tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81607717416257350552024-03-02T16:54:03.821-08:00In Search of GelatoMy life as a Navy wife living in Italy...Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01542646742152025178noreply@blogger.comBlogger395125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160771741625735055.post-71345676412967892702013-12-31T10:52:00.000-08:002013-12-31T10:52:38.837-08:00Ciao, Baby<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What's next for In Search of Gelato? I've thought about keeping In Search of Gelato going, just changing the focus. In the end, I decided to keep In Search of Gelato as a blog of our time in Italy. The first word Nora learned to say was Ciao, fitting for our Italian bimba, although it came out as "Wow," and she quit saying it before we ever realized what she was actually saying. I'd planned to start up a new blog, titled "Ciao, Baby." Of course, that name is taken. After playing around with other names and ideas, I have decided that we will continue with a blog. However, I'm going to have our own website rather than a blogspot address. I will put up a notice here once that is set up and running. I suppose anything I do will be more of the Mommy blog genre, since my time now is spent taking care of Nora the Toddler rather than planning jaunts around Europe. But I wouldn't have it any other way. Thank you so much for traveling along with us, through Italy and beyond!</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In our garden, with our landlord, Ciro.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">THE END.</span></div>
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Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01542646742152025178noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160771741625735055.post-1643468285221946572013-12-30T15:14:00.001-08:002013-12-30T15:14:37.427-08:00Coming to America<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Found some of those Ravello-to-Amalfi Hike photos</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now that we've had a few months of American living, I feel like I have a little more perspective on our time in Italy. And some recovery from the move process! I find often that my memories are filled with our time Italy. As I sit in our living room, playing with a toddler, a moment will flash across my brain, a memory of sitting on our roof terrace watching the setting sun setting fire to the windows of villas far off on Capri. Or as I cook dinner, a memory of sitting in a pub in Ireland will come to the forefront. The memories are so vast and vivid and exciting. No matter that we were excited to move "home," that we felt our time in Naples had come to an end, I would not trade our time there for anything in the world. Many times I was frustrated or depleted, but many more times, I was in awe at the life we lived. When I dress Nora, I remember shopping at my favorite, weekly market in Posillipo, and my favorite two booths for children's clothing. When we walk into our town here, I have flashbacks to pushing her stroller along the lanes of Capri. (I find that I think of Capri most often of all.). When I go to our local coffee shop here, the daily life reality is an overlay of my memory of spending time in my Lucrino coffee shop with friends. Most of my memories are bittersweet. Happiness to be here, where we are now, but also missing our Italian life. When I drink orange juice, I remember the fresh squeezed orange juice available in every, Italian coffee bar. Here, we bought salami and cheese for a relaxing, post Christmas dinner, and reminisced walking down to Gennaro in our Lucrino salumeria for the most delicious of cheeses and salamis. I am Facebook friends with the woman now living in the villa that was once our home, and when she posts her pictures and her own blog posts, I feel like I'm living a double life - one back in Italy ongoing in my head, and my real life here in America. I think just for a moment, maybe I'll run up to the roof terrace today and take a look at the castle, before remembering that such a roof terrace is no longer part of my life. I love now being in a place where I can communicate freely and where I know the expected modes of behavior. I love our town and being able to walk around easily with Nora. I love being to drive around easily! And I love the sheer volume of possibilities I have to fill my days spent with a toddler. But yes, I do miss Italy. Very much.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Traffic outside our Lucrino coffee car</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Walking in Capri</td></tr>
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Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01542646742152025178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160771741625735055.post-29854144810741499182013-12-29T12:23:00.001-08:002013-12-29T12:23:29.524-08:00The Administration of Leaving<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I started this blog in our time leading up to departure for Naples, with lots and lots of posts on the logistics and administration involved in the move. It was our hardest move ever. Until it came time to leave Italy. Leaving was exhausting and demoralizing. I've blocked out much of it, but I remember arriving in the PNW and telling Nathan that I was never moving again. I usually take our moves in stride, so this was a pretty drastic statement. I'm actually still recovering from the move. Below is as much as I can remember about the business of leaving Italy. Most of my readers will want to entirely skip this post. It is not interesting and really long. I know this. But I'm putting it up for all the families who still have to leave, recognizing that this was just our experience. I really can't say whether it is as hard for other families. Most probably my new mom stresses and lack of sleep greatly affected my ability to think clearly. For sure there was admin stuff in which we elected to take the absolute easiest, and usually quite costly, route, just to do whatever we could to reduce stress. And it's safe to assume that I have forgotten at least five more major issues that had to be handled. This post might also be for all those civilians out there who think military moves must be so easy because "the military does it all for you." I put that in quotes because I cannot even count the numbers of times I've heard that phrase in the last 17 years. Sure, easy. If that's what you think, read on.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1. First is the figuring out when to ship your personal property. It takes 60-90 days for it to arrive in the U.S., which results in lots of calculations and <u>guesses</u> to make as to when you'll need your stuff. On the Italy end, the Navy will provide loaner furniture - bed, dresser, sofa (or in our case, four chairs), the basics. On the USA end, you are out of luck. An air mattress and crates you find in the back of a liquor store are about all you get. Possibly for months on end. Thus, we elected to send our personal property pretty early, back in mid-April, in hopes that it would be in the U.S. and ready for delivery the day after we touched down in the final week of June (it wasn't; whole other drama). And just a note, the loaner furniture is serviceable. It is not attractive or comfortable. While we did indeed get to stay in our home the last three months, for which I am beyond grateful (!!!!!!!!!), do not mistake loaner furniture and bare bones housewares, clothing, and toiletries for luxury, Italian living.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2. Then the Express Shipment. This is the shipment of things you kept out until the last minute. This is a tricky one because it takes about 30 days to get to the U.S. If your Express is full of things you kept out until the last minute, that indicates it is important stuff. But then if you are heading straight to your final destination, now you have 30-45 days without that important stuff. Tricky. Especially when there are children involved as there is the extra layer of figuring out when to ship the crib, high chair, and baby accessories that make Mama's life easy, like a swing or exersaucer. Do you want it on the departure end or the arrival. How will you contain children on moving days when moving to a place where you have no friends, no babysitter, no help? What items are so vital that you might even have to buy duplicates so they are available on both ends?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3. Next up is the wine shipment, if you choose to send wine home. That cannot be moved in the summer as the heat will ruin all your nectar. You can (a) send your wine early, or (b) find someone in Italy willing to store your wine until the fall, then have it shipped. With the wine shipment you must provide a detailed inventory, including name of wine, where it was purchased, price, and volume. And a Power of Attorney for both the shipper and your friend who may be storing your wine. This one is the easiest of the bunch because it is purely optional, and thus, I think some of the stress is relieved. Doing a wine shipment was our choice and if we wanted to reduce stress, then we could choose not to send any home.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4. Three shipments down, but now there is your car. The military will ship one vehicle. Do you want to ship a 2nd on your own dime? Or sell one? Or sell both? And when to sell your car since you need at least one up until the last day (public transportation in Naples is crowded, inconvenient, incredibly time consuming (if you doubt that, read my early posts from our arrival in Naples), and not a true, viable option for Nathan to get to/from work in the last days). Cars take 45-60 days, so what is your plan once you arrive in the U.S. We found that here in the PNW, a car rental was $350/week. So for us, we landed, rented our insanely expensive car, arrived at our hotel at 1am, slept a few hours before waking up and meeting our property manager for the rental house, got keys, and spent the next three days car shopping, despite being unable to form coherent sentences. This car was our one and only car for almost two months, until the car shipped from Italy arrived. For us, our housing situation with a rental located in walking distance to basic services (like groceries) made this fairly easy. For many families in America, one car creates a massive hardship to be able to handle work hours, kids' school/activities, and basic needs for living. Back to selling your car in Italy - are you going to sell a car? When do you put it on the market? How many other cars are on the "lemon lot" (means something different on the American base) and how are they priced? Will you get what you hoped for your car? If your car does not sell in time, you must find a really awesome friend to take power of attorney and handle all the business of selling a car in a foreign country. The military does have a DMV type office on base, and that office is awesome...but that does not negate the fact that selling a car in Italy is bureaucratically annoying. Selling our car there took approximately 3-4 hours of paperwork and meetings and phone calls and the like. Buying our used car here took roughly 20 minutes - 10 to meet up with the seller and pick up the car and signed over title, another 10 to go to the small town DMV and register the signed over title. Done.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">5. Holy smokes, I can't even think anymore right now, months later. I'm exhausted just writing all of this, much less remembering the actual process of going through it. But it's not over. In Italy, if you live out in town, you now have to get out of your house. When? And how much is it going to cost you? That is key. Most families I know had somewhere between $2000-$3500 due in various bills. For us, we found that our gas bill we'd paid every two months had been an estimate for our entire, three year stay. And a bad estimate at that. We owed 1700euros (approx $2300). We'd set up our electric bill through the base, which just meant that an office there acted as a mediator between us and the electric company. The electric company also did exact reads at somewhat random times, or never. I think we might have had one actual read per year. Maybe. We were required to leave something like 500-1000euros as a "deposit," against any remaining monies due. Two weeks ago, we got back about $500. Two weeks ago, as in December. We left Italy in June.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">6. And when you do move out of your house, where are you going to go? How will you get to/from work? And how will you get to the airport? Many families stay on our Support Site base, which makes all the admin appointments to get out of Italy easy. And there is a bus that goes to the base where most service members work. Except that hotel was booked. No room at the Inn. The base where most people work is located right next to the airport and has an Inn (which we opted for), but most families have quite a bit of luggage. Can you walk the mile from the base hotel to the airport front door with your luggage? Our flight departed at 6am, so we needed to be at the airport about 4:30am. Many families find friends to take them to the airport, but we were unwilling to ask someone to get up at 4am in order to get to pick us up. A wonderful co-worker of Nathan's arranged a taxi for us - we got a taxi to take us one mile. Best 15euros we spent trying to get out of Italy. Yep, a taxi at 4am to go five blocks cost us 15euro (about $20), and we considered it a bargain. My plan from our very first week in Italy, where I hated so much our living situation, was to stay in a hotel catering to moving Americans. This particular hotel is located right near our (former) house, so the area was familiar, has a beautiful pool area and supposedly, a great dinner. Sadly, they do not offer a shuttle to and from the base. This meant Nathan would have to take the car, leaving me and Nora at the hotel all day. Since we were looking at five full days, we opted for the base, where I had easy access to the bus that went into Centro Napoli (and to the ferries, since I held out hope for fitting in one last Capri visit...did not happen), however, our room had a great view of Mt. Vesuvius and was a tiny little suite, so Nora's crib could be in the living room, and we had a small kitchen to do coffee, basic lunches, and the like. I ended up loving it! No great pool, but are you getting yet how very tired we were from the admin of leaving the country!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">7. How on earth could I forget Crazy Dog. Do you have a pet? If so, how are you moving your pet(s) back, assuming they are too large to travel in a cabin bag with you. Your options are to fly on the military flight out of Naples to the East Coast of the U.S. (all the pet spots on that flight were booked, so this was not an option for us), or fly out of Rome with your dog and just pray that all goes well (after you've figured out how to get yourself and your children and your luggage and your dog and your dog's carrier to Rome in a country where most cars are the size of a living room chair). If flying on the military flight, just the paperwork needed for your pet is enough to send a gal over the edge. If flying out of Rome, the paperwork becomes significantly easier. And if using a cargo shipper, you are paying so flipping much money that they handle the paperwork. Add on top of this that our flight was going all the way to the West Coast, so we were looking at upwards of 24 hours in flight that Scully would be in his crate. Guess which pet moving option we picked! We had a cargo shipper who specializes in pet moving to handle Scully's flight because he'd be flying in summertime. We were very worried that choosing the Rome route on our flight day, the heat would be so bad that the airline would not allow Scully to fly. And since the military won't rebook commercial flights due to pet problems, we went the expensive, but less worrisome, route. Scully cost us $2500 to fly him home. We know some families who left around the same time, flying commercial out of Rome with their dog and a $400 payment or so, and everything went very well. We know of other families who had masses of problems, airport delays that went on for days, being stranded in Rome with their pets, and so on. Luck of the draw. There are no good options on moving your pet back to the U.S. if you are going all the way to the West coast.