My first trip outside of Italy (Germany baby!)

So this was actually my third trip to Germany in my life. The main reason for this trip (November 3rd to the 6th) was to get out of Italy for the weekend and visit the two cool people seen in the picture, Matt and Ellen. Matt is one of those friends that I've never really lived in the same place with except for the summer (2003) we met and both interned at good ole GE Aircraft Engines in Cincy, Ohio. After that summer we've managed to meet up in random places from Indianapolis, Naples (Florida), Baton Rouge for his wedding to Ellen, and now Germany! Matt is a pilot in the Air Force now stationed in Germany. So I flew up to visit their city, Kaiserslaughten (I knew I messed up that spelling so as the Americans do I'm just going to call it K-town). Ellen, even though we only met once at their wedding, was kind of enough to pick me up at the airport. Once we arrived at their really cool house, we had a quick lunch and packed up to go to Bamburg. Matt has another friend, Joe, from Notre Dame that is in the army stationed up there and his unit just got back from a year Iraq. We took a 2.5 hour drive to Bamburg. One of the reasons we went was cause Joe's unit was having a Halloween party. It was pretty cool, Matt and Ellen had some great costumes. I was a red neck, mullet and all. One of the soldiers even had his parents and younger sister in town so they partied with us. It's nice having Halloween in the middle of the week because you have an excuse to have a party the weekend before, the day of, and weekend after Halloween. It was really cool also meeting a bunch of soldiers and hearing about their experiences in Iraq. I was also asked if I was in the military. :). I think they wouldn't let me have my long hair in the army. We stayed in Bambrug overnight. Other highlights included going to a really good Croatian restaurant and just walking around Bamburg which was like a smaller version of Munich.

The rest of the weekend we all just hung out in K-town. Matt and Ellen took me to their favorite restaurant where I had jagerschnitzel and some good ole german beer! They also took me on base where I was able to buy american groceries and use an atm without an international fee (suck on it Wachovia). I shared a little Italy with Matt and Ellen by making them Bruschetta and Carbonara the way the Romans taught me. Stephano also gave me a bottle of Chianti from his family's winery to give to them. I also was glad Matt had a sling box setup so we could watch american tv at his house. Ellen watched her alma mater LSU beat up on Tennessee. Although I didn't think much of it then (I fell asleep), I failed to realize that the tiger victory allowed UF to clinch the SEC East. Go gators! One final mad props to Ellen for driving me to the airport Monday at 3 o'clock in the morning.