Purgatory -LeAnn

We have arrived! The past week has been long and these little brown kitties have logged a lot of miles. The good news is that we all made it safe and sound. We are going to need a bit of time to adjust to the time but other than that all is well.

Our trip from JFK was pretty easy. Lufthansa is great and I would recommend them to anyone flying over with pets (or without for that matter). Check in at JFK was pretty easy... show your documents, pay your $200 and fly. We left the US at around 6pm and flew to Munich Germany where we had a three hour lay over. Customs folks were really nice but they did thoroughly examine our feline health certificates and seperated the kitties for a crate xray. Once we met with their approval we were sent on down the line were we could set up our kitty tent and let the brownies stretch out and use the litter box. The terminal was beautiful and the free newspapers and coffee/espresso service made it even better. We left Munich for a short flight to Venice about a half hour behind schedule so we arrived in Venice at 12:30 after an hour long flight that was a bit turbulent - we were flying over the Alps so I guess that is not surprising. The kitties took it well.

Shuttles run from the Venice Marco Polo airport to the Base every couple of hours and we were hoping to make the 12:30 but with our delay we didn't get here until 12:30. After collecting luggage and cats we were prepared for the customs lines and followed signs to the 'nothing to declare' exit. On the other side of the doors we found... well, nothing. No guards, no customs agents, just italian food and espresso! No one except us seemed to care that we had arrived cats and all.

Having missed the midday shuttle we had to wait for the next one which was not scheduled until the afternoon. After about an hour past the departure time we gave up and came back inside and called the base. No one seemed to know where the shuttle might be. Maybe the driver just decided to take the afternoon off. We ended up calling our sponsor who was going to meet us at the hotel. We asked if we should just take a taxi or rent a car and he offered to come pick us up. His name is Michael and he has been VERY helpful.

After getting on post and having the nickle tour we made our way to the hotel. The installation is your typical boring Army post and it is rather depressing overall in the lack of architecture and landscape. It is all about functionality. That is why I've nic-named it purgatory. I have to serve my time on post each week so that I can earn my way to heaven... the rest of Italy!

After sleeping most of the day Sunday, we woke up on Monday ready to get started. Mike met us for breakfast and took us to the clinic. We met the HR ladies and then headed off to inprocess. Apparently we are the first civilians to come to Vicenza since the procedures for inprocessing changed. Of course no one knows what to do with us or what paperwork needs to be done. They are not sure who is responsible for filling it out and does it go to Germany or not... this could take awhile. We also found that changing all our money to Euro was not smart. On the base they don't want the Euro and we haven't ventured far off yet. We ended up changing some of our Euro back to dollar today. Will likely spend more dollars than Euros until we find a place to live.

As we walked to the Central Office I noticed several different birds but was interested to find that none of them sounded like the birds at home. I surmised that they must be chirping in Italian. Imagine that, Italian birds speaking Italian bird language.

On my way from the housing office back to the hotel, I was checking out some of the local plants and trees. There are a lot of Heavenly Bamboo and Rose of Sharron bushes (and I thought I was going to miss mine), TONS of roses, cyprus trees, oaks, maples, sky rocket junipers and other strange Italian trees that I've yet to identify. They are the ones that grow really tall and only have branches and leaves at the very top. If you've ever seen them you know what I'm talking about.

We have been checking out the different kinds of cars and there are a lot more options in small cars. I've found the cutest little Mercedes hatch back but I have no idea what it is. I've never seen anything Mercedes that is this small in the states before and there was no model badge on the car. I also like the little Lancia's and am surprised at how cute some of the Fiat's are. When you see the American SUV's they look so out of place here.

So far we have been eating at the hotel or the on post facilities. Without our local ID's we have not been free to come and go as we please but that should change tomorrow. I'm sure our next blog will be about the town and FOOD! If we are lucky even a few houses.
Ciao for now!
LeAnn