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">8. How are you getting your own selves back to the U.S.? The best option is the military flight. It's comfortable, has a layover halfway through (where travelers with pets can visit/walk their animals), and lands in Norfolk sometime from early to very late every other Friday evening. For us, we were going on to Seattle. Now you taxpayers will surely be thankful to know that when our travel arrangements are made by the government travel office, the cheapest option is the one used, regardless of whether it makes sense or not. We were assigned to the military flight with a next day follow on to Seattle that included TWO layovers. A 40+ hour trip we'd be making with a nine month old. The fury that filled me was so great that I still cannot even express it. Seventeen years of being a Navy wife, and I have ALWAYS taken these types of frustrations as minor enough to not get worked over. This is just the life. But this time, I just felt beaten down, and that quickly turned to fury, mainly because I'd found very cheap, commercial flights that would get us to Seattle in 17 hours. Versus over 40 hours. Yet we were not allowed to use these. Nathan finally managed to get the travel office to approve a commercial flight on "approved" airlines for which we paid an extra $500 out of pocket. This trip from start to hotel arrival in WA was 30 hours.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">9. Think I'm done? Nope. Most families moving to Naples put some of their personal property in long term storage. We had about 3000lbs in storage. It took us a month of requesting our property to even get an answer that the military office we had to use had received our request. This shipment of goods came almost 90 days after request and arrived in two different shipments delivered weeks apart.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">10. Still not finished. You are moving to a new location from overseas. Have you been there before? If so, you have a huge leg up. If not, what is the plan when you arrive? We have 10 days allowed in a hotel before we are then on our own dime. If you are moving to a new location, then I sure hope you can find housing and move into it (on your air mattress and crates) in 10 days. Or that the rest of your Italy exit didn't so deplete your liquid funds that you now cannot afford a hotel for awhile.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now I do want to be clear that we experienced so many blessings on our exit. We spent some quality time with friends. I got in a few, final day trips to my favorite places. Our car sold exactly when we needed for the price we needed. We got an appointment to ship our car home the day before our departure, and on arrival in the PNW, we found the exact car we were hoping to find for exactly what we hoped to spend in under three days. For our housing here, a friend contacted us to offer us his rental house, and it is everything we were hoping for in the town where we wanted to live, in the location within the town where we wanted to live.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But to be completely honest, getting out of Italy was mentally, physically, emotionally, and financially devastating for me. There, I said it. I broke the Military Spouse Code. I admit that it totally blew, and I hated every single second. I grew to detest our evenings in the final months because rather than being able to really enjoy our final experiences, instead, we were endlessly discussing the morass of logistics that were so interwoven with one another that we felt like we were untangling a Constrictor knot. Every time I turned around, there was a new logistical problem. When I'd quiz other families who were leaving around the same time, they'd just say, "It sure is hard." I hope for their sakes that my experience was an anomaly, and those families experienced some minor, easily dealt with annoyances. Because otherwise, they were just putting on a brave, military spouse face and pretending things were fine when in reality, they too wanted to scream or cry or both. Or wished they'd sent their wine shipment later so that a few (dozens) more bottles could be added.</span></div>
Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01542646742152025178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160771741625735055.post-64603393053986642732013-12-28T07:50:00.000-08:002013-12-28T07:50:25.701-08:00Naples in the News<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Naples has been taking a lot of heat lately. Have you heard? The rest of the world finally paid attention to the toxic waste dumping that has been going on for decades in Campania. If you haven't heard about it, I've put links below to several articles written in the last couple of of months. I say that the rest of the world finally paid attention because I believe that this was one of the worst kept secrets I've ever come across. Case in point:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(1) One local asked me why the American base is located where it is since there is so much toxic waste nearby. [As a note, the military commissions water testing yearly, or more often, all over Campania and make those results available to families; any community found to have severely toxic water results in families being moved out, as happened a few years ago in one of the towns that has very recently been confirmed by a Camorra informant as one of the places for huge amounts of illegal toxic dumping].</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(2) A local friend (different from #1) warned me to never eat produce or canned goods produced in Afragola because it was poisonous. (Afragola is a farming community located fairly close to Naples, and it too is now known to have experienced an enormous amount of illegally dumped toxic waste.).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(3) Yet another local warned us not to eat the mozzarella di bufala from a certain town because the buffalo there were grazing on toxic land.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(4) One month before we moved to Italy, the lake right by our house, Lago d'Averno was seized by the Italian government from a Camorra boss's front man. I remember discussing with Nathan then that I could only imagine the Camorra boss wanted the lake so he had his own, dump spot. Unfortunately, it's ringed by vineyards, citrus orchards, and small farms, and it's located only about 300 yards from the Pozzuoli Bay. A few months after we moved in, the lake turned this really bizarre, neon green color. Yet another time, I was walking around the lake (it really is an amazing, idyllic spot, complete with Roman ruins, a Sybil's cave, and the terminus of a huge tunnel to move soldiers and horses between Cuma and the lake, which was then open to the sea), and the lake edges were completely filled with dead fish. Lago d'Averno has now been put on the list as one of the sites of illegal dumping.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">See what I mean...toxic waste dumping was certainly not a secret among the Neapolitans. But p</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">erhaps the extent of the dumping is indeed a revelation. And maybe the attention of the world gives Neapolitans the freedom to protest, when before, protesting could have resulted in some unappealing backlash. Rising up against the Camorra is not necessarily the safest path. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am glad to see the international community paying attention to the problem, but why did Campania have to first have a cancer rate increase of over 40%! For women, 47%! Take just a moment and think about those statistics. They are truly horrific. In some communities, estimates are that the land will be poisoned for the next 50 years. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Groundwater is poisoned, wells are poisoned, the soil itself is poisoned...and yet, another article I found highlights the fact that in all likelihood, the Camorra will be able to muscle in on the cleanup contracts as well, making the cleanup as profitable as the initial dumping for which they were responsible.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I hope that with all the negative attention, there will at least be a few positive stories coming out of both the situation and the appeal of Naples. I wrote often in the last few years on how much Naples has to offer, yet it takes some digging. Some fearlessness, some willingness to buck what the fear mongers say and open your heart to both the people and the place. And take another look at the photo by my sister. Naples is full of breathtaking beauty.</span></div>
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<a href="http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/mafia-toxic-waste-dumping-poisons-italy-farmlands-21284916">Mafia Toxic Waste Dumping Poisons Naples Farms</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2483484/Toxic-nuclear-waste-dumped-illegally-Mafia-blamed-surge-cancers-southern-Italy.html">Toxic Nuclear Waste Dumped Illegally by Mafia Blamed for Surge in Cancers in Southern Italy</a><br />
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<a href="http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/toxic-napoli/">Toxic: Napoli, A documentary film</a><br />
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_of_death_(Italy)">Triangle of Death, on Wikipedia</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/mafia-dumping-toxic-waste-blamed-high-cancer-rates-article-1.1505218">Mafia's Dumping of Toxic Waste Blamed for High Cancer Rates in Italy</a><br />
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<br />Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01542646742152025178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160771741625735055.post-46179959265046088412013-12-27T08:13:00.000-08:002013-12-27T08:13:34.184-08:00Final Trips<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After returning from Greece, we had about three weeks to do all the "last" things. I'd already done my final, overnight trip to Capri, the island that still fills my dreams and memories. And before our personal property pack out back in April (and before Greece), I was determined to boost my meager stock of demijohns, the glass jugs used to hold wine. The best way to get a demijohn is to find it free in a field or at a glass recycling point. I somehow convinced Nathan to spend a Saturday morning driving me throughout the Campania countryside in search of demijohns. Campania proved to us once again that she is a region full of mystery and surprise. We rounded a curve, drove out of the tree cover, and found ourselves overlooking a village we'd never seen before, complete with a castle. Oh, Campania, you vex me so.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just before Greece, my friend and traveling companion of the last few years did a final, Amalfi Coast drive as well. We both loved Positano, and we each wanted to pick up a ceramic piece from Sosa, a store selling all white, pierced ceramics. The day threatened a storm, but the rain held off for our walk through town, lunch at the Art Cafe (my favorite - a small cafe on the edge of the seafront boardwalk that sells light fare - this is not the place to get a heaping plate of seafood pasta!), and a walk around the corner to a quiet, tucked away cove.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At this point, I'm not even sure how many photos of<br />
this same Positano view I've posted; but it's so classic!</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With this same friend and her husband, who would be leaving Italy within days of our departure as well, we did one final, overnight trip. A return to Vieste, a seaside town on the Adriatic that we'd visited the previous summer. We'd loved it! I posted one photo of Vieste in my post about how much I loved the cleaner beaches located outside of Naples. Since we and our friends would be moving to the Pacific Northwest, we all wanted to maximize our sun and beach time. We'd all loved the Vieste beach, ambience, and our hotel, thus we decided on a revisit. This trip, we made a little time to walk around the Old Town, happening upon some sort of processional and celebration. These sorts of things are fairly common in Italy, so we enjoyed watching for a few moments, realizing our time for happening upon parades was at end, then continued on our way. The beach was a bit cold, and we had one day of rain, but we still enjoyed a nice, final getaway with our friends.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After we'd moved out of our house and into the hotel for our last few days, we decided on one last hike on the Amalfi Coast with a friend, walking from the mountain town of Ravello down to Amalfi (the town). I remember taking a lot of great pictures, but now, I can only find one. And it was taken from our bus ride back up the mountain. I'm going to blame it on the heat. My rough estimate is that it was 147 degrees that day. I remember lots of stopping towards the end and dreams of water. We did relax with a nice lunch in Amalfi town, then the guys went into Amalfi's absolutely fantastic Duomo (really, the Crypt is the main appeal) while I sat on the covered loggia outside the church to nurse Nora. I quickly realized that I must look like a beggar woman after our hot, sweaty hike, and with my nursing baby. I looked around in my bag for a cup to set out, just in case, but alas, came up empty. Instead, I just pulled out my Kindle to read while nursing and enjoyed sitting down. We then meandered down to the bus stop and found that we'd have about an hour's wait, so I spent my hour napping on the beach. That was a pretty good end to our last, Amalfi Coast visit...but then we got on our bus, and it was open-top. Riding an open-top bus along the coastline and up into the mountains made it even better. Although I suggested that perhaps we could have just ridden the bus round trip and skipped the quivering muscles and sweating. Something to remember if we ever get back there and think it's a good idea to hike the Amalfi coast in June.</span></div>
Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01542646742152025178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160771741625735055.post-55957961391236314822013-12-26T11:35:00.000-08:002013-12-26T11:35:59.217-08:00Sparkling Finish to Greece<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of my favorite Nathan & Nora photos; and yes, she is wearing<br />
