Getting Adapted

Area Orientation has to be one of the most boring things to go through for a lot of sailors checking in. There is a LOT of valuable information being delivered, but you sit in a movie theater, it's freezing cold, and you watch a Power Point presentation and listen to speakers. Me being me, I actually and very intrigued to learn! I enjoy my involvement with my marito's previous commands, and I am looking forward to getting more involved with this new one.

Before AO started, there was a meet and greet in the NEX Food Court. Plenty of people to meet and get an inside scoop on what they have to say. I couldn't resist going to the MWR, NOSC (Naples Overseas Spouses Club) , USO and Ombudsman tables. Hi, I'm Casey. Let me sign your clip board and are there any open positions? Well something like that. I learned that the MWR lady is about to PCS back to the states in March, there is an open spot coming up! Also there are Board vacancies for the Spouses Club. Already have a few options on what to do to keep me busy. I am still thinking about getting a job, but one step at a time!

While talking to MWR, I inquired about trips for next year, and how long in advance they are planned. This is important to marito and I because we want to save money to go on these trips, and it may be easier to do it through MWR. I did find out that they are planning a trip to Dublin for St. Patrick's Day, with a Guinness Brewery Tour. Uh Helloooooooo?!? That is EXACTLY what I wanted to do this coming March! Now I don't even have to plan it! Or find a hotel room! This is UH-MAZE-ZING! Already saving my pennies, or euros, whatever.

During today's brief, the CO gave his two cents, which lasted an hour. So more like $5 dollars and 76 cents. Anyways, he had asked who had been to Naples before and Marito raised his hand, said it was a 5 day port call during his first deployment. After his brief Skipper came over and asked marito questions bout which ship and all. Come to find out, CO is an E-2 guy. He flew the planes marito works on! (There are none on this base by the way) Just this little fact made marito very happy. He did this little move where he made a fist and pulled down. A reverse fist pump you could say. It is a small world on this base of 2,500 sailors and marito already has an "in" with the Skipper. Makes me feel better!

More importantly, we learned some info on the active volcano we live on. Did I say active volcano? I meant OVERDUE active volcano. Excellent. Big breath Casey. I will do a history lesson later I am sure, but just know that Mt. Vesuvius has an eruption every 40-50 years, and the last time it erupted was during World War II. Makes me a little nervous, but I don't mind living life on the edge for a couple years. Naturally I am worried, but at the same time the "dare devil" in me can't wait to go hike it! We also have a non active Super Volcano. This means it doesn't erupt, but if it were to erupt it would take out all of Naples, whereas Mt. Vesuvius would have lava flow in the immediate area. We are a good 30 maybe 45 minutes away from it. That's like from Norfolk to Busch Gardens.

Fleet and Family talked to the group, and so did a few other speakers on the vet clinic, and the temporary furniture warehouse.

Marito and I went to Vodafone and bought a pre-paid cell phone plan for my unlocked iPhone. This way, one of us has a data plan, and a local phone number for people to reach us. The data plan is very essential because tomorrow we take our driving test, and when we get our license later that afternoon we want to go rent a car. Now I don't know about you, but being in Italy and not knowing the language is the same as being in Japan. I can't read, and much less pronounce the street names. A data plan enables us to use a navigation app so we can learn the area and know where to go.

Our sponsor drove us around the area we live in, Lago Patria. He drove around the lake (lago) and the strip we went down was between the lake and the sea, which is really cool. As he turns the bin we recognize where we were at. The other when we went walking to the beach, we turned around. Had we walked just further around the bin we would have been sandwiched between the beach and the lake! After the little tour, I immediately became very happy with the location of the house we picked. We couldn't have picked a better area!

We met with Peter and he had started negotiating with our landlord about our wants before we move it. Tomorrow we make an appointment to get the paperwork started. I can't wait for friends and family to come visit!