Back in the Box

Well as you probably figured out I haven't posted for over two weeks and the reason was I was on my 15 day R&R. I left out of Taji on the 26th and got to Kuwait on the 27th and thanks to CSM L I was on a Frankfurt bound airliner on the 28th. Carmen and the kids arrived on the 29th in the morning and we were off to enjoy our 2 weeks together.

We had a great time travelling through parts of Germany and Italy plus a side trip to Austria. Day one we travelled to Nurnberg where Carmen and I lived while I was stationed there in the 80's. We got to show the kids the old city and Ascension saw where she lived in Schwabach prior to us redeploying back to the US. The O'Brien Kaserne is now used as a business park and our old housing units now house Germans.

We then headed on the 30 down to Munich and spent three days there, getting to see all the sights. On New Years day since everything was closed in Munich we headed to Salzburg the birthplace of Mozart and the "Sound of Music". Although it was cold and snowy we had a good time and the kids got to appreciate some of the scenery and sights.

On the second of January we flew from Munich to Rome and spent 3+ days in the eternal city. We could have stayed there for a couple of more days, since with so much to see, there just wasn't enough time to see everything. On day one we say all the key sights, the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, and other key monuments and piazza's and palazzo's. On day two it was the Vatican Museum, St Peters Basilica and other sights at the Vatican. Day three was the Roman Colosseum, the various other ancient Roman sites around the Colosseum and then we headed back to see the last few sights at the Vatican.

On the 6th we headed towards Florence via Assissi. What a beautiful walled town, Carmen had wanted to see the town and the church where San Francisco of Assissi was buried. We then attempted to visit Gubbio but it was foggy and getting dark and visibility was nil so we decided that it made sense to continue onto Florence.

We spent a day + in Florence and saw the key sights, no museums as I was kindly reminded by Ascension that everyone but me should know that museums are closed on Mondays! Obviously you can see that my liberal arts training in college went to waste as I had no clue about that. So we saw the Duomo, climbed all 414 steps of the Campanario next to the Doumo and got our stair master workout taken care for the day.

The next day was a quick jaunt to Pisa to see and climb the leaning tower of Pisa, see the duomo and watch Carmen drive 100+ mph on the autostrada in order to make it back to Rome to catch our flight to Munich. I let her do the driving in Italy since it's like Spain and I hate driving in Spain where no one follows the rule of the road and she copes with it like its just another drive in the countryside.

We spent the last 3 days at Garmisch at the AFRC Edelweiss Lodge and the weather and scenery was beautiful, we hadn't been to Garmisch since 86 and the new lodge was awesome. We took the kids to see the Neuschwanstein castle, the next day they went snowboarding in the Alps while Carmen and I got to go shopping in Garmisch and enjoy the time together. Then it was a long drive up to Frankfurt where the next day they departed back to the US. I got to spend one last day there before heading back to the box.

Time went by quickly but the trip was very satisfying and it gave us a chance to be together and show the kids a part of Europe they had never seen before. It was great to see the family once again and at least this time saying goodbye at the Frankfurt Airport wasn't that bad knowing that it's all downhill from here.

I am now in Kuwait awaiting transportation that will get me to my final destination in Iraq.

I will try to post some photos once Ascension the "official photographer" downloads them for me to view.

The Colonel