socks on the beach. There was quite a breeze this day.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We spent our last couple of days on Paros doing absolutely nothing. We had yet to spend any time at all on the beach just outside our hotel's front door. Clearly a horrible situation that had to be remedied. After having visited almost every beach on the island in our circuit exploration, we were happy to find our very own beach to be our favorite. The hotel directly across from the beach had set up lounge chairs with tables and thatch umbrellas, and we set up camp on one set. In Europe, renting a chair and umbrella for the day is very common. Back in Italy, 10-20 euro for the day is the going rate. Imagine our surprise when, after about three hours of beach time, a man from the hotel showed up and somewhat apologetically informed us that we needed to pay for our use. Three euro per chair. I cannot even get a Coca-Cola for three euro, so I call a chair and umbrella on a beautiful, Greek island for three euro a win.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You may remember the photo from our beach lounging, one of the very view I blogged while in Greece: </span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8160771741625735055#editor/target=post;postID=2007558009698202961;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=24;src=postname">Don't Make Me Leave</a><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We spent the beach time alternating Nora care so that the other person could take a nap and/or read, fully relaxed. Because I had grown used to a daily walk through the village (in addition to our nightly walk), I took a couple of hours each day to wander around at lunchtime, stopping for gyros and dessert to take back to the beach. I don't know why, but I could (and did) walk down the same lanes, through the same shops, along the same port, every single day (twice a day), yet it always seemed new. Possibly because the pace was so unhurried. People were friendly and often wanted to stop and chat. Having the baby was a big draw and opened so many doors for conversation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary on our final night, picking a garden restaurant we'd passed a few times but not yet visited. Upon finding out we were there for our anniversary, the owner brought us glasses of champagne. And as day turned to night under bougainvillea vines and table top candles were lit, the lights went out in the restaurant. Utter silence reigned for just a moment, then out came the owner with a dessert topped with sparklers, lighting up the darkness in celebration. In my wildest of dreams I could not have imagined a more perfect ending to an ending - our last big vacation before returning to America.</span></div>
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Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01542646742152025178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160771741625735055.post-26585764026552412002013-12-24T12:28:00.002-08:002013-12-24T12:28:38.620-08:00Merry Christmas Eve!<div style="text-align: justify;">
I hope you are all enjoying a wonderful, peaceful Christmas season. I'm pausing today from blogging on the Greece trip. We have enjoyed once again experiencing an American Christmas, with so many houses putting up outdoor lights, Christmas trees shining in windows, carols on the radio and over store intercoms, lots of Santas around for photo opportunities (that went well for us, not at all), the Salvation Army bell ringers, Angel Trees, lighted boat parades. The list goes on.</div>
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But I am greatly missing the Neapolitan presepes. I wrote about the presepes two years ago in <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8160771741625735055#editor/target=post;postID=6411319530869631367;onPublishedMenu=posts;onClosedMenu=posts;postNum=132;src=postname">Presepe Palooza</a>. I love them so much because, as a Christian, I want Christmas to be about celebrating the birth of Christ. The presepes, even the non-nativity ones, are reminders of the creche and that lowly manger, a sky lit up with angels, and a light shining down on the Light. In Italy, a lot of the Christmas decoration focus is on the presepes and nativity scenes. Very few houses are lit up with lights. I don't recall seeing a single Christmas tree. The nearest place for us to find significant Christmas lights and a festival with booths selling gift items was in Salerno, over an hour's drive away. Or we could visit Gloria, a Christmas shop that was so unique in having trees and lights that in December, especially on weekends, the highway exit for Gloria was hours of waiting in a traffic jam. Imagine a city of one million people having only a couple of Christmas attractions! The focus in Naples is on family, not rushing around to buy the perfect gift or attending craft festivals or yet another party [for the record, I love Christmas parties, and we usually throw one ourselves!]. For Neapolitans, Christmas includes a very traditional meal on Christmas Eve. The menu does not vary. Every family in every home will eat the same meal. While Babbo Natale (Santa Claus) is becoming more popular, the Italian tradition is for La Befana (the Witch) to visit on the eve of Epiphany, January 6, to leave gifts for the children (coal for the naughty ones). La Befana was an old woman with a very clean house. When the Magi passed by, telling her of the birth of the Son of God, she did not go visit Him immediately because she was too busy with her housework. When she did go to find the Child, she could not find him, so today, she is still flying around on her broom looking for Him and leaving gifts for children. Some legends say that she had her broom with her because she intended to clean Mary's house for her. Listen, I can get behind a lady who brings her own broom when she comes visiting.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My greatest, Christmas treasure brought home from Italy</td></tr>
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When in Italy, we did not bring our masses of Christmas decorations. We had a simple, tabletop tree with our most favorite ornaments. Each year, our landlady brought us a small gift of fruit, homemade limoncello, and some type of nativity - my favorite was a beautiful nativity scene painted by her niece on a piece of wood. It is truly one of my Christmas treasures. Our first Thanksgiving in Italy, we visited Alberobello. While there, we greatly admired a paper mache of the Holy Family displayed in our room. We'd seen others for sale in town, but the one in our trulli house was the most beautiful. Upon checkout, we asked if we could purchase it. The hotel owner agreed, and we are now the proud owners of a Holy Family set produced by one of the most skilled artisans of Puglia in the old craft. He is now deceased, and there were only six remaining Holy Family works of his left for sale in all of Puglia. Our third, Italian treasure is a handmade, hanging angel. On Christmas Alley in Centro Napoli, Christmas Alley so named only by the Americans because it's full of presepe artisans, I once spent an entire morning visiting all the shops making angels. Some are cheap looking. Some are incredibly detailed and cost upwards of 400euros. After much comparison, I found my favorite artisan with affordable angels that have gorgeous faces. Their heads are hand painted terra cotta, eyes of glass, gowns of silk.</div>
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Christmas in Italy was low key, with our first Christmas spent hosting family and spending the Christmas Eve in Rome following Midnight (10pm) Mass at the Vatican, our second enjoying the hospitality of our landlords for the traditional, Christmas Eve dinner, and our third in Scotland. Each year, we picked one or two events to attend. We had to have all gifts in the mail by Thanksgiving in order to ensure pre-Christmas delivery, so our shopping was finished very early. In all, I found the lack of pressure to decorate and bake and cook and shop so refreshing that we have done our best to continue with that feeling. We did quite a bit more decorating this year in order to enjoy items we haven't seen in years, but we stopped decorating when we started feeling overwhelmed. The little baking I've done has been fairly simple (and sadly, all three cookie varieties I've made to date have been really disgusting - time to return to the classics and stop experimenting with Pinterest cookie suggestions). We've nixed any plans for a fancy, labor intensive meal and will be preparing crockpot chili for Christmas Eve. We instituted a suggestion for each other (and for Nora's gifts) of following this gift plan: "One thing you Want, One thing you Need, One thing to Wear, One thing to Read." We did stretch it with Nora, though. After all, last year we gave her one gift - a stuffed reindeer head attached to a small blanket that I'd bought on clearance the summer before for $4. True story.<br />
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I've tried to take my favorite parts of an American Christmas and an Italian Christmas and meld the two to create what works for our family. Some December days this has worked...and some it has not (especially the day I was supposed to take cookies to my Mom group meeting, still had the bake them, Nora slept late, ate her breakfast at glacier pace, and then took the 45 seconds I had remaining to dress her and get out the door to somehow get poop on my blue jeans - which is to say that my efforts to stay calm at Christmas time are not always successful). I hope this Christmas Eve finds you in a place of peace and joy and calm.</div>
Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01542646742152025178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160771741625735055.post-69763145942216171312013-12-23T15:59:00.000-08:002013-12-23T15:59:57.859-08:00Daytripping<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-smgd9tL83js/UrUz9onqaZI/AAAAAAAADRI/aWdXO0eI_gc/s1600/Delos.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-smgd9tL83js/UrUz9onqaZI/AAAAAAAADRI/aWdXO0eI_gc/s400/Delos.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Overview of Delos - the site is just massive with so much still not excavated</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We had originally planned a couple of day trips, one to Naxos and one to Mykonos. With our lost first day and our pleasure at the relaxing pace of Naoussa life, we decided to just do one full day trip...sort of out of obligation, I think. We settled on a trip that first visited Delos, a now abandoned island that is covered in ruins and considered one of the most important archaeological sites of Greece. Inhabited over 5000 years ago, Delos was believed to be the birthplace of the gods Apollo and Artemis, and in later years (as in about 2500 years ago), the island was a religious pilgrimage site. Delos then became important on the trade route circuit, and I was particularly drawn to this information from Wikipedia:</span></div>
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<i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">"Before the end of the 1st century BC, trade routes had changed; Delos was replaced by </span><a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puteoli" style="background-color: white; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; text-decoration: none;" title="Puteoli">Puteoli</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"> as the chief focus of Italian trade with the East, and as a cult-centre too it entered a sharp decline."</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">For those who have been reading this blog for awhile, you may remember that Puteoli is the ancient name for Pozzuoli, located in Italy and the location of our home back in Italy. An interesting coincidence for our trip.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7G9LXSZTXVk/UrUz2YYVBMI/AAAAAAAADQ8/uMseDyJ5Q5k/s1600/Delos.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7G9LXSZTXVk/UrUz2YYVBMI/AAAAAAAADQ8/uMseDyJ5Q5k/s400/Delos.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Delos ruins</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-inM050s3fDI/UrU0AA15ICI/AAAAAAAADRY/y0t0mUiSNDg/s1600/Delos.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-inM050s3fDI/UrU0AA15ICI/AAAAAAAADRY/y0t0mUiSNDg/s400/Delos.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">As we walked along the pathways, they were littered with terra cotta<br />
pieces, remnants of ancient amphorae; here, we noticed quite a large<br />
piece, just sitting on the path. Constantly seeing things everywhere that<br />
Americans would deem museum protection worthy never got old.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">From Delos, our boat headed over to Mykonos, where we had about three hours or so. Mykonos is quite popular on the tourist route and with cruise ships. And I'll be honest, our three hours there were two hours too many. We've heard from friends who've been to Mykonos how much they enjoyed their stay, so I think being in a hotel on the island and perhaps getting to know your immediate area (perhaps not staying in Mykonos town, but in one of the other towns) must be appealing. The water was absolutely incredible on Mykonos, too. But the main town itself seems to have given over to the cruise ship community. Shop after shop of T-shirts, magnets, and other cheap souvenirs. Shopkeepers who just looked bored out of their minds and/or disgusted with our presence, restaurants with prices that we could not even believe and menus full of tourist food, crowds everywhere, and on the "pedestrian" streets, we were constantly having to dodge into shops to avoid delivery vans going up and down the narrow lanes. For us, coming from Paros, Naoussa was the exact opposite of everything in that last sentence, so Mykonos was a big shock. We spent an hour covering most of the town, just to be sure we'd seen it all, then the crowds and traffic got to be too much. We decided to find a quiet place to settle down for our remaining time and eventually found a bar located in perhaps one of the top bar spots of the world. There, we settled into a comfy sofa to enjoy drinks while looking straight out at the gorgeous, Aegean Sea. Arriving back to Paros was a bit of relief, especially as we went out that night for dinner and walked through calm lanes, browsed the shops filled with unique clothes, jewelry, and gift items, and ate yet another excellent meal (at about half the Mykonos prices). I'm very glad we did the day trip, just so we could see a couple more of the Cycladic islands, but oh how happy we were that our week was being spent in Naoussa.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VxhZaI3vJYM/UrU0A8M-qYI/AAAAAAAADRc/NYp0G8KLk0k/s1600/Mykonos%252C+Windmills.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VxhZaI3vJYM/UrU0A8M-qYI/AAAAAAAADRc/NYp0G8KLk0k/s400/Mykonos%252C+Windmills.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mykonos Windmills</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GdWJ_pxLcik/UrU0DGXsVTI/AAAAAAAADRk/xypBXrXq3SA/s1600/Mykonos.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GdWJ_pxLcik/UrU0DGXsVTI/AAAAAAAADRk/xypBXrXq3SA/s400/Mykonos.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our resting spot</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-K5xAERh5TFk/UrU0GoXK3UI/AAAAAAAADRw/diXtVDrOit4/s1600/Mykonos.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="276" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-K5xAERh5TFk/UrU0GoXK3UI/AAAAAAAADRw/diXtVDrOit4/s400/Mykonos.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is some fish washing station!</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2FdqgRAldHs/UrUzzey-h6I/AAAAAAAADQs/uhACMYeTiS0/s1600/Delos+%2526+Mykonos%252C+Ferry+view+of+Naoussa.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2FdqgRAldHs/UrUzzey-h6I/AAAAAAAADQs/uhACMYeTiS0/s400/Delos+%2526+Mykonos%252C+Ferry+view+of+Naoussa.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Heading "home" to Naoussa</td></tr>
