Touring Aversa

Today I took a tour into the nearby town of Aversa. This is not a town that would be on any tourist's route because it's attractions can also be found in locations that are prettier, more easily accessible, and in far greater number. But Aversa is our nearest large city to the Support Site base with a handy, little bus which picks up right outside the gates and drops passengers off at the Aversa train station - which connects us with downtown Napoli and Rome, and thus, the rest of the country. But Aversa on its own is a nice destination for military families living out here. The town has over 100 churches, one of which we toured (not the one in the photo).

The cathedral we toured has one of the most gorgeous interiors of any I've ever seen. A friend who has traveled throughout Europe once remarked to me that once you've seen one cathedral, you've seen them all. She didn't mean it quite that literally, but on my backpacking trip back in 2003, I began to understand. There's a cathedral on every street corner, and they all hold remarkable paintings, plasterwork, altars, etc. It's very easy to quickly reach cathedral apathy. The cathedral we toured today, though, was stunning. The walls and ceilings were painted white, so even with the soaring arches overhead, we could clearly make out the ornate plasterwork. Marble floors were being buffed as we walked by staring at the artwork, and then we reached the truly amazing parts. Normans conquered this region back in the 1000s or so. At that time, they built this cathedral, and in the back of the church, we could see the part of the church still standing that was built by those Normans over 1000 years ago. In addition, some surviving, plaster panels were on display with artwork unlike most European cathedral art. As one of our tour members commented, the panels had a design more reminiscent of the South Pacific than of what we'd think of as Celtic influenced. In addition there was a replica of Mary's (mother of Jesus) house set right into the front of the cathedral. There are often little side chapels and the like, but this was an entire, freestanding house. Apparently, after Mary died, a wealthy family from around here brought her house to the region and put it on their land. This cathedral had a replica built of it and has turned it into a gorgeous chapel. Unfortunately, photographs were forbidden. I would have loved to share this place in photos with you.

Aversa has a small historic section, and while wandering up the main, historic street, we came across this:

Just an old column supporting this building, containing a clothing store. Living with this ever-present reminder of ancient history seems so overwhelming to me. Everywhere I turn, there are ruins or churches a millenia old, or ornately-carved decorations on crumbly, old buildings that are probably 300+ years old, or a lake that the ancients thought was the portal to Hades (more on that later since we'll be living about 1/2 a mile from it - yep. we're moving in next door to Hell - fantastic. I hear there is a lovely, little nature walk around it, enhanced by the faint smell of sulfur.). I want to learn about all of it, but I start reading the history of one little thing, which leads to all these other tangents, and then I get lost in the mythological world of Sirens and Hades and Sybil the Oracle (we're also living just down the street from her cave).

Aversa also offers a nice bit of shopping, including several outlets, a mozzarella di bufala shop, restaurants, and a wine store that sells wine out of humongous, metal vats for 1.5 euros per liter (a liter is slightly larger than a typical bottle of wine). The shopkeeper sticks your bottle (your own or one you buy for .20) under a tap, much like a soda fountain. There were about 10 wines to choose from. I tried the first tonight - it's not going to win any awards from me, but for 1.5euros, it tastes great!

When Nathan returned home, we headed out to visit Auchan...Italy's version of WalMart. Surprise, surprise - we did NOT get lost on the way, but then, we weren't using the GPS. At Auchan, I was just overwhelmed by such a large store after weeks of not seeing anything like it. It has a lot of groceries, which we skipped on by to check out the wine and liquor sections. They are excellent, by the way. We'd planned to then stop at the nearby Decathalon (think Sports Authority), but the sheer volume of people and stuff in Auchan forced us to take cover in the car and plan our retreat. We'll storm the castle another day.

Getting Lost Again

It seems to be a theme with us that as soon as we leave the base, we get lost. And that is using the GPS (aka StupidHead). Our GPS is not good. Yesterday, she took us on one of those very narrow streets, lined with cars on both sides, around a corner which took a 3-point turn to make, only to find it was a dead end and we then had to back out! On the plus side, we see a lot of interesting things by getting lost. Yesterday, after the realtor dropped us back to the base, we drove back downtown in order to explore the area around the house. Here's what we passed when we got lost going the long way to the house:

This is at the Pozzuoli Amphitheatre. We parked the car and stood in front of the blue box we thought was the parking meter receipt box. After staring at it for a minute trying to figure out how to work it, we realized the photos next to the buttons showed couples in intimate positions. The little machine we were trying to pay for parking was actually just selling condoms. Everything is an adventure.

Napoli has this marvelous thing called the Artecard which allows entry into over 60 museums / sites for either 3, 7, or 365 days. We haven't found a place to buy our Artecard yet, and this site, while included in the entry, doesn't actually sell the card. So we had to content ourselves with pictures through the iron fence until a time when we can actually spend time exploring it. Good thing we didn't waste our money on a parking condom.

