Service Project

At the beginning of April I went with Club Beyond, the ministry to high schoolers on base, to the Czech Republic. We were there for a week working with a school in Ostrava, a city on the far east side of the country. We taught English classes, built a concrete ping pong table, replaced the tops of some benches, and taught the kids baseball. One morning I was digging a small trench for the concrete border of the ping pong area and uncovered a small disc. It kind of looked like a dirty coin, so I took it to the sink and washed it off. It was a coin, but badly corroded and I could only make out a few letters and numbers. The country of origin and date wasn't readily apparent so I stuck it in my pocket to worry about when I got home. I could make out the following text: "CZAR" "69"




This afternoon I picked up the coin and figured I should make an attempt to identify it using google. I couldn't tell whether the "69" was 1969 or 1869, although the font suggested the latter. I scanned both sides at high resolution in preparation to send them to a website that would identify them. Once I did I could read one phrase that I couldn't make out before: "JOSZEF". I googled "coin Joszef czech" and came up with a wikipedia entry for the Austro-Hungarian gulden coins, minted in the 1800s. The coin I had was immediately apparently, a 20 Krajczar minted in 1869.




Crazy. It was most likely sitting in the ground for over 100 years.

OPD

The SETAF staff took a trip into the mountains on Monday to see some
Italian WWI history. Fort Belvedere is one of a line of fortresses
that the Austrians used to maintain border integrity. It was never
captured during WWI and only changed hands due to the Austrian
surrender in 1918. The outer walls are 9 feet thick and most of the
fort is built into the mountain. After the fort, we drove to Trento and had lunch compliments of the local Alpini chapter. They told us it would be a bowl of pasta, but it ended up being a full meal. Sweet.

Mid to late June

Work continues as it has for the past 6 months.  Not a lot of excitement.  I head off to eastern Europe next month for a bit and will be there until the fall.  Until then there are some pictures to frame, floors to clean and a car to wash.

Went kayaking down the Brenta river last weekend.  18 miles, 6.5 hours.  The river was nice and fast at the beginning, but slowed down and got dirty after the first spillway.

You know where pictures are posted.

MLK weekend

I'm thinking about hopping the train to Pisa and getting that tourist attraction out of the way.  Of course, since I know very few (read 1) person here, it's kind of hard to find someone to go with.  

Italy

First impressions are similar to the last two overseas bases I was at.  Small community, away from the big army.  No smells to speak of, and the sights are just military buildings so far.  Lots of Italian which seems similar to Spanish, but different enough that I'll have to devote some time to studying it.  I'm still waiting to hear the standard Italian phone greeting so I can start using that instead of yo-bo-se-yo or bueno.

Gas costs $5-$6/gal unless you have military coupons which lower the price to US levels.  They work even at gas stations off-post.  Hooray army!  Unfortunately, Italy and Germany are the only two countries that do this, so any driving to France, Spain, etc will get pricey.  I'm going to look into Europass Rail and see if that's economical considering the amount of trips I would take over the next 6 months.  MLK day is coming up and I'd like to get started.  Maybe Rome or Milan.  

I just got back from the housing office where they have a computer database with pictures of apartments, descriptions, etc.  There are a lot of ways I can go with the apartment.  For 1080 euro/mo ($1500) I could get a three bedroom house out in the country, a big two bedroom 'apartment' like we had in Karachi (second floor of a mediterranian looking place), smaller two bedroom place in the middle of downtown with no parking, or a whole bunch of middling places with small garages/parking in the area that amounts to the suburbs of Vicenza.  No place stood out immediately, but I have 30 days to find a place, so I'll give it time and see if any more open up.  I'll go look at a few on Tuesday and take some pictures for y'all.  2 bedrooms is the minimum so I can easily house people that come and visit.  The housing office has a warehouse full of furniture and appliances that they outfit the place with, so I'll have all the beds etc I need. 

Alright, my third post

This is going well. I'm really keeping on top of things... I'm headed home in two weeks, but in the meantime there is a lot to do. Pack, figure out what stuff is going with me and what is going on the slow boat. Drop the car off at the port in St. Louis. Until I decide to get cracking on that, I'll just mess around in the snow with my all wheel drive Subaru (http://www.lotzefamily.com/pictures/misc/carinsnow.avi) I'm glad I bought it.

Missouri has been...what do I say. Boring? Short-lived? Unfulfilling? All of the above? I think it'll end up being a blip on the radar. "Oh yeah, I lived in Missouri once. Then I left." Good friends here, but the geography, climate, and infrastructure of central Missouri is very bland. At least I made it up the arch in St. Louis.

I will say that I enjoyed some of the classes. The detailed instruction on construction, road design, drainage, etc were very interesting and provided me with a solid starting point to evaluate and work on my own projects when the time comes.

Test 2

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