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Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01542646742152025178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160771741625735055.post-26036933688206161892013-12-22T12:51:00.000-08:002013-12-22T12:51:00.104-08:00Turning 40<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now in my story of how we left our former hotel, I forgot to mention that the real final straw was our breakfast. Our previous trip to Greece, we'd stayed at a hotel with a nice breakfast, but the key was the most delicious yogurt we'd ever tasted in our lives. Drizzled with a little local honey, and let me tell you, the Greek yogurt we can get in our American grocery stores is nothing like the real thing. We'd dreamed of this breakfast for two years. So we did indeed spend a sleepless first night, then trundled down to the breakfast lounge at the time our hostess told us to arrive (8am) only to find no one about at all. Our hostess finally showed up at 8:30, took about 10 minutes to get breakfast set out, which included disgusting bread, deli meats (and not the nice ones), and really bad coffee. And keeping a baby who likes to eat happy for that extra 45 minutes was not fun. It was the straw.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Stelia Mare's breakfast was jackpot. Greek yogurt, honey, pastries, eggs cooked to order, granola, whole fruit, fruit salad, fancy desserts (like chocolate mousse filled cups), bacon, three different types of bread, local jams and cheeses, coffee, espresso, cappuccinos, hot tea, orange juice. Serious jackpot. I think we might have spent an hour at breakfast every morning. And we may have scared Georgia with our weird and constant smiling. We were just so happy. The perfect place to turn 40, complete with dessert in the morning!</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eMTsG8oLCkw/UrUn53p-36I/AAAAAAAADQc/A_DzFIQyCik/s1600/Paros%252C+Monastiri+Beach.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eMTsG8oLCkw/UrUn53p-36I/AAAAAAAADQc/A_DzFIQyCik/s320/Paros%252C+Monastiri+Beach.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Monastiri Beach</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We'd kept our car to visit another beach, this one reported to be the best on the island. We just spent a very relaxing day walking around the village in the morning, visiting Monastiri Beach in the afternoon, then a finish up of the day sitting by the hotel pool with fruity cocktails before yet another great dinner. The day was quiet, relaxing, and we just enjoyed being together as a family on this incredible island - one of the best birthdays ever.</span></div>
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Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01542646742152025178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160771741625735055.post-10723468753004734892013-12-21T11:04:00.000-08:002013-12-21T11:04:40.307-08:00Exploring Paros<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZBTmZ1pOITo/UrUfnmORvWI/AAAAAAAADP0/qiWrMb5RmG4/s1600/Paros%252C+Secret+Beach.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZBTmZ1pOITo/UrUfnmORvWI/AAAAAAAADP0/qiWrMb5RmG4/s400/Paros%252C+Secret+Beach.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of my favorite Nora pics ever, on Secret Beach</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lefkes</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Once again excited about our vacation, we quizzed Georgia on our options for the week. We knew we wanted to do at least one day trip on the ferry to some other islands, and we knew we wanted to rent a car for a day or two so we </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">could explore the rest of the island. We decided to go ahead and rent the car immediately. So far, every local we'd met on Paros had told us that we "had to visit Lefkes," the one main village located "inland." Paros is only 10 miles wide and 21 miles in length, so inland is a loose term. Still, Lefkes was apparently a must see. We dutifully headed straight there. I think Lefkes must be a great little stop in high season. But two weeks before high season began, Lefkes was as dead a village as I've ever seen. Incredibly beautiful, but dead. We parked on the edge of town to walk into the pedestrian village, and in the hour and a half we spent in the village, we saw less than ten people, and two of them were the couple who ran the one open business in town. Thankfully, that village was a cafe. It was Africa hot in Lefkes without the cooling, sea breeze, so a stop for some cold beverages was a much needed break.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lunch stop in Piso Livardi</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We then headed around the perimeter of the island to check out all the beaches. We stopped at some for a look see, but our destination was a beach not really on our map. A couple we'd met at breakfast had told us about Secret Beach, which they proclaimed was the best secret on the island. Our plan was to take a look at the various beaches, maybe visit a monastery, have lunch in a fishing village on the south coast, then spend the afternoon lounging on Secret Beach. The plan went just as planned - nice when that happens - and 2pm found the three of us napping on the "secret" beach. Late afternoon was pool time at Stelia Mare before what was becoming our routine walk through Naoussa before dinner. We passed the same shopkeepers most nights, and we enjoyed being able to smile in familiarity or even stop for a brief chat.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Traveling in southern Europe with a baby generally means being<br />
creative about diaper changes. Nathan found an icky surprise in<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lunch offerings in Piso Livardi</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cafe in Lefkes</td></tr>
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Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01542646742152025178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160771741625735055.post-1546795804637498802013-12-20T20:14:00.000-08:002013-12-20T20:14:33.993-08:00Exploring Naoussa<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After settling in at Stelia Mare, we headed out to explore the village. We were nervous. Before confirming our room with Stelia Mare, we'd quizzed Georgia on environment for the walk to town. Now was the test. Had we been misled again? Although I have to say that we experienced the nicest, friendliest culture in all of Europe in Greece. Even in crowded Athens. Almost every person we met went out of their way to be helpful and friendly. Time and time again we encountered gracious, friendly, gregarious, relaxed people. And our short walk into Naoussa confirmed that the village lived up to our hotel - all fabulous. We were there in mid-May, which we heard time and time again was the absolute ideal time. Complete accident on our part as we didn't even take tourist season into account - we just planned a trip over our anniversary and my birthday. The businesses and restaurants were open for the most part, yet the crowds were manageable. Naoussa is a small village, but there were enough tourists to keep it vibrant and interesting while not being so crowded that we couldn't get tables at restaurants or casually stroll the tiny lanes (with our stroller). Quite literally, every business owner we met in Naoussa, from our hotel manager to restaurant owners to shop owners, told us that we were there at the best time and that the village is not fun from June through August. While they expressed gratitude for the business during those times, they were still dreading it. Vacation saved!</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We ate at this restaurant twice - Best.Grape.Leaves.Ever.<br />
Those smiles are not just for the camera - we are really that happy!</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Naoussa was just stunning. The Old Town is pedestrian only, and unlike some of the other islands (like Mykonos), business deliveries are limited to the night hours. Not once did we have to dodge a car or moped - what a relief for us coming from Naples! All whitewashed/blue trimmed buildings, stone lanes, bougainvillea, cats...everything off of the Greece postcard was part of our daily life for one, brief week. The restaurants were truly wonderful, and remember how I said that Naoussa is popular with the French tourists? Well guess what that means...shops filled with unique, beautiful things. All of this marvelousness leads down to a short walkway along the harbor, complete with the picturesque fishing boats and men working their nets. We spent our days either exploring the island or sitting on the beach and our late afternoons walking the lanes of Naoussa, shopping or just enjoying the evening, then settling in at a restaurant for a delicious dinner before retiring to Stelia Mare, where we'd put La Bimba to bed before sitting on our balcony and enjoying the restocked decanter of raki. Yep, Happy Place.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nathan captioned this one: "White Wonderland of Naoussa"</td></tr>
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Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01542646742152025178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160771741625735055.post-25453725522214527642013-12-19T22:35:00.002-08:002013-12-19T22:35:49.224-08:00Vacation Ruined?<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Parikia Old Town</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Paros can be driven around in half a day but is filled with little beaches for stops. In addition to a few tiny, scattered villages, the two main options for lodging are the main town of Parikia, where the ferry from Athens comes in, and the tinier, fishing village of Naoussa. Pre-trip, I spent hours upon hours trying to figure out which town and which hotel. Finally, with the ferry in mind, I booked us into a hotel in Parikia. Few of the Parikia hotels had a pool, so we settled on one that had good reviews but was a short walk into town, which reviewers said was not a problem. Our hotel host picked us up from the airport, and while she was nice enough, we didn't get the best feeling. Then we seemed to drive down a really busy road out of town to get to the hotel. Upon check in, the hotel public spaces were beautiful - stone walls, pool with a waterfall, view over the water, comfy lounge. Then we got to our room, and oh my goodness, it was so horrible. Out of date, cramped, the crib provided by request was about 50 years old with slats wide enough for Nora to get her head stuck, broken shower, the list just went on and on. After I had some teary moments and a long nap, we tried to salvage the day with a walk around town for the afternoon before dinner out.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Church in Parikia</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our hotel turned out to be an incredibly ugly walk to the beach, which was also pretty blah. The town itself was lovely to walk around, so things were kind of, sort of (not really) looking up...until dinnertime. Restaurants on offer were ugly, touristy, and nothing special...and we had seven nights on this island! We picked what seemed to be the best of the bunch, paid a huge amount for really bad food, even worse wine (I asked for the rose, got red, asked for the rose again and got my original red watered down with some white), and contemplated how we could turn this vacation around. Then things went from bad to worse. The walk back to the hotel in the dark was on what seemed like the island expressway - no sidewalk, no shoulder of the road to walk on, no streetlights. It was terrifying. We miraculously made it back without getting hit, and after a sleepless night in the room, Nathan told me to pack my bags because we were leaving. Except we didn't know where to go since we'd not seen any other appealing hotels in Parikia. The vacation was headed for disaster.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We eventually decided to first get a taxi and have the driver take us to the other village, Naoussa, so we could see if there was anything better over there. I spent the 15 minute drive to Naoussa quizzing our driver about various hotels we found on the TripAdvisor app I was frantically searching, and the driver took us to one of the options we discussed with him that he thought we'd like best (after he found out why we were unhappy in Parikia). As an aside, our taxi driver was such a gem. Nathan was so disgusted with our hotel and so set that my 40th birthday and our anniversary be a great memory, that he told the driver to take us to the nicest hotel in Naoussa. Period. (Note: I forgot to mention in the previous post that in addition to this trip happening over my 40th birthday, we would also be celebrating 17 years of marriage!). Our driver was great at taking the three hotels we suggested (via Trip Advisor recommendations) and selecting the one he thought we'd like best.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our room is the top left - I wish I were there right now.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First stop, Stelia Mare Hotel, also now known as Heaven on Earth. You know how you carry around a Happy Place in your head, so when you are feeling rushed or overwhelmed or anxious, you can just take a minute and think of this place to relax. Stelia Mare is it. My Happy Place. It was gorgeous - whitewashed walls like all of Naoussa, red trim, gorgeous and fun artwork, and hands down the best staff of any hotel we've ever visited. Two clerks switched off the day and evening shifts, and they were very hands on involved in checking in with us, arranging anything we needed, even to the point that if we were at the pool deck located one level above the lobby, they would bring up the hotel's cordless phone and stay by the pool...just in case we needed anything - drinks, snacks, fresh towels, random questions, anything. Plus, the beach was just yards away out the front door, complete with clear water, comfy lounge chairs, and thatch umbrellas.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But I'm getting ahead of myself. We must have looked so pitiful to Georgia, the day clerk. She showed us a few rooms in a variety of price ranges, but because we were visiting in the weeks just before full season, the hotel was mostly empty. After consulting the manager, she offered us the nicest room in the hotel for a wonderful rate. I just about died when I saw it. Coming from our total pit of a hotel in Parikia, I seriously wanted to kiss that gorgeous, tile floor and hug the beautiful painting sitting above the sofa, then drink an entire bottle of wine on the large, covered terrace that looked out over the pool below and the sea beyond. I never wanted to leave. Except we had to go back to the Pit to pick up our luggage. But that made our return to Stelia Mare all the sweeter, like coming home...except in my home, no one ever sets out a plate of cookies and decanter of raki. Or stands around awaiting to fulfill my every wish.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This delightful tray was restocked each and every day. Happy Place.</td></tr>
