ITALIA

April 10 we landed at Aviano Air Base…finally! We flew directly on base, so the welcoming was quite exciting! A bunch of the guys from Dustin's squadron were there to welcome us and help get us to TLF.

Once we got everything into lodging, we went to eat our first Italian meal! So of course, we had pasta, pizza, and wine. It was delicious!

For the next fews days, we really just went through the motions of in-processing and trying to get all the paperwork completed. We got our driver's license, we visited a few houses, got our phones switched to international numbers, visited the dog park a time or two, and tons of other things. This is us on our first full day in Italy! It was quite foggy for the first few days so we couldn't get a good view of the mountains quite yet.

Here is our view from TLF on the first clear day! The mountains are absolutely gorgeous! I was used to seeing landmarks on the horizon from Vegas, but this takes the cake by far! The base here is very spacious, walking takes a while to get around but we don't mind too bad.

About a week after we arrived, there was a Benvenuti Tour (welcome tour) scheduled for all military members/families that had just PCSed. We had only heard awesome things from everyone we had met so we were quite excited, not to mention we would get to go to our first winery! The tour was extremely helpful, they took us around the area to see the different towns situated nearby, walked through a few cathedrals, stopped at a local market where most Italians buy their produce, took us to the train station to show us how to buy tickets/read the maps, ate a full course Italian meal at a ristorante, got to try chocolate from a local shop, and then ended at the winery. Here are a few pictures from the tour!

Gorgazzo Spring.

13th Century Cathedral.

Local market in Pordenone.

Our first cappuccino!

Walking the streets. There are tons of Italian flags, called "Tri Colore", hanging for an annual festival celebrating the Alpine soldiers.

Cathedral of St Mark, built in 1363.

Dustin outside the Cathedral.

Gelisi Antonio Winery.

Tasting all 13 wines they sell. We ended up buying 6 bottles!

Overall, the tour was awesome and we had a ton of fun! The next few days weren't too eventful, except we found our house and signed the contract! It's located in Sacile...here's a picture of the outside. Once we move in (hopefully later this week), I'll post a tour of the inside!

Happy Monday friends!