USS CONSTITUTION

Brad and I were able to go to the USS CONSTITUTION for a tour.  The Commanding Officer, Tim Cooper, was a department head with me on ANZIO.  It was good to get to catch up with him, but then he gave us the grand tour.  We went all over "Old Ironsides" from the bilges to the Captain's Cabin, to everywhere else.  Tim's shared his knowledge of this wonderful old ship and slice of history with us.  Here are some interesting things about her:
- the bilges were filled with rocks and gravel that would be shifted around to hold the cargo securely.  (The cargo mostly being food and water).
- there is one stove - a big open stove that would feed the 500 member crew.
- the crew would only get to sleep 4 hours a night in two watches, the rest were sailing the ship
- the hull is made of three layers - the outside and inside are horizontal layers of white oak, and the center layer is vertical layers of live oak, one of the hardest woods in the world.  For construction, they would take a template of the piece needed for the live oak and find a tree that met the shape.
- the architect added innovative diagonal risers inside the hull to keep her keel from hogging, a design he took from looking at how church domes were held up in Norway
- she fires her canon at 8:00 and sunset to hold colors twice a day  (I wish we still did this on all our ships!)
- the Captain's Cabin has two rooms, one on each side, that extend out on the sides of the ships.  On the seats in these rooms you can pick up the cushions and have access to personal commodes  (everyone else was using the head of the ship - known as "Seats of Ease"
- the surgeon would operate in a space that was a half deck, and about 4-1/2 to 5 feet in height (Brad was stooping good).  Most of the deck spaces had overheads about 5'8" tall, I know because I could walk under them without hitting my head...barely.

Some more modern facts: there are 70 Sailors that are assigned to CONSTITUTION, since she's still a commissioned ship in the Navy - the oldest commissioned ship in the world.  Half of those Sailors live in the barracks right there at the Navy Yard in Boston.  She's undergoing a three year refit that will finish sometime next year and is looking great!

Blog name change

Well, we no longer live in Stuttgart, so we're changing our blog to "The Bufkin Tales".  Next week I'll change the title to http://bufkintales.blogspot.com/  If you don't find us here, make sure you check that new address.

Italy Trip Part II: Cinque Terre

On the second day of our vacation (June 20th to be exact) to Italy, we went to Cinque Terre.  This stretch of the Italian Rivera is often featured in movies since it's so beautiful with all the multicolored buildings clinging to the rocky coastline.  Cinque Terre is made up of five coastal cities, we parked at Volastra - a city on top of one of the hills, then walked down to Manarola.  A decent of 1100 feet and about 1-1/2 miles, which we felt for days in our shins and Brad's knee.  (Later we did take a bus back, a bus we would have taken down if we'd been able to find the stop...)

These cities are all about the views - beautiful.  Our day was spent hiking around looking at the beautiful scenery, with time spent enjoying a wonderful Italian lunch and awesome homemade Italian Gelato (Ice Cream).  The pictures tell the story.

There was one final funny thing that happened - on the bus drive back we watched easily 50 people trying to shove on board a 15 passenger bus.  Thank goodness we were early and got seats!!

Italy Trip Part I: Driving South and Camping

This is going to be a multi-part Blog for our family vacation to Italy, we did so much in just eight short days!! 

We drove south through Switzerland (about a 7-1/2 hour drive from Stuttgart).  It was a cold, rainy day with low hanging clouds hugging the tops of the mountains.  We had to arrive in Camp Darby, Livorno, Italy by 5:00 p.m. to check out our tent from Outdoor Rec, but otherwise we had no plans for the first day.  What we didn't plan on was traffic in Switzerland.  They have timed lights limiting how much traffic can go into the tunnels at a time.  I guess the backup is so common there is this cheesy traffic mannequin to slow you down.  It took about 1-1/2 hours longer than we planned to get through - we kept waiting to see what caused it and never did.  I guess if you exceed the traffic allowed by the timed lights things just back up - what a stupid system!!