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Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01542646742152025178noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160771741625735055.post-23092603386367848882013-12-18T23:09:00.001-08:002013-12-18T23:09:13.512-08:00Greece<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Temple of Athena, on the Acopolis</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After five months of not posting anything, the time has come to finish up In Search of Gelato. I gave myself a tentative deadline of finishing up by Labor Day. Then by Thanksgiving. Then by New Year's. I'm hard fast on this new deadline because my goal is use one of the Blog to Book companies to print out this entire blog, giving us a nice, coffee table memory of our time in Italy. And for some reason, the tiny remnants of OCD I have left somewhere in this befuddled, tired brain of mine are screaming out that it is just not right to have posts written in a completely different year. So I have roughly 12 days to cover our final months.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nora Visits the Parthenon</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The posts I've been writing in my head recently are all about our last, big vacation before leaving Italy. I blogged a tiny bit on the go, but it was to Greece. Just a quick reminder intro: </span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8160771741625735055#editor/target=post;postID=1234832146651335645;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=21;src=postname" style="text-align: justify;">Room With A View - blog post about our first day in Greece, an afternoon in Athens</a><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Night View from our hotel room - it was so vibrant and such a great mix<br />of the masses of people in modern with the ancient world staring down.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oh what a view that was! We could have spent another day in Athens visiting the museums, but it was hot and crowded...and it was Island Time! We headed back to the airport after our brief afternoon in Athens and got on a little puddle jumper to the island of Paros. Why Paros? Who in America has even heard of Paros? Not us. Figuring out where to go for our final trip was incredibly hard. The pressure of planning epic trips for every single holiday, both big ones and small weekend ones, had worn me down. Add to that the stresses of being a new Mommy, and I just could not even think of where to go. But considering this trip would take place over my 40th Birthday, I wanted it to be fabulous, darling. With wonderful memories of our 2011 trip to Crete, we eventually agreed on a Greek island. But which island? My long criteria list included family friendly, quick access from Athens, easy access to a beach, quaint town large enough to keep our interest for a week, architecture in the traditional white washed buildings from postcards, hotel with a pool, and access to ferries for day trips to other islands. I'd been to Santorini on a day trip from Crete, and while it was gorgeous and beautiful and amazing, the two most gorgeous towns are on the top of a dormant volcano rim with access to the water via a crowded cable car or a donkey. That is not a typo. After reading about every island option, Paros won out. Virtually unknown on the American travel circuit, it is quite popular with the Brits and French as well as being the island the Greeks visit when they go on vacation. Sold.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Paros airport - the tiniest "real" airport we've ever visited;<br />In Costa Rica once, we took a flight out of a one street town where the<br /><strike>airport</strike> airstrip was located a motorboat ride away. The <strike>airport</strike> airstrip<br />did have a building, but it was clearly unused. And our boat driver normally<br />stays until the plane arrives, but he had to get back to the hotel. Then our plane<br />didn't arrive. No phone, no boat, no way to alert anyone anywhere that we were<br />abandoned at the <strike>airport</strike> airstrip. Finally, from across the wide river, a staff member<br />from a fancy resort that we could not even see noticed us and brought a boat over to<br />tell us that the plane was fogged in back in San Jose. Since we had a connecting flight<br />in San Jose to get down to the south of the country, we were concerned. The staff member<br />said he'd keep an eye on us and come back if they found out the plane wasn't coming at<br />all. The plane finally arrived at the <strike>airport</strike> airstrip, took us to San Jose, and there, we<br />found out that although we'd missed our connecting flight down south, the airline<br />had arranged for another, unscheduled plane to take us and one other man.<br />Another plane! Not "Too bad, here are your options for tomorrow," but instead,<br />"Your personal plane will be here in one hour."<br />The Paros airport is indeed an actual airport, complete with two clerks who double<br />as Ground Control crew, and possibly Air Traffic Controller.</td></tr>
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Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01542646742152025178noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160771741625735055.post-56396678367406237712013-07-11T22:47:00.004-07:002013-07-11T22:47:47.396-07:00Wine Time<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fifteen months ago, we went on a driving vacation through Provence. We devoted one entire day to wine - visits to wineries and co-ops, driving the Cotes du Rhone trail, and buying up a few cases. Since I was six months pregnant, my tasting was limited to small sips, and my purchases leaned heavily on attractiveness of the </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">label</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. I have </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">been</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> waiting a very long time to start enjoying our French wine. Tonight was my night. Our wine shipment arrived today! Woohoo! I promptly located a French Rosé to chill for tonight, and after La Bimba was down for the count, we opened up that first bottle. I took my glass out onto our back deck and thought many deep thoughts while sipping away. Mainly, though, I enjoyed the silence. It was 10pm, and I heard crickets, a gull crying, and the hum of the electrical transformer at </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> streetlight box, but very little else. The restaurants downtown close up around 9pm, so there was no nightlife noise. Very occasionally, I'd hear a car. When a couple walked down the street bordering our back yard, they were either silent or keeping their voices very low. When a business man walked down the same street, he walked silently, no cell </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">phone</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> or Bluetooth in sight. Just quiet and calm. The house lights from across the Bay reflect onto the water, a red light blinks down at the marina, and peace reigns. I am having trouble getting used to the quietness here. The calm. Internally, I am still on Naples chaos time. And Naples dinner time. Last week, we almost got caught out by showing up for dinner around 8:35, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">which</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> seemed perfectly reasonable to us. We hadn't even gotten our food yet when the servers started doing nightly cleanup. On the plus side, I've found that this early night stuff means I get to sleep earlier. Considering La Bimba wakes up at the same time every day with absolutely no regard for what time I might have gone to sleep (used to be midnight or later), I am really enjoying this early finish to the </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">evening</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. Except that now I have wine to </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">enjoy on the back deck for </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> later hours.</span></div>
Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01542646742152025178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160771741625735055.post-117690222771837122013-07-08T00:15:00.001-07:002013-07-08T00:15:32.519-07:00Italian Connections<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Back in Italy, I was in a Book Club. BN (Before Nora), I diligently read my books, although I didn't contribute much to the discussion and more often than not, I was the one bringing wine or a boxed dessert as my food offering, but nevertheless, I loved having a night out with the ladies, a lively discussion about our book, and almost always, the conversation somehow returning to Mad Men, a show I'd not yet watched (but have now started because clearly, I need to be able to intelligently discuss this show). Fast forward to America. We received delivery of our household goods on Friday. It was a long, tiring day. Our arrival time window was 8-9am, so at the hotel, we woke up the baby (naturally, the one morning we have to actually be somewhere, she decided to sleep in) and rushed over to the house. The movers showed up at 10:10. And the first load came off the truck somewhere around 11:30. They left our house at 7pm, and we promptly headed downtown to "treat ourselves." This is a phrase you should all learn, totally stolen from my friend who doesn't like to mentioned by name on the internet. "Treat yourself." It's my new favorite phrase, and I have used it daily since our return. As moving day wore on and on, I began preparing Nathan: "Tonight, we are going out to dinner. And we are treating ourselves. Big time." But by 7pm, we were tired, the baby was tired, and we didn't care where we landed as long as (A) we were sitting, and (B) someone was bringing us food. Somehow, we landed at the local fish shack. For my closest friends and family, you will know that this is the last place to find me "treating myself." Oddly, though, I was the one who suggested stopping when we walked past. In the last few months, I've had too many instances to count when I had an instinct, didn't follow it, and within hours or days learned why I should have listened to my instinct. I'm trying to do better. J.J's Fish Shack dinner was just such a time. We sat, and before we even ordered our food, Nathan saw a man leaving the restaurant and calmly commented, "Look, there's Dr. M-----. I used to have to go see him all the time in Naples for my Africa travel." Imagine a record scratching in my head. I loudly exclaimed, "Dr. M-----!!! Are you kidding! I was in Book Club with his wife. Call him. Call out to him right now!" Sure enough, somehow I completely missed the fact that one of my fellow Book Club members who'd moved just a few months prior had also moved to this area. She walked up shortly thereafter - how wonderful to see a familiar face from Italy!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In other Italian news on the home front, we broke down tonight and went to one of the two, local, Italian restaurants. One is super fancy and is right along the line of "treating yourself." The other has red and white checked tablecloths. We decided tonight was only a normal night, so we went to the less fancy of the two. And now I am completely certain that I do indeed love the American version of Italian food. Which resembles Italian food not at all. For example, we had as an appetizer a melted cheese concoction of gorgonzola and garlic with almonds throughout and served with small toasts. While this was so delicious, it in no way resembled any food I ate in any region of Italy. For our meal, we both had pastas in very heavy, cream sauces, which mostly just reminded us of something one of the local Neapolitans said to us shortly after our arrival in Italy, when we were discussing Italian food. "Who is this Alfredo all you Americans talk about?" And sure enough, an alfredo sauce is virtually non-existent. A cream sauce is sometimes possible, but a cream sauce in Italy is wildly different (much lighter - not nearly as much butter and the cream available is quite different) than what we find in Italian restaurants in the U.S. Regardless, I LOVE the American version of Italian food. I'm just not sure I can ever call these types of restaurants "Italian" with a straight face. Which really makes me wonder about the other ethnic restaurants I love. But in the end, I don't actually care how much or how little a restaurant's food resembles the nationality it claims. As long as the food is good and the experience is enjoyable...and I don't have to wash any dishes at the end...I'm happy.</span></div>
Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01542646742152025178noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160771741625735055.post-51667008549353184732013-07-03T21:44:00.001-07:002013-07-03T21:44:18.961-07:00Why We Are Loving Our New Town<p class="mobile-photo"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GK3W3HLXdOM/UdT9pTsrXkI/AAAAAAAADDY/7HZbpHXCZ4w/s1600/photo-758961.JPG"><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GK3W3HLXdOM/UdT9pTsrXkI/AAAAAAAADDY/7HZbpHXCZ4w/s320/photo-758961.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5896616698238950978" /></a></p>Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01542646742152025178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160771741625735055.post-70110065005761057292013-07-03T10:57:00.001-07:002013-07-03T10:57:12.289-07:00Happy Almost America Day, Y'all!<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We left Italy a week ago today. Despite our anxiousness about traveling for 30 hours with a baby, our fears were for naught. Nora having her own seat was absolutely key - she played and slept, and while I desperately wanted to sleep while she was sleeping, the allure of my very own movie screen five inches from my face was just too great. Do you know how long it's been since I got to see a somewhat recent movie? I started a blog post about a week before we left Italy, but since I wrote it at 2am, I decided that nothing good would come of it. Now that we are back in America, the land of milk and honey, I'm dusting it off. And because I got a special request for just such a post.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The original post was a two-parter, things I knew I would miss about Italy and things I was looking forward to in America. But for today, it's all about America the Beautiful. We were so excited when we landed at our first stop in the USofA, Philadelphia Airport. We had our camera all ready to take a picture of Nora in front of a big "Welcome to America" sign we thought would be in the International Arrivals hall. There was something small at Immigration that would have worked except for all the "No Photographs" signs posted everywhere. Our Immigration Man was so nice though and extremely competent at his job since he spotted us as a returning military family in about 1.8 seconds. I wanted to ask him if he would let us take his photo with Nora since it was her first time in her Homeland, but I thought that might get me locked up in a dark room for the next several days. Our layover in Philadelphia turned out longer than expected, but it was beyond nice to be able to communicate with <u>everyone</u>! We just chit-chatted away with about every person we saw. And when some man became incredibly irate and yelled at our gate agent for about 20 minutes (no exaggeration - he even left, then returned 15 minutes later to continue his tirade), we understood Every.Single.Word. Pure bliss. And a little scary, but at least we understood the situation. Never underestimate the power of clear communication.