We eventually made our way to the house we hope to rent and explored the area. I'm very happy with it. The only thing missing within walking distance are some shops for clothes/shoes/home items, a supermarket, and a weekly produce market. For those, I'll have to drive or take the metro. The other drawback is that the garage is only a two car with no other outdoor space for parking, so we have some decisions to make in regards to my Cinquecento. We did, however, see cars parked along the street (nice cars) and not a one of them had the wheel lock, so I'm hopeful that means the neighborhood is nice. (Many cars have this lock that covers the entire steering wheel & column to prevent hotwiring - theft is a huge deal here.).

We now have an appointment for a contract, but it's not a done deal. The landlady may decide to continue showing the house even though we have a contract appointment. The Housing Office here will not show the house to anyone else (supposedly), but there are many NATO countries represented here in Napoli, so if the landlady wants to continue showing the house, she might do so.

Nathan has gone to work today - his first day. I plan on reading the mountain of paperwork we were provided last week and getting it into some semblance of organization. We'll take it easy for a couple of days and meet our realtor on Thursday in order to develop our list of negotiating points. We'll go over the house carefully and list anything we want the landlady to do for us before we agree to rent. It's really an interesting process over here - so different than anything we're used to. We'll keep you updated.

Vineyard House vs Villa by the Sea

My 2nd post for today (so scroll down first and read my post from this morning!).

Yesterday, a realtor showed us an incredible "country" house attached to a very small vineyard. Vincenzo, the owner, has a "casa piccola" (little house) behind the vineyard where he comes everyday to tinker with the plants, make coffee, take a little nap. Nathan hit it off with Enzo, despite neither of them speaking the other's language. The house is huge, with five bedrooms, three bathrooms, a laundry room we could play soccer in, covered terrace surrounding the upstairs rooms, and the rooftop...one huge, tiled terrace with 360 degree mountain / countryside views. The property has lemon trees, kiwi vines, grapes, roses - the list goes on. To get to the house, you drive off of the main road onto a narrow, 1.5 car width lane that passes by beautiful ruins of an underground city. It's quite interesting to think of driving by this every time we return home. Then it's up, up, up the small lane - when you meet another car, one of you must back up until reaching a driveway to pull into and allow the other car to pass. Despite this remoteness, the house is only a 10 minute drive to the Pozzuoli port (the port in the blog from about three days ago). Before we left, Enzo disappeared into his casa piccola and returned with 5 liters of his homemade wine as a gift for us. We're both a bit in love with Enzo.

We thought this was the house for us. But today, another realtor took us to the "villa by the sea." This one is all about outdoor living. Park in the garage at street level, then head up the stairs and onto the terrace. The house is all on one level with very small interiors - a living room, kitchen, three bedrooms (small) and 1.5 bathrooms. The 2nd bathroom does have a shower head in it with a rack to hang a curtain, however, when you pull the curtain closed, the toilet would be in your shower with you. So I'm going to call it just a half bath. The floors are traditional, Italian tile - each room has a different pattern, and we find them gorgeous, although they're not to everyone's taste. The outdoor terrace is larger than the interior, and also includes a "casa piccola" for the landlady to use on weekends (she has her own entrance from the street). It has a large grassy area for Crazy Dog, and in the back corner, an outdoor kitchen, complete with an old pizza oven and marble washing tub (one of the ones with the top that flips over and has the washing board grooves on the other side). Continue on around to the back of the house, and there is a covered patio and a cantina / wine cellar built into the slope. There are floor to ceiling wine racks with room for hundreds of bottles - more wine than we could drink in a lifetime! The front terrace has a view of treetops in front, and off to the side, a nice sea view.

Quite nice...then we were directed up a set of outdoor stairs. The house became ours the minute we set foot upstairs. A rooftop terrace with unobstructed sea views - Capri and the Sorentine peninsula in the distance. Smack in the middle of this terrace is what the landlady called the "gazebo." A little different from what a U.S. gazebo is like - it's a fixed structure with metal frame and roof, but completely glassed in - I believe the closest comparison might be a greenhouse. And the clincher - a gelateria is just two blocks away, along with a little shop to purchase the wine and bufala di mozzarella, several restaurants, a metro stop to get into town, and a free beach where we can take Crazy Dog in evenings and winter. And the clincher to the clincher, the landlady owns a hotel in the next village over that has swimming pools and hot tub. Her tenants are allowed to use the pools. Yes!

