Every one deployed for more than 6 months is afforded the opportunity to have a 96 hour liberty period. I was able to coordinate my liberty along side 2 conferences i was to attend in europe; the first was in Rome and the second was in Germany. Prior to the start of the suicide confernce in Rome i met my gorgeous wife, carmen, and we caught the train up to Florence. Our hotel was a few miles outside of town and had amazing sweeping views of the cityscape.
We took a day trip out into the heart of tuscany on a bicycle wine tasting tour. It was a nice day full of sun, wine, an italian lunch, more wine, and bike riding. needless to say riding the bikes after getting stuffed on pasta and drinking was not the best part, but still fun. The winery we went to was in a medieval castle that we toured that also produced olive oil.
out on the bike ride we came accross numerous vineyards and plenty of sunflower patches. the scenery was perfect, just like out of a movie. the day was warm and sunny but not dreadfully hot like djibouti. It was a perfect day, but mainly because of my company, carmen.
after the tour we headed back to Florence and we walked around for a while. we did not get to spend much time in Florence but we did manage to see its largest attraction. i did get yelled at for taking this picture and it was worth it.
Not to many other pictures of Florence itself and certainly none worth sharing. The following day we boarded the train again and headed back to Rome. I will post more on Rome and the rest of my journey in days to come. I do have more djibouti pictures to post as well, i just need to get around to it one of these days.