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So far, we repeat to each other on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis, This Land is so wonderful. In the last 34 months, Nathan has spent two weeks in the U.S., and I've spent five. And while we certainly weren't living in the depths of the wild, cut off from all civilization, life and daily sights/experiences were very different. Here are just a few of the things we have loved about returning "home."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We leave our GPS in our car! All the time! I am not joking! And one morning, we returned to our rental house from the hotel where we are staying until our furniture arrives, and we found that we'd forgotten to shut the front door the night before. We'd left our front door not just unlocked, but standing open, with my laptop sitting on a built-in shelf about 10 feet away from the door. Nothing in the house had been touched. And people here are so nice. On the street, everyone says hello or smiles. Shopkeepers talk to us and engage in real conversation. Same thing at the restaurants. Speaking of restaurants, do you know what it's like to have such a variety? I guess my American readers do, but I'd forgotten. So far, we have eaten yummy salads, fantastic Mexican flautas, lobster ravioli, hamburgers, Vietnamese, and the list goes on. In just one week! The variety is unbelievable. We can have whatever we want. And that's been a lesson in itself. Whatever we want, we can have. One of my American friends in Naples used to tell me this when we talked about going home. She would tell me that if I could dream it, I could have it. And it is true. Just about anything I can think of that we might want or need is within a 20 minute drive. Which means that in America, we are incredibly spoiled. But that's a topic for another post.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We eat dinner now at 6pm. Tonight, we arrived late to our chosen restaurant, about 7:30. And when we walked home at 8:30 (dinner takes less than one hour! Can you even believe it!), other restaurants on our route were closed. At 8:30. And when we sit down at a restaurant and read the menu, we are sure that everything printed on the menu will, in fact, be available to order. I have not heard the words, "It is finished," a single time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I desperately missed cutesy, artsy towns with markets and artists' coops and coffeehouses. Our new town has it all. Poulsbo is completely adorable with TWO, wonderful coffeehouses in three blocks. And an award winning ice creamery, several artsy stores, a couple of bookstores, restaurants, and more. I sat in a coffeehouse today for an hour and sipped on a medium, fancy coffee drink while reading. Again, pure bliss. Except for the resulting caffeine shakes after drinking a 12oz coffee drink - yowser...again, a topic for another post.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We both missed the quiet and have not been able to believe the peace here. The constant droning of motor scooters against a backdrop of nightly fireworks and pumping discotheques became such background noise that we forgot what quiet is like. Quiet is lovely. We sit in our empty rental house, look out at a calm bay filled with anchored sailboats...and hear nothing. Except one afternoon for a few minutes when we watched and heard a seaplane take off.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am loving a fast, working washer and dryer. I think I'm going to be able to do my entire week's worth of laundry in about six hours now. Or what feels like six hours, instead of six days. And our refrigerator has an ice maker! We can get ice made for us on demand! This Land is just insane with luxury.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oooohhhh, the driving. While I very much enjoyed the anything goes attitude of Naples driving, here in This Land, people stop at stop signs, stop for me to cross the street, wait patiently at traffic lights, and in general, drive in a polite, orderly manner. It's weird. And if someone does do something that might be be considered ever so slightly rude, say pulling out of a driveway an extra two inches, acting like they just might turn in front of you, or so forth, they get extremely apologetic and starting mouthing "Sorry, sorry," and waving. Super weird. Also, Americans must not realize that these wide, two lane roads could quite easily accommodate seven or so lanes of traffic.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But most of all, the thing I complained about missing most in Naples, and that I'm now enjoying the most here, is the walking. I can easily stroll out of my driveway, walk down a nice sidewalk to town, walk along wide, clean sidewalks there, walk along a waterfront boardwalk and enjoy the quiet while watching the Bay, the trees on the other shore, birds swooping around, and other walkers out with their dogs. Safe, clean, walking. It's something I took so much for granted until I no longer had it easily accessible.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Naples has its own set of charms and things I am starting to miss, and like I wrote earlier, that will be another post. This post is not supposed to be all about how much better America is, but instead, just highlight a few of the things that I personally am so grateful to now have again. Things that are comfortable and are part of my home. And I think it goes without saying that being closer to family and friends is the most important of all! Enjoy your 4th of July. I, for one, will be viewing our town's Fireworks show on July 3rd while thinking that I am indeed Proud To Be An American.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Note: I'm sorry for no photos on this post. I took some great pics of our new town and waterfront boardwalk, and when I hooked up my new iPhone to the computer, I lost them all and haven't had time to do data recovery. So words only, for now.</span></div>
Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01542646742152025178noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160771741625735055.post-35911037779559991832013-06-25T01:17:00.002-07:002013-06-25T01:17:28.695-07:00Full Circle<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TqQdBZjw5U4/UclQB1m2EVI/AAAAAAAADCw/AESHbLGRj1I/s1600/IMG_5837.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TqQdBZjw5U4/UclQB1m2EVI/AAAAAAAADCw/AESHbLGRj1I/s1600/IMG_5837.JPG" height="266" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View over Amalfi Coast as we started the walk from Ravello</td></tr>
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Thirty four months ago, we crossed the Atlantic Ocean and took up residence in a hotel on base. We had no car, none of our own things, no friends, and no idea of how things in Italy work. We quickly realized that we needed wheels...and fast! We were stuck on the base with our only out in the form of a public bus which ran on its own, inexplicable timetable (despite there being an actual timetable it was "supposed" to run) and no way to purchase tickets for this bus anyway...no need to repeat all that - it's well documented in my early posts! We could see the car we had shipped over to Italy. It sat sadly behind locked gates while we impatiently waited for the day when we were allowed to take our Italy driving test. Passing that test felt better than any school test because it meant FREEDOM! Our first day trip other than driving around Naples with some new friends was to the Amalfi Coast town of Ravello: <a href="http://insearchofgelato.blogspot.it/2010/09/amalfi-hill-town.html">Amalfi Hill Town</a> was the post about that day trip. Completely coincidentally, Ravello was also our final day trip of our Italian life.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ef-4wYe1PWc/UclP_slfqEI/AAAAAAAADCk/F0WTJ4y31ys/s1600/IMG_5842.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ef-4wYe1PWc/UclP_slfqEI/AAAAAAAADCk/F0WTJ4y31ys/s1600/IMG_5842.jpg" height="320" width="212" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Enjoying the vines along our path</td></tr>
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We'd played around with an actual weekend away, but we are both exhausted. The moving out and checking out procedure to leave Italy is phenomenally painful. At every turn, we have had some type of problem or hurdle. We have sold one of our cars already and decided to ship home the other. Nathan is dropping off that car with the shipping agent as I type, and tomorrow, we leave Italy. We don't really have any leeway in the event we had a problem with the car on a road trip. I was very firm in my utter lack of desire to spend my last weekend in Italy in our on-base hotel, so Nathan suggested a day trip to Ravello. Then at dinner with our friends last week, they recommended a beautiful walk from Ravello down to the coast town of Atrani, then another five minutes over to Amalfi and an open air bus ride back up the mountain. Perfect. We were sold. And so, we have come full circle in our Italian adventures.</div>
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My re-entry into American life has already begun. Our hotel has laundry, and I have found that I can wash AND dry a load of laundry in only 75 minutes!!! There are no words. Actually, there are. What sort of magical wonderland is this? I'm working on a post that was full of things I miss about the USA and all the things I know I'll miss about Italy. Since I never got it finished, I'll post it later. Tomorrow morning at 4:45am, we will depart via taxi for the six block ride to the airport. With a baby, stroller, car seat, six suitcases, and four carry on bags, a taxi is the easier choice. And if all goes according to plan (ha, ha, ha repeated over and over), we will be in Seattle by tomorrow night...which will already be wake-up time on Thursday morning here in Naples. I will keep up with this blog because I have a number of posts I still want to include. And it will give me time to think about setting up another blog. Until then, here are a few more photos of our Ravello adventure:</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Z8e6280dfAk/UclQBDgwmLI/AAAAAAAADCs/zuKvH4atHlM/s1600/IMG_5845.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Z8e6280dfAk/UclQBDgwmLI/AAAAAAAADCs/zuKvH4atHlM/s1600/IMG_5845.JPG" height="266" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking down into tiny, but charming, Atrani</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HYQX4rp7EVc/UclQEUOMgWI/AAAAAAAADDA/vQfilEg6wZA/s1600/IMG_5846.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HYQX4rp7EVc/UclQEUOMgWI/AAAAAAAADDA/vQfilEg6wZA/s1600/IMG_5846.JPG" height="266" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Unseasonal rain and cold delayed our beach season, but it's finally begun</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QQ8CPdlBH0U/UclQEwATAdI/AAAAAAAADDE/_kUljxX0ZAo/s1600/IMG_5856.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QQ8CPdlBH0U/UclQEwATAdI/AAAAAAAADDE/_kUljxX0ZAo/s1600/IMG_5856.JPG" height="266" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We ate lunch at the base of Amalfi's fabulous Duomo before catching the<br />open air bus back up to Ravello; the bus was my favorite part.</td></tr>
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Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01542646742152025178noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160771741625735055.post-7658725730184015062013-06-21T15:53:00.003-07:002013-06-21T15:53:48.229-07:00Last Links<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DCNHU6BiM3o/UcTUp14qyFI/AAAAAAAADBs/jtZuIFOo7oI/s1600/IMG_3249.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DCNHU6BiM3o/UcTUp14qyFI/AAAAAAAADBs/jtZuIFOo7oI/s1600/IMG_3249.JPG" height="238" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our Italian Villa by the Sea</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are officially moved out of our house and countdown to takeoff has begun. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'd intended to write several posts this week, but I'm running on about 15 hours of sleep in the last five days. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I did write an entire blog post in my head last night at 3am, when I was up for an hour with La Bimba. I started the post at 11pm, then imagined some more of it at 12:30am, and finished it up about 3ish. That post didn't make it into the computer because my hands were full of a sweet baby who just could not settle down after so much frantic activity. It was a great post - my best one yet, I'm sure.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RF6_iZ0ChKA/UcTWAhUN0TI/AAAAAAAADCA/hB3EObDDwDE/s1600/IMG_5815.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RF6_iZ0ChKA/UcTWAhUN0TI/AAAAAAAADCA/hB3EObDDwDE/s1600/IMG_5815.JPG" height="243" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One last photo from our Lower Terrace of Pozzuoli port [ancient Puteoli]</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Moving out was quite anticlimactic and incredibly surreal. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Especially because our landlord met with </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> new </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">tenants</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> and a Housing representative at </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> house for lease negotiations while we were waiting on movers. It was a </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">weird</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> feeling to have this lovely family gazing about their new home and imagining all the great experiences they have before them while our time here is over. Movers showed up and quickly packed our few remaining belongings. Housing showed up and took away all </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">our</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> loaner items. We cleaned. Then called our landlord to return for key pickup. We thought he was also coming for a final walk thru - make sure the house was in order and such. So he shows up, we're showing around, room by room, and halfway through, he realized what was going on. And he said the sweetest thing: "Nathan, you are gentleman. But I don't want to see </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> house. Only get the key." I suppose that wasn't as sweet as telling us that his home is our home and he hopes we will bring La Bimba back to Italy to see her home.</span></div>