We basically begged the landlady (through our realtor) to not show the house to anyone else today, and plan to be at the Housing Office tomorrow when they open in order to put in a contract on the house. We do have some concerns b/c our realtor told us the landlady wants a price much higher than we can pay, but that she told the landlady what we could afford and that's what we'll pay. She also said the landlady is fine with us having a dog, but I'm not sure "Mama" (as Nathan asked to call her, she's 86 years old and a firecracker) actually knows we have a dog. I think we're okay on no one taking the house out from under us b/c it's very different from what most American families want and definitely has some drawbacks - no dishwasher (egads!), only room for a tiny stove, small interior, only one shower, small garage with no way to enter the house w/o going outside (so in cold & rain, it will be a pain), but for us, it meets every single wish we had on our list. During this contract negotiation process, we'll have to give up our hold on Enzo's country house. It will go quickly to someone else, so if this house falls through, we'll be back to square one. My biggest concern is the price, but we have to give trust to our realtor that she's being honest with us. She's come highly recommended - I haven't had a single negative review of her, so let's hope all goes well!

Fishy Friday

Our final day of briefs was a City Tour. One of the great services on base is an "Intercultural Relations" office staffed by three Italians. They do tours around the region, language classes, cooking classes, etc. So on Friday, we boarded a bus and took it to the Joint Forces Command (JFC), the NATO base here in Napoli. JFC is right downtown with a Metro Stop only a couple of blocks away. From there, our leader, Giuseppe, showed us how and where to buy the proper, public transit ticket, and off we went on the Metro. We wandered through a very nice little area in downtown that included a market.

We also visited Galleria Umberto again (aka, "the mall"), wandered down to the sea, then took a funicular up the hill to the area of Vomero. Vomero is lovely! A two block pedestrian zone that is lined with trees, breezy and cool compared to being down in the city, and unfortunately, full of apartment living only (and expensive apartments at that).  After a fun stroll through this area, back to the 2nd funicular line and down to the Naples seafront. While there is a nice, wide boardwalk here, it was hot, hot, hot! We did, however, get to stop and watch these fisherman clean their catch:

If you can't make out what he's cleaning, click on the photo to enlarge it. Then you should be able to see the tentacles wrapped around his arm.

We had a nice day out, which was a good ending to long days of sitting in the base theater listening to briefs. I'm so glad we had such a thorough orientation, and I really did enjoy most of it, but I'm exhausted! As someone described it, we got a "firehose" of information.

We've spent the weekend house-hunting, and I'll do an update on our search later today or tomorrow.

Exploring via Auto

We finished today's orientation schedule early and decided to head out on our first major exploration in the car. As I've written numerous times, we are staying out in the country. As we want to live down near the coast, we wanted to drive around in the area and take a look at the various villages / towns. A couple from our orientation joined us, and off we went. Yet again, we had no plan and no directions. Nathan was here in June and drove all over in his rental car, so he was hoping to find some roads he recognized and take a little coastal drive. We got off the autostrada (freeway) and headed down to the sea, driving under this interesting ruin (possibly the remains of a Roman aqueduct?)



 Driving the coastal road was harrowing at times, but had some great views.

 Early on in our trip, we got our first Naples "kiss:"

Following this minor issue, we took off of the main road and ended up in a very narrow shopping district. Great little town - I think it was Bacoli. Very cute, clean (!), nice shops and restaurants. Did I already mention the narrow street? It was time for passagieta (stroll - many Italians go for a stroll in the early evening), so the already narrow street had cars parked on one side and pedestrians strolling on both sides - no sidewalks. With our windows down, as we passed one group, we heard a lady give a small yelp, indicating we may have ever so slightly bumped her. Actually, she was a little behind us, so she bumped us as we were passing. Or...she'd just noticed the "SALDI" sign in the shoe store. Regardless, since we were only moving about .25 miles per hour (and no one started screaming or chasing after us), it was not a huge issue, and as our new friend, D., commented later on in the evening (when we were complimenting Nathan on his driving), the driving was a success - we only hit one car and one pedestrian (maybe). We're going to call this one a win.

One last photo to leave you with - the port of Pozzuoli. We'd very much like to live somewhere near here. However, we hear from realtor after realtor that there is just no inventory right now and that this is unusual. It must be unusual because when we talk to other military families about our house search, they say things like, "Oh, you'll see 60, 70 houses. You'll find a good one." Meanwhile one realtor had one house to show us, another had nothing, yet another says she has nothing but will try to find something by Saturday (when we're due to meet her), and our Sunday appointment also said there is nada, or should I say "niente!"

