March 28: A Day at the Beach and a Blast From the Past
We were greeted by blue skies on our final full day in Italy. We had a few hours before we were supposed to meet the team, so Dee and I decided to head over to the NEX to get some morning caffeine (coffee for Dee and a Coke for me). It was highly enjoyable to be wearing jeans and a shirt instead of those blue warm-ups.
As we were crossing the street, we got a beautiful look at Mt. Etna - the largest active volcano in all of Europe.
After we got our pictures, we said `hi' to an airman that was walking on the sidewalk. He said `hi' back, but asked if he could see our cameras. In our eagerness to get the photos of Mt. Etna, neither one of us even thought about the fact that the mountain is in the background of Sigonella's main security checkpoint.
Every few months, everyone in the athletic department has to complete these anti-terrorism training sessions that stress the importance of being watchful for suspicious looking people. We know what to do if we see someone checking out a gate or `lurking'. Yet here were Dee and I being those overly suspicious-looking people ... without a lick of Air Force gear on for only the second time of the trip.
After he decided we were harmless (and that our photos were good), he thanked us for our cooperation and we apologized profusely once more. Laughter overtook us as we continued on the food court.
We got our beverages and sat down in the food court. We had decided to do some shopping in the store, so we finished our drinks and headed over there. You could get to the NEX from the commissary. So, we left the food court and went into the commissary. But when we went to go into the NEX, the doors wouldn't open. We finally saw that the NEX didn't open for another four or five minutes, so we decided to go wait outside.
That's where things got interesting. The automatic doors we had just walked through were now closed ... and not opening. We couldn't get out and there was a lady on the outside that couldn't get in. So now we were basically stuck in the commissary. Finally, it was time to open the store and all of the doors started working again. I'm not sure what happened, but it only seemed to add to our short, but crazy, morning.
We ran into Coach White while getting some last-minute souvenirs. I found this cute little Buddha statue made from Mt. Etna lava rock. After we completed our shopping, we headed back to the hotel. We had just enough time to put our purchases in the room, before meeting the team in the lobby and walking back over to the food court for brunch.
While in line at Subway, Nicole gave the most entertaining recap of the movie "Tristan and Isolde". I've seen the movie, but her recap was just so much better. After lunch, we went into the commissary, where Dee was in charge of getting food for tomorrow's return flight to Colorado. We loaded up an entire shopping cart with bread, peanut butter/jelly, granola bars and water. We garnered quite a few looks from the other shoppers due to the shear volume of food we were collecting.
After Maj Filzen paid, we loaded up the girls with the bags and headed back to the hotel. We were heading to Agrigento, a city on the other coast of Sicily. Coach White lived in Agrigento when she played in the Italian league, so she was very eager to show off her old home.
Our first stop was the Valley of the Temples. Words can describe just how phenomenal this was. It was a walking tour of Greek Temples, built around 500 B.C. at the latest. There was the Temple of the Concord, the Temple of Juno and a pile of rocks that at one time was the Temple of Olympian Zeus. From this ridge, you could look out over the Mediterranean Sea.
We found this one pit that we weren't exactly sure what it was for, but Michelle went down there for a photo op. During this time, I was finally able to get a picture of Coach V in her `photographer stance'. We stopped at the final temple - the Temple of Hercules - and spent a bunch of time taking team photos, highlighted by the "America's Next Top Model" pose.
While waiting for the bus to come back, we wandered around a souvenir stand and found a vendor selling oranges. Leaving there, we headed to the beach ... the destination the girls had been looking forward to all week. We drove past it once and headed back into the outskirts of town. This caused some panic in the back of the bus as the girls thought the quick `drive-by' was the entire trip to the beach.
But Coach White just needed to get her bearings, so we made a big circle and headed back to the water. Now, I just want to state that it was kind of chilly and a little bit windy. But that didn't seem to faze the girls as they made a beeline for the water.
Most of the girls just hung out close to shore, but Jessica, Nichole and Michelle ventured far out into the surf. The staff and Caroline's mom stayed on dry land. I walked down a little ways to get some photos of the waves hitting the breakers and this abandoned beach shack. The girls finally got out of the water and we gathered together for some team photos.
