Love, Peace & the Middle East
From one end of the United States to the other, and now one end of the world to the other after months of family time which included lots of food, love, laughter and towards the end of our time in Arizona, many tears as we grieved the sudden loss of Nicholas's brother Michael.
A life on the road: This summer I can't even count the rental cars, bummed rides, borrowed cars and various friends and family we saw, but it was a lot. We were thankful for this quality time! And thankful for those who helped us along our travels. We started with a road trip to San Diego for Nick's commissioning, road trip to Missouri for my family reunion, flew to Rhode Island and spent a month there for Nick's school and then road tripped to Virginia (one word to sum up this road trip: TRAFFIC!)
New England & East Coast: We spent August in Rhode Island while Nick attended a training school. We we took full advantage of that prime location and traveled all over the New England states visiting friends, and sightseeing. This may or may not have included a trip to Taylor Swift 's Westerly, RI beach house for some non stalker-ish fan photos ;)
We started with weekend in our favorite place, New York City. We caught a ride into the city with a friend who was visiting family in the Brox, and from there took the train into mid-town Manhattan. Yes, we stood out and yes, it was a little comical as our friend texted her family "Where can I safely drop these white people off at?" NYC holds a lot of memories for us, and it brought us joy to get to share our love for the city with Roman- the fun of street pretzels, cupcakes and central park highlighted this trip.
Roman's took in his first big baseball game and what better way then the Boston Red Sox at the historic Fenway Park (GO SOX!), and despite the constant drizzle & losing score (Thanks Tazawa) we still had a great time chowing down on ball park food (OMG, Fried Dough!!) It's just like Indian Fry bread, which I've missed so much!
The journey to Bahrain: We spent our last weekend in Virginia where we flew out on the military rotator plane. We were able to spend time with our long time friends, we've known for over 10 years from Nick's first duty station in Guam. Flying the rotator was a first for myself and Roman. For those not familiar, the rotator is a plane that makes the same stops every week, to popular military overseas commands for families/military members who are moving. These rotators are all over the US, and go to various places but ours was slated for: Rota, Spain; Naples, Italy; Crete and lastly Bahrain! It's a commercial airliner with flight attendants, same as you'd expect for traditional stateside flights. (2-3-2 seating) Typically, the long haul flights are bigger planes with a smoother ride. I didn't enjoy the ride on this plane as we hit some bad turbulence crossing the ocean. The plane stops to refuel, some stops are 1-2.5 hours.
Rota, Spain: Our stop off was short- only 50 minutes or so. Enough to get Trixie outside and back in before heading out to board again The plus side of these stops is not having to take all your belongings off because we are going back on the same plane!
Naples, Italy: I mentioned this briefly on Facebook, but this was one crazy ride. We were about to land (probably 200 ft from the ground) when we suddenly jolted back upward and circles the mountains of Italy.. it was quite a scenic tour, and we saw a huge volcano. When we landed, it was so hard the air masks deployed. I didn't know whether to clap for our safe landing, or be mad and cry for the wild ride! We walked around the base, and tried some authentic Italian pizza (had a lot of feta on it) and went back to the plane.
Crete: It was night time flight so we didn't see anything but it's already on our list of future travels!
Bahrain, we have arrived! We arrived to Bahrain at 6:00am and it was not as hot as I was expecting... people were complaining of the heat but compared to Phoenix or Missouri summer, it was not unbearable. A sandstorm had just blown over the night before, so visibility was low and everything was covered in sand/dust.
Our hotel room is nothing short of amazing- it's huge. After living in some crappy military hotels over the last month, we are feeling like royalty! Its got a master bedroom w/ king bed, living room that over looks the infinity pool and lagoon, spare room with queen bed, 4 bathrooms, a kitchen (not equipped though) and sitting room.
FUTURE: We have some busy weeks of house hunting, paperwork and a class that gives us the 411 on living here (Although, 2 weeks into living here when we take the class, we might have some of that figured out!) Roman will be starting daycare on base part time, while we figure out where we are living and then find a school. We have some fun trips planned for the fall and are looking forward to closing out 2015 in a new home, living life to the fullest.
I'll continue to post once we're experiencing true Bahraini life!