Outside the Wire

A few days back, we had a brief from the Commanding Officer (amazingly, he took over two hours out of his day to talk to us about the region - that's a lot of time for a busy man to spend with us), and he referred to the Support Site (where we temporarily live) as Mayberry, but encouraged us to "get outside the wire," meaning, "go off base, explore, don't stay in Little America all the time or you'll miss out." This base is Mayberry in some ways...kids can play safely, people can walk at night, your car window will still be intact in the morning, and you can go to sleep at night without lowering the lockdown shutters that cover every window and door. But it's a Mayberry surrounded by barbed wire, armed guards, and Hum-Vees manned by assault-weaponed, Italian Army types. Thus...get outside the wire to experience the real Italy.

We did just that tonight. We, along with another couple from our orientation class, drove to a nearby restaurant (Country House) using our GPS to get there. In order to go places here, you put in GPS coordinates, rather than a street name. We tried checking the restaurant's coordinates with Google Earth per instructions, but couldn't figure that out, so off we went anyway. Error one happened within a block of the gate when we accidentally got on the highway. No problem, the GPS recalculated and got us turned around. We followed that stupid GPS straight to our "destination," which took us to someone's house. Thankfully, we avoided the Chevy Chase error of knocking on the door to look for "sex." For some reason, I then suggested we just drive around looking for a street name we recognized (I don't know why I thought we'd recognize a street name in a foreign country in a town none of us had ever visited, but that became our plan.). And we eventually, after a few turns, found the restaurant - nowhere near where the GPS took us and down a very long driveway with only a small sign at the road. Not a clue how we managed to find this.

We had an absolutely delicious dinner...our first real dinner "outside the wire" that was not pizza! Caprese salad, antipasti, calamari, lobster, pasta, clams, mussles, tiramisu, chocolate souffle, and a bottle of wine. Absolutely delicious. I ordered the special of the day, lobster pasta, thinking it would be pasta with lumps of lobster. Nope - the plate showed up with half of it a yummy pasta dish and the other half a humongous lobster tail. I've never had one of these that I had to crack open myself. It went fairly well. When it came time to use the cracker thingies, I only lost the lobster half off the plate rather than shooting it across the room.

About this time during dinner, it occurred to us that we should have taken a GPS waypoint back at the base so we'd know how to get home. The food was good, wine even better, so we decided to worry about getting home once we were in the car. The restaurant is really only about 1-2 miles from the base, so we decided to follow our earlier plan of just driving around. Nathan gets the points for making not a single wrong turn!  [Note: Nathan was our driver and had only one regular-sized glass of wine - our rule while here in Italy for the designated driver.]

A mostly successful day. Really the only disturbing point was while at our little fieldtrip to the Housing Warehouse (where we took a look at the washers/dryers/fridges that we can have on loan), I noticed the sign below in a nearby garden:

Can't wait to try Limoncello now!

We Are Mobile...

Author: Stephanie

There is a gas strike beginning tonight at 10pm. Italians are genius at their strikes. I'm not quite sure what they are unhappy about, but for this strike, they have announced that no gas will be available from 10pm tonight through Friday night. As a side note, Italians do not have unions that will pay them when they strike, so a strike means no pay. When the transportation workers strike, they pick the time of day to strike. For example, the air traffic controllers may strike from 8am-noon, pilots will strike from noon-5pm, and some other group will strike from 5pm-midnight...or some such schedule. In this way, they can completely halt all air traffic for the day while still getting a half day's pay. See...genius.

Because of this upcoming strike, we were hot under our collars to get our car out of "jail" today in time to get a fill up. When you ship a car overseas, it must have virtually no gas in it. We shipped our car way back in July in order to have it here as soon as we arrived. This has proven to be a good idea since the base where we temporarily live is out in the country, and public transportation into Naples takes approximately 1.5 hours. Driving time is only half an hour, but public transportation is via bus, then train, then bus again.

In order to get our car, conveniently located right here on this base behind a locked fence, we had to go through a two hour Safety / Driving brief, which taught us the actual rules coupled with discussion on how Neapolitans ignore most of them. Then time for the driving exam on road signs. Sadly, "no french horns" was not one of the multiple choice answers for the sign in my previous blog.  We were allowed to miss two questions on the 88 question exam. I made 100% on my exam. Nathan missed two. I have to include this information b/c the reality is that Nathan will be a much better driver here than me, so I have to take my kudos where I can get them.

We then raced over to the on-base DMV office to get the AFI (Armed Forces Italy) plates, get our car insurance restarted for Italy, and get registration, then Nathan ran to the "fence" to liberate the car while I ran to the Exchange (dept. store) to get our gas coupons. (Yet another side note, the Italian government puts a very high tax on gas. The govt has allowed the U.S. govt to sell us a set amount of tax-free gas rations each month). Nathan ran out quickly in the afternoon to get a gas fill-up, so we could have a little freedom despite the gas strike! Yay! And we've just heard of a restaurant nearby with decent food, so now we can get to it.