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</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also, we had one final episode of not </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">understanding</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> a situation at all. I had asked if I could bring the baby to the swimming pool on Monday afternoon. "Yes, this would be wonderful," was his reply. Then I asked if late afternoon would be okay. Yes, it would be fine. Then my landlord said to come at 6:00. Nathan asked if this was for pizza. He laughed, and said yes. Then I asked if I could still come to the pool. "Whatever [I] want." And when we went </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">downstairs</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> for final goodbyes </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> to drive away, our landlord told Antonio, the electrician and handyman who was with him, that we would be coming to the hotel on Monday for spaghetti, macaroni, and pizza. So we have no idea what is expected of us. Which is how it has been for three years, so we're still on trend.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Generous friends offered to have us over for dinner after our long day, so we enjoyed a delicious dinner (and a yummy birthday cake!) with one final view over the sea and the island of Ischia. Then we moved into a hotel room on the base. We have two bases in Naples with hotels. One is far away from the city, but has all the support activities, such as hospital, personal property office, where we'll drop off our car for shipment back to the U.S., etc. The other base is next to the airport and where most people actually work, and it's where we are staying for our final five days. I was surprised to find that we aren't completely giving up a unique view when I looked out our hotel window and saw Mount Vesuvius, with all of Naples spread out below and a sliver of the Bay of Naples winking at me. So we're easing back into an American life with base living, but holding onto that last link to the ancient world.</span></div>
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Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01542646742152025178noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160771741625735055.post-43004271352222875362013-06-17T04:00:00.000-07:002013-06-17T04:00:00.480-07:00One Final Capri Getaway...Or 2nd to Final<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View from our hotel's pool deck - love the lemon tree, with the<br />12th century monastery and the Tyrrhenian Sea beyond.</td></tr>
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<span style="text-align: justify;">A friend and I were talking about how much we wanted to go back to Capri and when could we do a day trip and how we wished we could spend the night. Then we thought, "Why can't we spend the night?" and made a plan for the following week. This was back in May. Now you all know how much I love Capri. With every visit - has it been half a dozen now (!) - I return home and write a post on how wonderful Capri is. So here is yet another of those posts. Once you get out of the crowds and just spend some time walking, Capri is magical. Sweet smelling flowers line walls and gates that hide dreamy homes and peeks of sea views. Then you might reach a piazza or a viewpoint or a break in the greenery to see that gorgeous water, possibly the Faraglioni (the three, rock stacks off of Capri), or perhaps looking west to Monte Solaro, at the top of which is a viewpoint and seasonal cafe with world class views.</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;">My friend and I decided to go a little fancy and booked into Hotel Flora, located right near all the action in the town of Capri. The plan was walk, beach, eat in no specific order. To our delight, the hotel was incredible - hand painted tile work, a pool deck overlooking the 750 year old Certosa di San Giacomo and the ocean beyond it, and our room was a beautifully decorated suite. We set out for a favorite walk, going past the famous Hotel Quisisana and the numerous, ritzy stores lining the pedestrian path, then up a tiny dogleg before getting onto the flat, Via Tragara. Since we had our beach bags with us, once we reached one of Capri's best viewing piazzas, we then continued down, down, down lots of steps to the base of the Faraglioni, where my friend had gone to a beach club on a prior trip. Lunch at the Lido restaurant was delicious, but the view would have made anything we ate worth the trip. Spending a couple of hours on the "lido" capped off our sunny afternoon. I use the term lido loosely since there is no actual beach, more of a concrete slab with a ladder down into the still very cold water. Which didn't matter in such a gorgeous setting.</span></div>
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Knowing our time in Italy was drawing to a close, this trip was more about visiting old favorites rather than discovering new ones. Dinner was at Michel'angelo - a restaurant with no view, but the food is amazing, the restaurant has a nice feel to it, and it's about the only, decently priced restaurant I've visited on the island. We re-visited our top shop picks, including the Carthusia perfumery, Arte in Maglia cashmere shop (gorgeous cashmere scarves and wraps), and a bakery that makes the yummiest, local style cookies and gelato (wish I could remember the name of it, but it's located just below the Piazzetta, the little piazza connected to the big piazza where the funicular is located). And the next day we enjoyed a morning by our hotel pool, lunch at my absolute favorite restaurant, La Terrazza Brunella (delicious food, jaw-dropping views, expensive and worth it), and more walking before catching our ferry back to Naples. We didn't even make it over to Anacapri to enjoy the beautiful town there. I'd hope to get in one last Capri visit after this one, but with only nine days to go, I don't see it happening. Although writing this blog post did inspire me to stop halfway through and look into spending our final weekend in Italy on Capri. There is one hotel available in Anacapri only and a 15 minute walk from town. I have a room booked that I can cancel by Tuesday, so we have two days to decide just where we'll spend our final weekend in Italy. The other top choice is Gubbio, a hill town located in Umbria, staying in a Ducal Palace. Tough choice.</div>
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Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01542646742152025178noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160771741625735055.post-80534429122301698042013-06-15T04:00:00.000-07:002013-06-15T04:00:05.581-07:00Taking Our View With Us<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We rented our house because of the view. For heaven's sake, who can say no to a Glass House on a Roof Terrace with a view of Capri! What a dream. The minute we set foot on the Roof Terrace, we both gasped and started murmuring to one another out of the sides of our mouths. "I love it. Do you love it?" "I want to live here." "We have to make sure they pick us as renters." "Don't mess this deal up!" And so on. Because see, our realtor had told us that Mamma Anna had to like us or she would not want us living in her house. This is the house she and her husband built as a young family and in which they raised their children.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For our first year, we used the Glass House almost every day. I spent hours up there just staring at that magical island, and watching the ferries pass to and fro. We'd have a cocktail or glass of wine in the evenings up there. On weekends, we would get a selection of meats and cheeses from Gennaro, down at the salumeria, throw in a bottle of wine and a bottle of frizzante water, and then while away the afternoon reading and napping in the Glass House. Our second year, I was pregnant. We used it, but not quite as much. We'd built more of a life, so we had more social obligations. We tried to travel on weekends a little more. And then, once Nora was born, I'd thought I'd resume use of the Glass House while La Bimba napped in the travel swing I bought just to have up there. Hah! I never did take her up there. I go up there now just to hang laundry or take it down...but what a view to have while doing such a mundane chore!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Last year at the International Festival held on the NATO base, we met a painter living not too far from us, originally from Germany, who will paint your view for you. We saw some samples of her work there, so I took her card then and always had in the back of my mind that I would love to have her paint our view. In getting ready for this move, I found her card again and decided to go for it. What a special memory for us. With Anja's permission, I am showing a photo of the painting here! I love it (I don't think my photo shows how pretty it really is). Anja included Capri, Capo Miseno, a little bit of Bacoli, and Baia Castle, with it's little beach and red lighthouse below (beach is only accessible by boat). It's everything I love about our view going home to the USA with us. I've started feeling a little depressed about leaving, despite everything I'm excited to be moving <i>to</i>, there is so much I'll be leaving <i>here</i>. I love that I can hang this beautiful painting on our wall and be able to instantly recall the special memories our Italian villa has given to us.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Note: For anyone in Naples who wants to contact Anja Gemlau, just send me an email or post a comment below. I'll get her contact info to you. She provides such a unique memory of your Naples life for you to take home with you!</span></div>
Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01542646742152025178noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160771741625735055.post-41852760949360775992013-06-14T04:00:00.000-07:002013-06-14T05:47:06.058-07:00Umbrian Ramble<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To leisurely make our way back to the Sud from the Nord, my friend and I decided on a ramble through Umbria. We picked Ravenna as a daytime stop between departing Padova and ending up in Urbino for the evening. Ravenna is famous for it's mosaics. Sadly for us, the day was quite rainy, which put a damper on our willingness to tramp around town. Thankfully, the parking lot my friend had found and navigated us to ended up being at the edge of Chiesa San Vitale, which had some of the most amazing mosaics we'd seen outside of Venice's Basilica San Marco and Rome's Basilica San Pietro. Truly stunning. The church is small, but the mosaics and the colors are just incredible. Then, the rain just wouldn't let up and a man told us that most of the churches closed in the afternoon. So we found a pretty cafe for lunch and a refuge from the rain before heading back to the car and on to Urbino. There, we stayed in a charming hotel outside of town, but spent all our time in the old town.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Urbino is a lovely, small, hill town. (I'd love to go back and re-read Anne Rivers Siddons novel Hill Towns, but I remember trying to re-read it before moving to Italy and the main character just making me so angry I put the book down.). Old Town Urbino is at the top of a giant rock, so we rode the elevator up and down several times in our one night/two day stay. The town itself is still quite hilly, which made me nervous with the stroller, but it has a fabulous atmosphere. At night, there were all kinds of happenings, late into the evening. It wasn't loud or crowded or annoying - just felt like we were part of a community actually living, not holed up inside homes. And Urbino is where the BEST GELATO in all my searching is found. See this post: <a href="http://insearchofgelato.blogspot.it/2013/03/this-time-i-mean-it.html">This Time I Mean It</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From Urbino, we traveled on to Spoleto. My friend did not like Spoleto. I thought it was a nice enough town. The parking did throw me for a loop in the beginning. In Urbino, there is a fabulous, large parking lot at the base of town. In Spoleto, there is a tiny piazza with pay parking or, once our hotel in the pedestrian zone gave me directions, free parking that you have to drive around awhile to search for. And hope your car is safe. Our hotel clerk did look at me quizzically and with surprise when I asked if the parking was safe (after all, we had Nove ceramics and Elephant in the car!). Then I explained that we live in Naples, and she replied with an, "Ahhhhhhhh" of understanding.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We were booked into a fancy hotel that we picked based on one photo of a room with frescoes all over the ceiling. I loved the hotel. We had frescoes on our bedroom ceiling. The breakfast rooms were a fresco bonanza. It was stunning, and I felt like royalty. Spoleto itself was pretty dead at night. We managed to find some restaurant recommendations on Trip Advisor (thank you again, Steve Jobs) and walked into <a href="http://www.iltempiodelgusto.com/">Il Gusto</a>, possibly the best meal I've eaten in Italy. We even got an amuse-bouche sampler that included caviar! My first ever caviar. And yet despite the fanciness, we wheeled in with no reservation and a baby in a stroller. No one bat an eye, and they set us up in a tiny room (the restaurant is a bunch of different sections) with only four other tables, where the stroller was so in the way that servers had to squeeze their bodies to get to other tables. Not a single person from the server to other patrons, ever sent a single, irritated glance our way. This attitude is in my Top 3 of the things I will miss about Italy. The devotion to children as a part of everyday life in all things is so freeing. Returning to a Land where we'll have to begin eating out at "family restaurants" is going to be a big adjustment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We did a little walk around the town in the morning, visited the famous, Roman theatre which is home to a huge, arts festival in summertime, ate lunch at a popular and delicious Enoteca, then headed home with our Italian treasures and Umbrian memories.</span></div>
