Arrival

Hello everyone! Welcome to the new blog and my first day in Aviano, Italy!! I am stoked to be here and I ask that before you dive in to this first post, check out the about me page if you do not know me well or have all the details on my blogging, background, road to get here etc. That will help form the context of this blog and explain some things to come. So....with that said, let's get into things shall we?

I left the frigid -41 temps of Chicago O'Hare at 730pm local time after a 90 minute delay in fueling our plane. Not bad as I had a long layover in London LGW airport anyway so made no difference. That flight went well as I slept half of it and rocked out some Netflix and podcast the rest of the way to keep occupied. I had a whole row to myself as well!

Besides the fact that 1 of my 2 checked bags did not make it to LGW, it was a very nice airport I have to say. We landed at 915am local time, 6 hours ahead of EST. Once I got some coffee in hand and sat down to chill out I was good. The missing bag irked me but oh well, it would turn up soon (it did) I figured. Not going to let that ruin my day. I checked emails, sent text, updated friends and family on travel status, people watched etc. The WhatsApp is dope I will say that right now. I then got some food, later had some wine and then walked around a bit. Time went quickly and soon enough 5pm rolled around and back off we go to the sky. This time EasyJet. A short 2-hour flight to Venice Maro Polo airport. Landed at 8pm local time and was picked up by our unit sports med doc (Doc Lax) and we drove the 45 minutes to Aviano to get me to my hotel. We talked and discussed the squadron we both will work with, the team, the goals of the team, our reasons for taking this job etc. Being nighttime I could not see much of the area at all but that came later.

View coming into London LGW Airport

Grab n Go grubs from the airport. Not bad!

Grilled seasoned half chicken w/ potatoes and veggies

I got in at 9pm to my hotel and was ready to call it a day but my stomach was not done.....I was darn hungry and with all my plane food snacks gone, had zilch to eat. I found a solid Brew Pub called BEFeD just around the corner from my hotel still open on a Sunday night close to 10pm that had a solid menu of grubs. The place had a mix of Americans and Italians in there and man was the music loud! Not live but still, loud! Now full and feeling much better, 15 Euro and a darn good filling meal later we walked back to the hotel and called it a night!

More to come yet folks! Stay tuned!

Boungiorno amici miei!