Finally, I forgot to let you all know that yesterday's briefs included the very important "What to do if Mt. Vesuvius erupts and does not kill you instantly." The military disguised the title by calling it "Emergency Management." You will all be glad to know that Mt. Vesuvius's threat level is at Basic, which is the bottom of four possible levels, and it has been at Basic for the last 10 years. Furthermore, there is now monitoring which provides an early warning, so theoretically, we would have time to evacuate. As this was second on my concern list, next to our housing, yesterday was all around a successful day. And getting our car AND gasoline made today pretty great, too! The Volvo will arrive in about 6 weeks, but I'm on the hunt for a cheap little (very, very, very little) car called the Cinquecento for around town. Here's a photo, and if I can find the outfit this lady is wearing, all the better...

P.S.

I LOVE comments on the blog. If you're following it and feel like posting even a quick comment, I welcome it!

Yippee!

We have received our "non-availability" letter from the Housing office. This means we are officially released to get housing "on the economy" [out in town]. We are actually 17th on the waiting list, so housing is pretty full right now. And even better, we're released right now, but in four months, housing then gives us the option to move onto base again. It's an option only. So if we secure housing on the economy, then find out our utility bills are unaffordable or we live in an unsafe area, or anything else that is really horrible, then we can move onto base at that time. Or we can continue on in our house in town.

We're very excited. Unfortunately, both realtors we've talked to have no real options for us in the area we want to live. We're hoping for a single-family house, behind gates, with an ocean-view. This may sound like a tall order, but it's what most military families have, so it's not a complete reach. It's just that for the same reason base housing is full, so is military-desired, town housing full. We're at the end of PCS [transfer] season, so other families have come in and snagged all the good stuff.

In other news, tomorrow we take our Italy driver's license. For this, we need a current U.S. license and to pass a written test on Italian road signs. We've been studying. Here are some of my favorites - see if you can guess what they mean.

I'm not sure that this one really exists as I spent over 1/2 an hour trying to find a clear picture on the internet of one. I finally resorted to taking a blurry photo of our study paper:

Any guesses? I'll give you a hint: The triangle indicates a yield.

If you guessed, as I did, "Yield to french horns," that is incorrect. My next guess was "yield to parades." Wrong again.

This means "yield right-of-way when meeting bus on mountain road."

Another favorite is this one:

This does NOT mean "No Amish people." In reality, it means, "No animal drawn carts." There's yet another one for "No pushcarts," which looks an awful lot like a farmer pushing a hand-plow. And the final one to show you is not one we were actually given to study. I found it in my search for photos of road signs we actually have to know. But this is my favorite:

We're not sure what this sign means, but we sure hope we get to see it in person. Our best guess is: "Slow down, crucifixion going on ahead."
There is actually an even better road sign here in Italy, but you'll have to check Nathan's Facebook page to see it.

Alleyways and Neon Jesus

Here are a few photos of our first day of touring around Naples. We first started by following a little walking tour out of our Lonely Planet Naples guidebook. That took us to Santissima Annunziata, a church which was closed. But attached to it was the better site anyway - an old orphanage with a baby drop-off wheel:

Drop off your baby!

That window overlooks an alley. A nun sat on this side waiting for the wheel to spin, where she would then bathe the child in this little basin before registering it into the orphanage.

 Shortly hereafter, we just started off wandering, and headed to a pizzeria. We have no idea where we were, but found a little pizzeria on a side street. We figured that in Naples, it would be impossible to get a bad pizza. While the pizza was delicious...

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Our first pizza in Naples - yummmmm!

 the best was the picture of Jesus framed in neon on the wall behind the brick ovens.

Brick Ovens, Pizza Artist, and Neon Jesus

We're all for Jesus, and if having Him framed in neon helped make our pizza taste as good as it did, then bring on the neon.

More wandering led us past fantastic alleys...

Laundry, Laundry everywhere...electricity is too expensive to use dryers; also notice the blue bucket about 2/3 down in the pic - this is apartment "shopping." The lady holding the bucket on a rope lowers it for her items, pulls them up, then lowers money.

By complete accident, we found one of the most famous streets in Naples:

Via San Greggorio Armeno, home to presepi (nativity) artisans. Sadly, the presepi are made out of bark & moss, which the USDA bans from importation. These are one of the top "souvenirs" of Naples.

Here it is...my first Neapolitan gelato. Pistachio. Yum, Yum, Yum.

The mall; yep, that's our shopping mall.

And finally, this is some castle. I'm sure I've seen it listed in guidebooks. We were just headed to our bus and came upon it, so I have no additional info at this time.