*Internet is currently PAINFULLY slow, I'm going to need to figure out another way to post photos.*
A life on the road: This summer I can't even count the rental cars, bummed rides, borrowed cars and various friends and family we saw, but it was a lot. We were thankful for this quality time! And thankful for those who helped us along our travels. We started with a road trip to San Diego for Nick's commissioning, road trip to Missouri for my family reunion, flew to Rhode Island and spent a month there for Nick's school and then road tripped to Virginia (one word to sum up this road trip: TRAFFIC!)
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| I think Trixie didn't want to get left behind. |
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| Post commissioning ceremony; Roman was having too much fun for photos. |
New England & East Coast: We spent August in Rhode Island while Nick attended a training school. We we took full advantage of that prime location and traveled all over the New England states visiting friends, and sightseeing. This may or may not have included a trip to Taylor Swift 's Westerly, RI beach house for some non stalker-ish fan photos ;)
We started with weekend in our favorite place, New York City. We caught a ride into the city with a friend who was visiting family in the Brox, and from there took the train into mid-town Manhattan. Yes, we stood out and yes, it was a little comical as our friend texted her family "Where can I safely drop these white people off at?" NYC holds a lot of memories for us, and it brought us joy to get to share our love for the city with Roman- the fun of street pretzels, cupcakes and central park highlighted this trip.
Roman's took in his first big baseball game and what better way then the Boston Red Sox at the historic Fenway Park (GO SOX!), and despite the constant drizzle & losing score (Thanks Tazawa) we still had a great time chowing down on ball park food (OMG, Fried Dough!!) It's just like Indian Fry bread, which I've missed so much!
The journey to Bahrain: We spent our last weekend in Virginia where we flew out on the military rotator plane. We were able to spend time with our long time friends, we've known for over 10 years from Nick's first duty station in Guam. Flying the rotator was a first for myself and Roman. For those not familiar, the rotator is a plane that makes the same stops every week, to popular military overseas commands for families/military members who are moving. These rotators are all over the US, and go to various places but ours was slated for: Rota, Spain; Naples, Italy; Crete and lastly Bahrain! It's a commercial airliner with flight attendants, same as you'd expect for traditional stateside flights. (2-3-2 seating) Typically, the long haul flights are bigger planes with a smoother ride. I didn't enjoy the ride on this plane as we hit some bad turbulence crossing the ocean. The plane stops to refuel, some stops are 1-2.5 hours.
 |
| Map showing our circles we did around Naples. |
Rota, Spain: Our stop off was short- only 50 minutes or so. Enough to get Trixie outside and back in before heading out to board again The plus side of these stops is not having to take all your belongings off because we are going back on the same plane!
 |
| We deplane on the runway at all airports. |
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| Plane food from Spain. (Chicken sandwich, chips, banana and chocolate.) |
Naples, Italy: I mentioned this briefly on Facebook, but this was one crazy ride. We were about to land (probably 200 ft from the ground) when we suddenly jolted back upward and circles the mountains of Italy.. it was quite a scenic tour, and we saw a huge volcano. When we landed, it was so hard the air masks deployed. I didn't know whether to clap for our safe landing, or be mad and cry for the wild ride! We walked around the base, and tried some authentic Italian pizza (had a lot of feta on it) and went back to the plane.
 |
| Kid's got this travel thing down! |
Crete: It was night time flight so we didn't see anything but it's already on our list of future travels!
Bahrain, we have arrived! We arrived to Bahrain at 6:00am and it was not as hot as I was expecting... people were complaining of the heat but compared to Phoenix or Missouri summer, it was not unbearable. A sandstorm had just blown over the night before, so visibility was low and everything was covered in sand/dust.
Our hotel room is nothing short of amazing- it's huge. After living in some crappy military hotels over the last month, we are feeling like royalty! Its got a master bedroom w/ king bed, living room that over looks the infinity pool and lagoon, spare room with queen bed, 4 bathrooms, a kitchen (not equipped though) and sitting room.
FUTURE: We have some busy weeks of house hunting, paperwork and a class that gives us the 411 on living here (Although, 2 weeks into living here when we take the class, we might have some of that figured out!) Roman will be starting daycare on base part time, while we figure out where we are living and then find a school. We have some fun trips planned for the fall and are looking forward to closing out 2015 in a new home, living life to the fullest.
*Internet is currently PAINFULLY slow, I'm going to need to figure out another way to post photos.*
Love it! Thanks for the update!
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