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Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01542646742152025178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160771741625735055.post-74950120421552434692013-06-13T04:00:00.001-07:002013-06-13T04:00:00.076-07:00True Treasures<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-T4v9hlXLMAo/UbeKoCTKnxI/AAAAAAAAC-4/f-IqCc1ER8s/s1600/IMG_2629.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-T4v9hlXLMAo/UbeKoCTKnxI/AAAAAAAAC-4/f-IqCc1ER8s/s1600/IMG_2629.JPG" height="298" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">City of my heart.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To resume the posts about my trip with a girlfriend to the Nord back in February, we drove up Nord to go to Nove for ceramics and Venice for masks. So after that night in Padova, we headed to Nove. We'd been told to go to Ceramiche VBC. I was expecting a town like Vietri sul Mare, which is the Nove of the Sud. A town devoted to ceramic production, except in a way better location - the Amalfi Coast is so unbelievably gorgeous! But the Nord has it's charms, too. And each region of Italy has a different style of ceramics. There is an area of Tuscany also famous for ceramics, Deruta. Then Sicily has this gorgeous, red scroll with a spot of turquoise style.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nove came about because I was talking to a friend in our base department store when a friend of hers stopped by on the way to the post office. She mentioned that she was mailing a Tiffany bowl from Nove to a friend. In my mind, there was a record scratch stop. Tiffany? Nove? What? She pulled out this most beautiful, white lattice basket that I wanted to snatch out of her hands and run away quickly. Now I like ceramics fine, but I'm not overboard. Until I saw this bowl that is. I could not get it out of my head. I told Nathan about it. He Who Cares Nothing For Ceramics and Wants No More Ceramics or Stuff of Any Kind in Our House. That's how much I liked it - I actually mentioned a material thing I wanted. I asked Nathan how he thought I could convince my friend to go with me on a driving trip all the way up to Nove. His answer: "Ask her. I don't think you'll have to do much convincing." Good advice, since it took her about 2.7 seconds to agree to accompany me. In her words, "Otherwise, I'll just be sitting on my sofa watching TV. And you're chatty, so it's sort of like TV."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We headed into Nove and found a town nothing like Vietri sul Mare. In Vietre, you park your car in any of the numerous spots that are easily found, and start walking - the pedestrian zone is all ceramic stores. In Nove, the town looks like a town. A supermarket here, gas station there, sign for random ceramic store down that street. We managed to find VBC (thank you again, Steve Jobs!) and thought we'd spend a little time, then move on to another store. Ha! We closed down VBC at their 1pm Riposo. At which time the son of the (?) owner was so desperate for us to leave that he was offering us all kinds of discounts to buy the things I was dithering over and just get out. But VBC is amazing. Filled with ceramics made for fancy stores like Tiffany's and regular stores like Home Goods. It reminded me of the time in college when I did a Service Project to Jamaica, and we visited a local bra factory where dozens of women sat at sewing machines all day sewing bras. One lady showed us her work, and in pulling out the bras she'd completed that day, we saw bras with uber fancy brand labels and bras with discount department store labels. Sewn by the same lady. But I suppose it's all in the design. And the Tiffany ceramics were gorgeous! And I bought my coveted basket (please, please, please don't let it break in this upcoming move).</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--i0vq2icfzc/UbeKmmUNTeI/AAAAAAAAC-0/RFOSonqOzL0/s1600/IMG_4753.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--i0vq2icfzc/UbeKmmUNTeI/AAAAAAAAC-0/RFOSonqOzL0/s1600/IMG_4753.JPG" height="320" width="304" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A very bad photo of Elephant (taken very quicky for our<br />
Personal Property shipment). Sadly, I have no photos of<br />
the actual store. Because the owner has photos up<br />
EVERYWERE saying "No Photos;" which hasn't<br />
stopped other bloggers. I'm just wimpy. So if you really<br />
want to see more of her work, use the Google.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After a great morning of ceramics buying, we headed to Venice, my favorite city on the planet. Venice and Paris switch off with each other being my #1 and #2. Venice is just so fabulously unique. Back in November, when I'd gone to Venice with my sister, I'd insisted we search for a mask store I'd seen on a Venice trip with my friend a year and a half earlier, and after three hours, still couldn't find it. I thought I remembered where it was, but Venice's winding alleys and canals got the better of me. The next day, I managed to find an actual address for Rugadoro that took us right to it. I had regretted not getting a mask from Rugadoro for a year and a half, and then I had a baby. Rugadoro's masks are handmade using vintage, Italian fabrics in a patchwork style and crafted into animal shapes. They are incredibly unique. Baby Nora was getting a Rugadoro mask. Nathan and I picked out a Giraffe, but we really loved the unfinished Elephant she had hanging on the wall. She does not mail them, though, and we weren't going to be in Venice long enough for her to finish. After leaving Venice in November, just like my previous obsession for Rugadoro masks, I could not get the Elephant out of my head. I called the shop owner before the Nove trip and asked if she had an Elephant mask completed. Was she open on the Tuesday that I could be in Venice? Did she close for Riposo? Would she save Elephant for me? Was she sure? I called back to re-ask all my same questions. And Nora came home with a wonderful Elephant mask while I thought that I have a very weird life if I can just "pop into Venice" for an afternoon to pick up a mask.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Back in the November trip to Venice, my sister and I met a middle aged, American lady who had decided about a year prior that she'd always wanted to live in Venice, and she wasn't getting any younger, so she decided that if she didn't make a bold move then, she never would. She was trying to work as a masseuse, but it was difficult. Still, she loved Venice and was following a dream...and having a blast. That lady will never know how much her five minute story inspired me. The material things we've been able to collect on this European vacation are beautiful and special, but the memories, friends, and inspirational people are the true treasures that will live in our hearts.</span></div>
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Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01542646742152025178noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160771741625735055.post-6545973993598342802013-06-12T04:00:00.000-07:002013-06-12T04:00:00.646-07:00Why I Shouldn't Waste My Time Cleaning<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a little break from the posts about my February Trip to the Nord, never let it be said that I don't know how to get out of doing housework. To start at the beginning, Salvatore is still here. Don't know who Salvatore is? Read this post: <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8160771741625735055#editor/target=post;postID=8084077021855270599;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=5;src=postname">Salvatore</a>. One day, turned into two, turned into the rest of my time in this house - eight more days. There aren't even any more pretensions that Salvatore and his assistant, Guiseppe, will finish soon. Today, my landlord stopped by and assured me that no work would be done inside (I didn't realize there was still a question about that since in my mind, there would absolutely not be anymore work inside), and he ended with, "Outside is no problem?" Since I've sort of gotten used to Salvatore and Guiseppe hanging about, I agreed that it is no problem.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I did notice that my landlord gave Salvatore the key to my house today. That's a little problem. But really, I'm just too tired to pursue it. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Side note: Guiseppe plays my favorite, contemporary Christian music on his </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">boom box</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> (is that the term the kids use these days?), and he even sings along, so at least I get a show each day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As I've written before, we live in something resembling Fort Knox. Bars on every window and steel barred doors, metal shutters that roll down electrically in between the metal bars and our locking windows. These metal bars are painted white and show every bit of dirt that floats around so heavily in the air here. I gave up cleaning them a long time ago. I did realize that upon moving out, we'd probably need to clean these beasts. So this morning, before Salvatore's 8am arrival and gung ho work ethic took over my yard, I spent 45 minutes, a roll of paper towels, and half a bottle of cleaner wiping down every single, horizontal bar on my front door, 8 foot tall, metal shutters. I certainly didn't get every speck of dirt, but they were looking good. Now only nine sets to go.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SH9TcSDaAi8/Ubd8bfJDHkI/AAAAAAAAC-g/MM3uovgQGU8/s1600/IMG_3218.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SH9TcSDaAi8/Ubd8bfJDHkI/AAAAAAAAC-g/MM3uovgQGU8/s1600/IMG_3218.JPG" height="298" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My walk into the village. From this, you can see why I am greatly looking<br />
forward to moving to a town with wide sidewalks, even a waterfront<br />
boardwalk with NO traffic. But you can't beat the view here of<br />
Pozzuoli, known as Puteoli in antiquity. Oh...if you think those are<br />
sidewalks on either side of the road, think again. It's trick photography.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For lunch, I walked into the village. Actually, I was walking to the rosticceria to pick up a chicken. Then I realized that we have dinner planned for the next four nights and don't need a chicken. So I decided to walk on to Baby Ciu Ciu, this super fancy, baby clothing store - Baby Armani, anyone? Only 156 euros for a dress! But last summer, I stopped in one time, not realizing they were so fancy, and discovered that they have a sale room where things were 5 and 10 euros. Much more my speed. Yet for some reason, I haven't been back. One last visit to Baby Ciu Ciu netted Nora a pair of totally cool, harem style blue jeans, a hippie top, and a baby bandana that is too cute for words. Then we went to La Piazzetta for pizza, my favorite pizza near our house. Naturally, Nora fell asleep for her afternoon nap when I was on my next to last bite of pizza, necessitating a 30 minute stop on the way home at the gelateria while I waited out the rest of her nap. The things I have to do for that Baby.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZMmY5yHRYIE/Ubd8ZQkSjQI/AAAAAAAAC-c/HnaVMLHagU8/s1600/IMG_3216.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZMmY5yHRYIE/Ubd8ZQkSjQI/AAAAAAAAC-c/HnaVMLHagU8/s1600/IMG_3216.JPG" height="298" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A nicer view of the village.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> I got home, Salvatore <strike>caught</strike> noticed</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> me </span><strike style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">sneaking</strike><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> entering into my front door and called me around to the front of the house to show me that he was power washing all the bars. Yes, including the front door, the one I'd spent 45 minutes of precious, precious free time cleaning. Dang it! But my bedroom window was open, so he hadn't been able to do that one and wanted me to close the window immediately. I did so, then got busy playing with Baby. And a little thought finally worked its way into my brain that reminded me of our totally crappy windows. So horrible that in the winter (i.e., rainy season), we have to keep towels in the windowsills to soak up all the rain that floods around the edges. I started going through </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> house, and sure enough, every single room had floods of water in it. Salvatore is extremely thorough in his power washing. And since we no longer have any of our stuff, we also do not have scrap towels to clean up messes. I went outside to get Salvatore, he called Guiseppe, the two of them grabbed a mop and some towels they found somewhere, and they started mopping up all the water.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And that's how I got the inside of my house cleaned, too! Since our house cleaner has had some family, medical emergencies going on for the past six weeks, we've been a little on the dusty side. But not anymore. Sparkling floors, compliments of Salvatore's fastidious power washing. I know it was fastidious because he told me so. Fastidioso. He told me that he is fastidioso with his own home. I'm not sure if he was remarking that he ALSO (as in, like me) is a fastidious cleaner, or if he meant that in HIS home, it is fastidiously cleaned (as in, completely unlike mine). I don't really care. All I know is my floors are now clean and I didn't have to clean them. Salvatore can stay as long as he wants. And Singing Guiseppe, too.</span></div>
Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01542646742152025178noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160771741625735055.post-40325374455246165252013-06-11T04:00:00.000-07:002013-06-11T04:00:00.723-07:00To the Nord<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JY4MrH57Xh0/UbW_aDm-nSI/AAAAAAAAC-E/bgH0e0jJTjQ/s1600/IMG_4215.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JY4MrH57Xh0/UbW_aDm-nSI/AAAAAAAAC-E/bgH0e0jJTjQ/s1600/IMG_4215.JPG" height="266" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In February, a friend and I headed to the Nord for two things: 1. A visit to Nove, the town which produces all your ceramics you buy in America that say "Made in Italy" on the bottom of them, and 2. For me to go into Venice and buy an elephant mask from my favorite mask shop, Rugadoro. With a baby, ceramics shopping, and a delicate mask to procure, we decided to drive, so we planned a route that allowed us a sit down lunch in the beautiful, Umbrian hill town of Orvieto. We stretched our legs a little, wandered the town, took a look at the Duomo (one of Italy's prettiest Duomo facades, I think), then headed on to our evening stop, Padova. Also known as Padua, of Taming of the Shrew fame.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We picked Padova because it was a largish town centrally located between Nove and Venice, which we'd be visiting all in one day. We thought we'd have a lot of evening options for food and such. We were wrong. Padova did not impress on our drive to the hotel, but we set off gamely for dinner, very hungry. In a couple of blocks, we landed on one of the most beautiful piazzas - and this thing wasn't even mentioned in any of our guidebooks. We'd heard nothing about it at all. Yet it's huge! A center, circular park is dominated by paths and benches and little bridges that go over a moat into it. Ringing this is an extremely wide bike, skate, and walking path...with people on it, too! In Naples, this thing would hold six lanes of traffic, but here in the Nord, a few people were casually skating by. Surrounding this pedestrian ring is the traffic ring. Only two lanes and these are shared with a very modern, bullet shaped, quiet tram that takes people who knows where. We never got on it.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Turns out this is the Basilica of St. Anthony, and one of only eight<br />international shrines recognized as such by the Holy See - so it's a big deal...<br />and reminds me of why I used to actually read guidebooks instead of<br />just stuffing them into the bottom of the stroller.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We wandered beneath frescoed arcades and happened upon a stunning, domed Duomo. But still no food. Padova was impressing us with it's beauty, but the one restaurant our hotel had recommended was closed, and we were having no luck in our wanders finding an alternate. We finally spotted the teeniest doorway to a place that looked like it might serve food, and sure enough, upon looking in, we'd found a darling restaurant. La Bimba was fast asleep in her stroller, so we excitedly opened the door...and were told we couldn't bring the stroller in. This late at night, taking La Bimba out of her stroller and holding her while she just wanted to sleep was a guaranteed recipe for a miserable dinner not only for myself but for everyone else in the restaurant as well. The despair must have shown on my face because another lady rushed up to us and began moving chairs and tables and creating just a perfect little space for us to fit that stroller in. And so we ended our Padova day with a lovely walk and dinner and high hopes for the Nove and Venice "errands" the next day.</span></div>
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Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01542646742152025178noreply@blogger.com0