We had a great first day walking around. It was definitely key to just get lost as we got off the main, really congested streets and got a feel for the Neapolitan life. We even got to witness some sort of intense, Jerry Springerish, lady fight which had all the locals coming out of their houses, staring and shaking their heads. Sadly, no pics of that.
I've seen other blogs with photo albums attached, so eventually, we'll include some album links. Ciao for now.

Nathan's post

We had a great day today, and I plan to post lots of pics...maybe after I get my second wind tonight. For now, here is Nathan's Facebook post (for those of you who are not on FB or are not FB friends with him):

Diario Italiano (11th Sept - Noi Arriviamo)
by Nathaniel Straub on Saturday, September 11, 2010 at 9:51pm

Well, three months later, here I am with entry number two. I am really sorry, but the commitment was never really there - if you read the inaugural post. the fact that I have returned - or arrived as it were - is testimony already to this incredible place. So let's begin.

That I write this note on 11 Sept is part coincidence and part [i don't know what]. The fact remains that as much as I love and am going to love living here, I cherish my home country, America, her people, and her way. So this paragraph is a nod to my home, friends, and family. We love you and will always keep you close - no matter how far we have traveled.

We have arrived! Arriviamo!!! After "much ado," there is a great deal more than "about nothing." For starters, we have sold everything except the two cars (boat, home, ... the big stuff). We are in Naples, living in a temporary apartment on the Navy base. We get the skinny on living conditions next week. More about that as things develop. Let's just hope that they do... develop.

I spent my 36th birthday on the road and in the air and arrived on the continent on Wednesday (9/8). Jet lag and endless briefings/presentations threatened to ruin any excitement, BUT NAY! We would not be deterred. We spent the day today - our first free day - on the town. We really did get lost on the grid of endless alleys and by-ways, but it was not an accident. You see, Stephanie and I subscribe to a travel philosophy that requires one to fully abandon any plan or agenda - to lose one's self in a place. We stepped off of the bus (we don't yet have a car = good thing?) and into the heart of bella Napoli. We wandered - sometimes past a spot familiar to me from the last visit but by accident - with the intent of discovery. Discover we did. We had a guidebook, and with its help, we learned a little and enjoyed a lot. Alleys, pizza, caffe, gelato. It was all there aplenty. At one point we looked up and realized that we needed to get back to the bus before it turned into a pumpkin.

The key advantage we gain with this lack of planning an a city so vast is that we can get off of the same bus on a different day, walk in almost the same direction, and see a different place - experience a different world - than we did this time. Naples is bombastic, vibrant, joyful, and thrilling. We just love it. We are excited to be here, and I am just as excited to share it with you.

Maybe this is a further commitment to this series. To say we have arrived stretches far beyond Stephanie and me. Welcome to your tour of Naples, Italy, and Europe.

Day One

Author: Stephanie

We slept until 10:30 and would have continued on except for a ringing bell in our apartment. Turns out we have a doorbell, and the maintenance men ringing it were there to clean the mold that covered the bathroom ceiling. Good thing. We then headed off to explore the base where we're living, the Support Site. The Navy has two sites in Naples. The Support Site is just what it sounds like - schools, grocery store, exchange (i.e., department store), barber, hotel, schools, housing, hospital, thrift store, and so on. The Support Site is out in the boondocks, about 20-30 minutes from downtown Naples. The 2nd site is Cappodochino and is located on the back side of the Naples airport. So when you come to visit, Nathan can watch your plane land from his office. We headed off to the thrift store to pick up a book put out by the area Officers' Spouses Club, "Shopping in the Boot," which tells us all about markets, their locations and days of operation, and all sorts of great info. The commissary (grocery store) is very interesting because as I was wondering down the soap aisle, I happened to glance down, and this is what I saw:


The commissary is built on top of ruins. Apparently, almost anything you try to build in these parts is built on top of ruins. So Day One, without even leaving the base, we've gotten to see some Roman ruins. We did actually leave the base on the shuttle bus to the other base in order to see if Nathan's driver's license, which expired yesterday, had arrived from the state of FL. Success! Here's a photo from the bus:

That's Mount Vesuvius. We are that close. Part of our orientation is a safety brief, and I hope it includes the topic "What to do in the event of a large volcanic eruption that doesn't kill you immediately."

Nathan saw our car today, so as soon as we get our international driver's licenses (on Tuesday) and the new registrations, we're mobile! We also checked out the libraries on both bases, and I am very pleased. Each of them had a book I've been wanting that my library back home still had on order. We can also put in requests for books from libraries in the States, so my reading supply will continue, and I didn't have to buy an entire bookcase of books prior to this move. Too late now. We find out tomorrow whether we get to live off base or not, and if it's off base, then we're hoping to spend the weekend house-hunting. Or sight-seeing. Either would be great.

