Futbol with the Locals

Jacob has had the pleasure of playing soccer once a week with some of his fellow colleagues against another company comprised of Egyptians and Libyans.

The game is only for men, so Christina sat on the side and took pictures and video of the event.

Check it out, and you can feel like you were there.

And here's the team.

And for some action, check out the video below.

Our Italy Trip Chronologically II: San Marco Church

Our next stop was the San Marco Church, one of many churches we would viist.

The inside was pretty ornate, just check out the altar and the ceiling.

Yes, that's the ceiling.

Lots of giant paintings adorn the walls. Too bad it's so dark in there. It's really hard to get a decent picture with little to no light.

And here's the body (or maybe a statue of a body) of a bishop we can't remember the name of.

Not too many pictures here, but just keeping you in the know.

More soon!

Our Italy Trip Chronologically: Duomo Museum

The very first thing we did after arriving the night before was go to the Duomo Museum. We were actually trying to get into the Duomo itself, but it wasn't open yet and we later found out that it wasn't open to the public that day. But in our wanderings, we found this museum which turned out to be one we had on our list.

So check out what we saw.

We saw lots of statues.

This was a giant lecturn for either a massive Bible or a massive hymnal.

Feed the baby!

This is a bronze representation of the beheading of John the Baptist. It was prtty large; probably 12 feet tall and 15 feet long (these are Jacob's estimates so  you can blame him if it's wrong.)

This is Michelangelo's Pieta, which, if you don't know the history is pretty interesting. It's an unfinished work by Michelangelo depicting the moving of Jesus's body off of the cross by Nicodemus, Mary, and Mary Magdelene. But apparently while he was making it, it wasn't turning out the way he wanted and he got angry and broke off a few pieces. But most of it was preserved and about half of it is done. It was really interesting to see an unfished statue, getting the idea of how it was formed. And apparently, Michelangelo gave his face to Nicodemus, so we got to see a glimpse of what the artist looked like, too.

This is a pretty scary representation of Mary Magdelene. We think she had to be a bit more attractive if she was a prostitute. But that's just us.

And his is amazing. This is made up of tiny tiny tiny pieces to make a mosaic. It was absolutely ridiculous!

They had a magnifying glass up to this one which showed the little pieces better. We tried to get a picture of that, but this was the best we could do. You just don't understand till you see it.

And this is a colored statue. Most of them were only one color, so this was interesting that it was painted.

And that was our visit to the Duomo Museum. We later found out that the finger of John the Baptist was at this museum, but we don't remember seeing the thing. This was a pretty good museum, lots of interesting things and not too large that it loses your interest.  So it was a good first stop.

More to come soon!

We're in Italy!

So we're in Italy, Florence to be exact. And we are loving it!

We got here on the 24th and will be here until the 31st. It has been and is going to continue to be a blast, and we'll try to put up pictures soon.

Decisions, Decisions

There are some definite plusses for taking this assignment in Libya.

1. We get more paid time off.

2. We are closer than ever to some amazing destinations.

Now we just have to decide where to go.

Our first trip is going to be for our birthdays and we are going to Italy. That's already been decided, but we have to choose where to go in Italy and what to do. We definitely want to see Florence for a few days, but what do you think? Where else should we go. We're thinking of taking a week for this first trip.

We also have to plan where we should go for Christmas time. It's basically the same price to go to Paris, Vienna, Frankfurt, Dublin, Athens, Madrid, and Brussels. So where to go, where to go? Any advice?

Spider Ant, Spider Ant, Does Whatever a Spider Ant Does!

Wondering what a spider ant is?

This is a spider ant.

The picture doesn't really do it justice, but they are at least four times the size of a regular ant and at least twice as fast. And they have really long legs. Their tails kind of stick up in the air, so Jacob calls them Scorpion Ants.

But no matter what you call it, they're weird, and kind of freaky. Neither of us had ever seen this kind of ant before. Just one more experience in Libya.

We're Ruined!

Not really. We just went to see the Roman ruins in Sabratha, Libya.

It was really neat to see those things that are so old but in still great condition.

We went with two other people, both named Ted and had the same last name, too! (They were grandfather and grandson.) And we had a great time.

This is the amphitheater at Sabratha. It's from the 2nd century AD.

 

Here is the partial remains of a mosaic found on a wall at the theater.

 

Here's Jacob with the steps of the theater behind them. They were in surprisingly good shape.

These figures ran along the edge of the stage. There were some other figures with less clothing on, but we figured clothing is probably good for a public site. :)

 

This is a view of the stage and the column work behind it. We wanted to go up into that area, but the stairs were blocked.

Here are some, as far as we can figure, reflection pools down by the sea. Yes, the Mediterranean Sea.

Christina even touched it!

This is a well preserved hallway with an arch just behind the theater.

And the only Roman writing we found in the whole place. It's just a fragment, but it's clearly Roman.

Jacob really loved this shot. We figure the columns are the remains of a temple, but this particular part was not labeled.

Here's Samson, er, Jacob.

Jacob asked for a "cute" pose. Christina tried...

This is the largest mosaic we found. It was actually on the ground by the baths.

And yep, you guessed it, there were toilets there, too. Here's one of them. They had about 20 of these in a semicircle, so we guess they weren't bashful. You can kind of see the trench below that would normally have water in it that would wash the waste away.

Jacob's giving the toilet a try. He's pretty pensive when he's on the throne...apparently.

This was the best preserved statue we came across that day. A lot of the statues were missing heads, arms, and family jewels. Even though she is, too, there is some exquisite detail that she had but others did not, due to wind, water, and sand.

This was an obelisk at the site. It was actually part of a mausoleum that dated back to the 2nd centry BC! That's old!

And here's a closer look at that obelisk.

It was really a great experience for both of us. We got to see things we have never seen before, but there is another site in Libya that is apparently three times the size of this one. Hopefully, we'll get to see that one, too!

Our First Arabic Lesson

On one of our trips to the market, we got to talking with our driver, Omar. Turns out he's Libyan (not everyone is) and he was willing to teach us some Arabic words. But he said he was teaching us in the Libyan accent, so it's not quite right to say we learned Arabic but that we learned some Libyan.

We learned:

Thank you - Shoo-kran

You're welcome - af-wan

Airport - mah-tar

We tried to get the Arabic writing for those words on here, but it was impossible for us to find in a decent form. But we think you get the idea. So practice up, so that when you visit us, you can speak the language of the natives!

Our Place in Libya

We said that pictures were coming soon, so here they are.

We're starting with pictures of where we are staying, since we've only been here two days, we haven't seen that much. But we will in time.

But our place is really quite nice. Almost all of our meals are catered, we have a house waiter and a maid. It's really nice. We stay in it with three other guys, each with their own rooms. We share the kitchen, living room, dining room, pool, and other common areas.

Here's our bed.

And our bathroom.

But we can't figure out what this is.

Is it a bidet or a urinal, or some kind of weird sink?

Here's the staircase in our house.

Here's the dining room.

And a sitting room.

Here's a view from our balcony. That house looks very similiar to ours.

Here's our pool.

Here are some over views of our neighborhood. There are seven houses in this area, but there are four or five other places for the ex-pats to live.

The biggest house, the last picture from above, is where we all eat together on Wednesdays.

It's also where the workout room is.

And here's the tennis/basketball courts. That guy in the picture, that you can barely see to the right, is trying to rig lights so that we can play at night.

So far we're really liking it here, but we are excited about the other experiences to come.