  It was all really nice, and a great way to close out his high school swim experience.  However, there are still several months and many meets left before he is really done, we'll just be traveling across Europe for those!

Monday, September 8, 2014

Etna and Milo Wine Festival

This weekend Mike and I joined a base sponsored trip which brought us up Etna where we were able to hop on a gondola to take us close to the top (kind of) and then to a wine festival in the town of Milo.

Our transport up and down the mountain.  There were seats for 6 inside.  On the way up it was full.  On the way down, it was just me and Mike, so we had to sit in the center seats in order to ensure it was balance.

Thankfully the doors had little windows that slid down.  It was a slow ride, and I definitely need some fresh air!



When we stepped outside the building at the top, we saw some friends standing on what looked like an edge with a steep drop.  I did get closer, and it really isn't quite as steep as it looks here.


We were right up there with the clouds

Fortunately there weren't a lot of clouds.  We had a nice view of the coastline in Catania



Apparently it is a thing to find lava stones and write things with them


After a while, we got on the bus and headed to the wine festival.


I didn't really have the camera out too much here.  There was an area where you buy a glass and tickets.  Then you can walk around and try different wines.  They had bottle available to buy, put we didn't really care for any enough to buy a bottle.  They also had other vendors, food and music.  It was a nice trip and a great way to spend the day and evening with some friends!

Friday, September 5, 2014

Malta

This year we decided to take advantage of the long weekend over Labor day, and take a trip to Malta.  It was a quick plane ride from Catania.  As a matter of fact, on the way home, the pilot got on to update us on the trip before takeoff and said we would be in the air 20 minutes!  We were barely at altitude and then started to descend, it was great!

We got there pretty early on Friday and were not able to check into our rooms right away, so we walked around until one room was ready.  Once we could check into a room, Sam, Mike and I went to get on the hop-on-hop-off bus to get a look at the island.  This was the only planned event for the weekend.  I just wanted to sit by the pool or beach and relax.  Tommy wasn't even up for the bus ride, so he stayed back at the hotel.

That is a pool right on (or in) the sea with water polo set up in the sea.  Tommy wants us to put in a request to move long distance champs to Malta so he can swim in this pool.  It was clearly set up to be a competition pool with lane markings and blocks.

There were marinas everywhere!  

A view from the upper deck of the bus

I am not exactly sure what she is photographing,
but she had to climb and hold on tight to get the shot!

There were some really narrow roads!

I loved this little cove, with all the colorful fishing boats.



It was interesting driving around the island.  Clearly most of the people live by the coasts, and there are some farms and wineries on the interior.



Our first night, we decided to eat Maltese food.  On the bus, we had learned a little bit about some typical dishes.  So we found a restaurant not too far from our hotel and had a sampling of Maltese food, wine and beer.

Bread served before dinner with a couple of different sauces

A complimentary starter.

The kids both got fried raviolis, a traditional Maltese dish

Fried cheese, with a strange sauce none of us liked

Mike decided to try something new because it is a traditional dish, he had some fried rabbit.
Tommy had a bite of it and they both said it tasted like chicken.  I could not consider trying it,
and Sam wasn't happy it was even on the table!

I just had the chicken




The next day we went down to the beach in the morning.  The beach wasn't big, but it was sandy and the hotel had nice lounge chairs.  We were able to get 4 right up at the edge of the sea.  We all waded around in the water, which was calm and warm.  After catching some rays, we took a break got some lunch and walked around a little bit.

This was the beach where we spent our morning.  There were lounge chairs, not tables there at the time.  It looked like there was a wedding reception there that night.  What a great spot!



Not all the beaches are sandy.  In the background you can see the rocky beach.  They even have ladder put into the rocks to make getting in and out a little easier.


Our hotel was in the touristy area of Malta, and we had a Hard Rock across the street.  While there are often Hard Rock Cafes in the cities we have visited, we have never stopped there before, but we decided to give it a shot.