We arrived at Camp Darby where we camped out for the first five nights of our trip.  This Army base is about 4 miles from the Mediterranean Coast, perfectly situated for seeing Tuscany and mid-Italy.  When we checked in, they suggested we sleep in the gym the first night since bad weather was expected.  Since this sounded absolutely no fun at all, as the hardy campers we are, we ignored their advice and set up our tents.  We had our backpacking tent with us and checked a larger 4-6 man tent from outdoor rec.  Our tent went up in under 2 minutes and did not move in the wind at all.  Their tent, though, was old and as we set it up some of the nylon straps just came apart.  Because of our delay in Switzerland, Outdoor Rec was closed by this time so we couldn't get another one, but with a little jury rigging, we got it all set up.  The girls stayed in our very solid, reliable hiking tent - only suffering a water casualty the second night when they left a bunch of stuff against the tent walls, resulting in daytime rain coming in until the floor was flooded.  The Coleman tent that we rented though, folded way in during the night, almost collapsing multiple times, but our extra lines, held down by a cement bar and the heavy metal picnic table, saved the day.  It also started pouring hard during the night - fortunately not at the same time as the wind!  Brad and I survived the night, the girls didn't even notice the wind and rain!

It was great to have a base of operations, a place to cook out burgers, dogs, etc., to make morning coffee, cook smores, and to start our daily ventures from.  Other things that happened to us at Camp Darby were - attending a Carnival the first night; seeing the cars with big stereo's; Macie locking the keys in the car while we were doing Laundry (as she put in on facebook, "Locking the keys in the car: Fail.  Locking the keys in the car when the spare set is in another country: Epic Fail."); Brad saving the day by opening the car door with a hanger; great big pinecones falling from the huge Italian Umbrella Pine trees (this is where pine nuts come from - also know as coniferous seeds on one menu) - including one under our tent floor; teaching everyone how to play Hearts; the somewhat nasty bathrooms and showers; me working on a gift baby blanket; and the 200+ teenagers with a church group also camping out and their noisy buses parked right next to us.

Prague

Prague.....ah....Prague.  Definitely on my list of top 10 cities in the world.

And the reason was simple - it had atmosphere!

Brad and I headed out Friday morning for Prgaue.  It's about a 4-1/2 hour drive from Stuttgart.  We'd made reservations at the Corinthian Hotel Prague, a Wyndham chain hotel, that is two train stops outside of city center.  Since Prague has one of the higher crime rates in Europe, it was important for us to have a hotel with secure parking, which this place had.  Arriving in early afternoon, we checked in.  Our hotel package included daily breakfast, access to the "Spa" (Swimming pool and sauna), and a king bed room with views - this photo is the view from our window.  The best part was a reasonable cost (as long as you didn't plan to use the internet or other services).  And the breakfust was a full buffet with lots of excellent choices.  I'd highly recommend it.

While there are sites to be seen in Prague -- namely the Charles Bridge with vendors set up along the bridge selling jewelry, knick-knacks and paintings:

the Prague Castle at the top of the hill:

with the St Vitus Cathedral located in the center of the palace grounds:

The stained glass windows in the Cathedral were amazing - made of of individual pieces of glass put together vice painted glass, the amount of work and detail was superbly amazing. (the Castle is also known Pražský hrad - the largest castle in the world and the Cathedral is the oldest Gothic cathedral in Europe);

The Astronomical Clock in Old Town Square:

The modern Wenceslas Square:

And the somewhat interesting Jewish Cemetery -- what we loved best was the international feel to the whole city, the countless shops, restaurants, cafes, and beautiful historic buildings that make up this city. 

We ate the first night at an old restaurant across from St Nicholas's Church

 It's always fascinating to me when our restaurants are older than the United States - this one was started in 1665 for example.  The second day, after breakfast at our hotel we had a lunch at another old Czech restaurant and dinner at an Italian restaurant - both of us enjoying good Czech beer.

 I discovered after the first day that the beer was much better than the wine!  The last day we went and walked around the Old Jewish Cemetery (not worth the cost).

This picture of Brad is from on the Charles Bridge - look at the sky behind him!  We were lucky to have beautiful weather during our visit, with rain starting the last day.  It was in the 70's and sunny the whole time.

This was St Nicholas's Church (I think).  A beautiful baroque church at the base of the castle hill.

And then a couple other pictures of the city:

While we didn't partake, there were countless tours offered, including both bus and boat trips.  We truly enjoyed just walking around taking everything in.  Someday we'd both like to go back - definitely a great City of the Month for May!!