During the photo shoot, we developed a few fans. These three guys had wandered from ... well, I'm not really sure where they came from, but suddenly there they were. So, of course, they had to join in for a few photos.
We got back on the bus and headed back into town. There was another game of `chicken' on the road, except this time it involved our bus and a camper. We narrowly passed one another, much to the relief of everyone on the drivers' side of the bus.
Coach White had been looking for her old gym and on the way into town we found it. We pulled the bus up outside of Pala Sport and went inside. Mr. Chipolo, the gym keeper when Coach White was a player, still worked there and came out to see what all the commotion was about. He still remembered her and they shared a few stories. Of course, Coach White, who was completely in her element back in her former stomping grounds, had to translate for the rest of us.
Suddenly, in the middle of a sentence, Coach White let out a joyful scream. Standing off to the side was not only her former delegate, Mr. Salvatore, but her best friend from back in the day, Alessandro.
The story takes a happy, if not unusual, turn for the fact that Alessandro doesn't event live in Agrigento anymore. He was only visiting and stopped by the gym for a moment. Apparently, he was upstairs and the hubbub surrounding our arrival caused him to look down, where he saw Coach White. There was definitely a little `destino' thrown in, because if we had found the gym on our last pass through the area before going to the beach ... they would have missed each other completely.
Coach White went with Alessandro, while the rest of us loaded up the bus and headed into the town center of Agrigento for some (you guessed it) shopping. The streets were very narrow and filled with pedestrians, yet cars were allowed and zipped up and down the street. They definitely keep you on your toes.
Dee and I passed this guy, sitting on the sidewalk, juggling three red balls while balancing a soccer ball on his head. Apparently, there was also a bowling pin portion to his show, but we missed that. During our wandering, we came across Coach V, Regina and Mrs. Kurtz in a shoe store. They were trying to use Mrs. Kurtz's Italian phrase book, so Dee and I went in to enjoy the entertainment. The one saleslady laughed with us, because our three cohorts had no idea we were sitting there listening to the exchange.
We finally all met up for dinner at this restaurant that was run by someone Alessandro knew. Small is an understatement. There was our group and two other tables... that was it. Coach Kyle, Maj Filzen and Tim had to sit at one of the outside tables because there wasn't anymore room. Although, I don't think they minded that too much.
Dee, Regina and I sat with Mrs. Kurtz at the table closest to the other two families. I felt bad for them because they just had this bewildered look on their faces, like "what happened to our nice quiet restaurant?!" Dinner was okay, until the cook mentioned the fish that was in one of the pasta dishes (he never did figure out why there was a whole lot of that left on every plate).
After we were finished, the girls took pictures of the restaurant staff and this one other guy who worked at a candy shop close by. I'm still not quite sure how he ended up there ... although I think it was word-of-mouth that 19 college-aged girls were there.
We still had a little bit of time before the bus was coming back, so Dee and I walked around some more. Nearly everything was closed by this time, so it really was just a lot of walking. We ran into the coaches, who asked if we'd seen the girls. The guy from the candy shop had offered goodies for free, so they had gone there but we weren't sure where `there' was.
About four turns off of an alley, we somehow managed to find the team, who were happily munching on sweets and treats. Together, we made our way back to the bus and climbed in for the long drive across Sicily. When we got back to Sigonella, we unloaded the bus and headed up to our rooms.
We had another 5:00 departure, but since it was only about 1:30, we decided to sleep. How this was different than our last night in Aviano when 1:30-ish seemed way too close to our departure to get any sleep, I'm not sure. I think we were just a lot more tired.
I will admit that I actually thought about doing some work (my boxing team had started competition at the NCBA regionals that day and the coaches were going to email me results). But we didn't have wireless in the hotel and the closest `hot-spot' was outside of a coffee shop by the Applebee's.
After this morning's drama of getting stopped after taking photos of Mt. Etna (and the main gate), I didn't think it would be too wise to go wandering around the base in the middle of the night with a laptop computer. That seemed like it would be a little too suspicious looking and I wasn't in the mood to cause the guards anymore grief.
So, after checking to make sure nearly everything was packed (thankfully for mil-air there was no weight restrictions on our checked and carry-on luggage) we fell asleep.
