Weekend in Ovindoli

In March the weekend before Easter we went to Ovindoli to the mountains about 2 hours from Rome. I had booked two nights in Hotel Millepini near the centre of Ovindoli. I wanted to go skiing at least once this winter and see some snow before spring.

Daniele didn't come with us this time, because he had already been in Austria for a week with his friend. Armando doesn't want to ski anymore and Daniele doesn't enjoy our company so much in the slopes. He thinks we are too slow and don't want to ski in the most difficult slopes, at least me and Carlotta.

Anyway, we had two nice days in Ovindoli with lovely weather, good food at the hotel and enough slopes for one weekend. The snow was good up in the slopes, but quite wet when we skied down the last meters. Ovindoli isn't such a big ski center, so probably in one week you would get a bit bored skiing always in the same slopes, but for one weekend it was fine. This is a fast scrapbook layout of our weekend. Maybe I'll post more photos later.

Last day in Honolulu

This was our last day. We had the flight to Los Angeles in the evening. We didn't have to leave the apartment before 12, so we could take it easy. Carlotta wanted to take a swim in the pool at the 23rd floor.

Last souvenir and food shopping in Abc and then we went to the Waimanalo beach one last time to enjoy a few hours in the waves, sunbathing and playing "bocce" with some strange kind of nuts. There was a cold shower and changing room, so we could take most of the sand off and change before driving to the airport.

 

We had a long journey ahead of us. We flew back over Dallas. Because of the different time zones we left on the 14th of December and arrived to Rome on the 16th.

Hawaii - Day 5

Today was the marathon day. As it can get hot here also in December the marathon started very early, at 5 a.m. while we were still sleeping. We woke up in order to be at the arrival after 8 o'clock in case Armando would be very fast. We waited and waited and watched people running, but saw no Armando. We started to get worried in the end and tried to call him, but didn't manage to reach him. In the end we went to the place were we had agreed to meet after the marathon and there he was, happy to have run his marathon. He had arrived at about 9, but we just didn't see him.

We went to our favourite breakfast place to have a well deserved breakfast.

Then we started driving out from town. Not so easy. The marathoners were still running and roads were closed and there are not many roads leading to Honolulu. So we sat in the car a long time before finally getting to the beach in Kailua.

It was a nice beach, but Waimanalo was still our favourite. There were lots of people because it was Sunday. It was a bit cloudy from time to time and on our way back to Honolulu it rained a lot.

In the evening we went to a restaurant called Ihop to eat a Loco Moco (rice topped with a hamburger patty and a fried egg) and the younger part of the family had hamburgers.

Hawaii - Day 4

Now it was time to go and visit Pearl Harbor. After an Oreo breakfast in our apartment we headed towards Pearl Harbor. While waiting for the shuttle boat that would take us to the Arizona Memorial we saw a video about the history of the site. I think every one of us found interesting and very touching.

From there we went to a huge marketplace around the Aloha Stadium where you can buy all kinds of souvenirs much cheaper than in the shops.

After that we went back to Honolulu. Armando started to feel his marathon tension so he stayed in the apartment while we went to the Waikiki beach. Today it was a really warm day and there were lots of people at the beach.

Afterwards we met and went to see where the marathon finish line was in the Kapiolani Park. We strolled around a bit and Armando went back to the apartment.

 

We walked a long way to get the famous Malasadas at Leonard's Bakery. They are Portuguese donuts.