First Hours

Author: Stephanie

We've now been in Napoli for five hours and what a whirlwind. We checked into the air terminal at the Norfolk Naval Air Station on Tuesday night. After checking our mountain o' luggage, we took Scully outside to walk and play for our final couple of hours. Since he'd been at the kennel for a week, we didn't want to put him in his airline crate until the last possible minute, even though the kennel manager told us they'd given him lots of extra treats and walks since it was his last visit. He also went to the dog bar-b-que at their pool, where (we were told) he spent two hours sitting directly by the grill (hotdogs on deck) rather than playing with the other 25 dogs in and around the pool. We have got to train him out of this obsessive begging.

We flew to Naples on a charter flight. The military contracts with commercial airlines to do flights like this, so we were on a normal airline (with a first class section, and sadly, we were NOT in it!). At our layover in the Azores, we landed on the Navy base for refueling, so everyone was off-loaded into a waiting terminal. It is hot there. Pretty...but hot. We, along with the other nine pet owners, were allowed to exit the terminal into a guarded, gated area where our pets had been delivered. We could take them out of their crates, walk them, let them drink out of huge bucket of water provided, and so on. Scully seemed just fine, so we didn't worry during our second leg. For the rest of the flight, I'd asked to move to a seat with a window since some folks had off-loaded for good in the Azores. Nathan elected to stay in his seat, meaning he got two seats to himself and I got the same. This allowed us to stretch out and get a little more rest. We had departed Norfolk after midnight on Tuesday night, and oddly, the flight crew served us dinner about 1am. Since it was long past dinner time for all the destinations of our plane (we had lots of stops, but thankfully, Naples was the second), I'm not sure why we got dinner rather than rest time, but food is food, so we ate it. By the time all of this was over, we only had about two hours of sleep prior to landing in the Azores.

We landed in Naples about an hour early, but our sponsors along with the wife of the Command's XO were waiting to greet us. Another odd event is that we did not go through customs. Families on PCS (Permanent Change of Station) orders were shuttled to a different line than the others on the plane. That visa I had to get (the one that almost didn't arrive in time) was stamped, Nathan showed his orders, and off we went to baggage claim, where Scully awaited and a customs agent did not. What a refreshing lack of bureaucracy.

Our sponsors had arranged for Scully to stay with the daughter of a government service worker here who has a great reputation for keeping dogs. They drove us far out of their way to her house to drop Scully off, where he raced around their humongous yard playing with their dog (Scully has a girlfriend now!) and drank copious amounts of pool water (glad he's not sleeping in my bed tonight!). Then we stopped by their house nearby, and got to see what a typical house available to us is like. One word: gorgeous! Tile floors with mosaic insets, beautiful wood trim, marble staircase, unique iron banisters, rooftop terrace with a view, gated yard. This just reinforced our deep desire to live out in town! They then drove us to the Navy Lodge where we're staying (none of these places are near each other, so our sponsors really went out of their way to help us, not just in this but in a number of other ways). Our sponsors also pushed the Navy Lodge on providing a date for when a pet room would be available to us (it's this Friday), so it's yet another great help. Many of the other pet owners on our flight who were getting off in Naples did not have lodging arranged at all and said they had not been able to secure lodging on base. Several of them were unsure where they were staying. If that had been us, my nerves would have been "all aflutter," in the words of Mrs. Bennett from the PBS version of "Pride & Prejudice," which I got to watch this week with Nathan's Aunt Lisa.

We are in a nice villa with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a full kitchen, living room, laundry room, and outdoor terrace. We'll move to a similar villa on Friday with Scully and expect to live here for 6-8 weeks while awaiting housing (either on base or in town). We dined on parmesan cheese and wine from our sponsors and mac & cheese from the base chapel (the base chapel provides a Welcome Aboard bag which includes some food, and best of all, bottled water - tap water should not be drunk) while watching fireworks from the terrace. We couldn't actually see most of the fireworks due to a large building in the way, but the little we could see was a great welcome.

Tomorrow is a free day. We'll sleep late, go to the grocery store, and something else that I can't remember now due to extreme fatigue. Hopefully I'll remember tomorrow as I'm supposed to call our sponsor for help with it. Orientation begins Friday. Off to sleep now.