One thing we wanted to do while we were in Malta, was to go to the Blue Lagoon.  We checked out the tours, but they were all full day events, and we just didn't want to devote the entire day to a tour.  So we rented a little boat for the afternoon, got a map and some directions, and headed there ourselves.  The boat was a good idea, but the one we got was not so great.  We had a lot of problems with the engine stalling and were afraid we might get stranded at one point.  So while we would have very much liked to have stopped and jumped in at some point, once we got it going, we didn't want to take a chance on stopping again!  In addition to seeing the beautiful Blue Lagoon, we also went over near the island of Gozo.  The woman at the boat rental place told  us that Angelina Jolie was there filming a movie.  Of course we didn't see her, but we can say we were in Malta with her ;)  There have been a ton of movies and TV shows filmed in Malta, and it is easy to see why.  It is beautiful, diverse and the people were all very friendly.  It was a great way to spend the weekend and say good-bye to summer!


not a great picture of me and Mike, but this is the Blue Lagoon.  While the water looks nice here, the picture just doesn't do it justice!

A view of the old city from the water.

Sunday, August 17, 2014

Bologna

The last stop on our 3 day get away was Bologna.  While looking for things to do, I learned that Bologna is really not a touristy spot, but is more of a college city.  I can confirm that it is not touristy, it was so nice to leave the crowds behind in Florence and explore the city of Bologna.  Aside from the smaller crowds, It was nice to walk around Bologna because they have wide covered sidewalks.  The city is known for the portico or arcades which allow you to walk around with protection from the sun or rain, and the occasional car or vespa which can be a danger in other parts of Italy.  The arcades were originally built to add student housing onto the front of existing building.  The city allowed this as long as there was  space below wide enough for a horse and carriage to go through.  Some of the arcades are elaborately decorated, and others are more modest, but they were fantastic.




I think my favorite thing in Bologna was in the anatomical theater which was inside the medical school of the original seat of the unified University of Bologna.  I have heard operating rooms referred to as theaters, but have never put much thought into why.  Well, a visit to the anatomical theater completely explains this term.

The entire room is covered in this beautiful wood and wood carvings.


Even the ceiling was ornate….



Every where you looked, it was stunning…..

In the center of the room is a marble table, and "box" seats at one end.
 
Clearly my kids were as enthusiastic as I was to see the anatomical theater!



Pisa easily has the most famous leaning tower.  However, Bologna has a couple of towers, one of which is leaning.  These are known as the Asinelli towers.  There were originally a lot more all around Bologna, but these are the only two still standing.

The shorter, leaning tower.
This tower is intact, and for a small fee, you can climb it.
While we didn't feel like fighting the crowds to go up the tower in Pisa, we decided we would go ahead and climb this tower.  Mike and Tommy went up faster than Sam and I.



It was a long hike up, and we often had to stand up against a wall on a landing to allow others to pass going down, but the view was totally worth it.





Then we had to walk back down!  It was slightly easier, but the stairs were so steep, it was sometimes difficult to decided if you are safer walking down like they are stairs, or like they are ladders!

After walking around, we jumped in the car and drove up to the sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca.  It looked like a nice building, but we couldn't go in.  However there were some nice views, as it is set up on a hill.




If you are ambitious, you can walk the 6 or so miles up the hill, and you would be walking under arcades the entire way.



While Mike walked down the arcade a little ways, the kids took some time to mess around….


We felt we had seen all we wanted to see in Bologna, so we took this time to sit down and decide where to go next…..



Our next stop meant driving a little ways outside of Bologna and took us to…..


The Lamborghini museum/factory.  The museum is 2 levels of Lamborghinis.  We were welcome to walk around, but no touching and no opening the cars.


Who knew they made SUVs (or should I say an SUV)?


This is one of a kind and super cool!

I almost forgot to tell you about the best food we have had in Italy since we moved here.  Food in Bologna is what Americans think of when we think of Italian food.  It was rich, heavy, and delicious!

These were delicious stuffed ravioli.  they had potato and cheese inside and a ham and cream sauce outside, YUM 

Americans think that spaghetti bolognese is an authentic dish.  Well, our server made sure we understood that no such a dish exists.  The real thing is tagliatelle in a thick meat ragu, DELISH

And finally, a rich hearty lasagna!
We also had some little fried bread deliciousness with our meal.  Most Italians don't eat bread with pasta, but the waiter told us it is perfectly fine to do so, as you often see the old ladies eating bread with their lasagna.  It was by far our favorite Italian food to this point!