Last Minute

Author: Stephanie

We leave tomorrow and have had a great final week visiting family. We spent the last week at Nathan's aunt/uncle's house near Philadelphia, which included a visit with another aunt/uncle up from Alabama, errand running for all our last minute chores, an afternoon kayak trip, and yes, we did do the Segway tour in downtown Philadelphia. I did not fall off, crash, run into a tree, or any other such catastrophe. It was actually a lot of fun. I still can't believe that I made it through the entire tour with no disaster. Nathan is even more surprised. We took some good photos, but I don't have the camera hooked up to the computer right now - I promise to make a better attempt at including photos once we're in Italy! We're spending our last night in Baltimore at my sister's house and enjoying time with her kids (although Nathan is currently out at a sports bar watching the VA Tech football game - it's apparently an important game tonight). We had a little birthday dinner for Nathan since he'll spend his birthday tomorrow traveling to Norfolk and waiting around an airport lounge. I got to read my niece her nightly bedtime books, and my sister picked out "On the Night You Were Born," for me to read. Nathan & I gave our niece this book on the very night she was born, so naturally, I started crying while reading it, and then tried to make excuses for my niece to keep her from crying. Pretty much a mess all around.

Unfortunately and very true to form, we've had two last minute problems. I just have to say again how ready I am for this move to be over. I don't really expect everything to always go just right, but I do really need for things to go according to plan more often than having every single element end in chaos. Problem number one is in selling our car. Some of you may recall our plan of just stopping off at CarMax and selling the car to them. We'd heard this generally works quite well. I got all the blue book values for our car (taking mileage into consideration!) and had the numbers for the lowest value (private party, fair condition) to the highest (retail, excellent condition). As our car is in good condition, we hoped for an offer just over the lowest possible blue book value. The plan was then to get the appraisal (good for 7 days), spend our week in Philly, then drop off the car at CarMax on our way down to Norfolk to complete the sale. Great plan, except CarMax's offer was so low as to be laughable. Way, way, way too low. So we decided to try to sell the car ourselves on Philly's craigslist. I lasted approximately 4.5 minutes past the posting going live before reaching the panic zone, thus beginning to think of all sorts of contingency plans. It may have been less than 4.5 minutes. Let's go with 25 seconds.

The one we settled on is shipping the car to Italy. This is actually cost effective as we were buying a 2nd car over there anyway, and shipping our current car is cheaper. But this decision did not come without hours of discussion, obsessive checks of email for responses to craigslist post, getting the oil changed & brakes checked, taking the car to the Volvo dealership to see if they'd offer a better price (they didn't), emails to our sponsor in Italy, calls to the shipping agent, more obsessive email checks to see if the shipping agent had emailed back, obsessive phone calls to the shipping agent's office b/c there is only one agent in the office who could help us and she was not in that morning (turns out her child just started kindergarten, and the child did not handle it well, just in case you were wondering), and all sorts of other things that took time away from our relaxation time with family. But it's set, and hopefully all goes well tomorrow morning when we drop the car off at the Baltimore port. Who am I kidding? There's a slim chance this is going to work out as planned.

Problem number 2: We land in Naples at 7pm on Wed. night and will have to clear customs as well as pick up our mountain of luggage. Nathan made a reservation at the Lodge on base for a pet-friendly room. Few of the Lodge rooms are designated pet-friendly, so he was told to call the Lodge two days prior to our check-in to confirm a room is available. You can guess what's coming. No room. No room at the inn. And of course, the front desk chose not to answer their phone all morning, so we didn't reach someone until late late afternoon. We leave in the morning to head down to Norfolk and get our flight tomorrow night, which leaves us no time to make other arrangements. As it stands, we'll be landing after kennels have closed, have no reservation anywhere for the dog anyway, even if the kennel were still open, have no car to sleep in "just in case," and have more luggage than either of us have ever seen added to an extra large dog crate (and dog), guaranteeing that no taxi is going to be willing to take us to some hotel out in town. Not a clue what we're going to do. We have an email in to our sponsor over there for some recommendations, and I'm just praying there is some great solution that will miraculously occur. Sadly, I don't believe the military police will allow us to just spread out on a sidewalk somewhere. We're landing at the Naples airport though...I wonder how the Napoli police would take to us spreading out in an airport lounge for the night?

Countdown

We leave DC on Tuesday. I can't believe it's almost here. We've been trying to cram in as much fun as possible to see everyone and everything before we leave.

One of the best places we've visited is PX here in Old Town. I'd heard about this place over a year ago...ironically, I heard about it when my mother, living in South GA, sent me an article on it with a note suggesting we check it out. We finally got there, and boy do I regret not going earlier. It's been described as a speakeasy type bar, and I suppose that's as good a description as any. First, you need reservations to get. Then, once you're appropriately attired (cocktail, or at the least, semi-dressy), you head on down to a little side street off of King Street (our main drag in Old Town) to the doorway with the blue light. Ring the doorbell and wait. Once you're allowed into the inner sanctum, you walk up a dark staircase, turn a corner at the top, and magic! There are three cozy rooms, one with green, velvet-covered sofas, the middle containing the beautiful, wooden bar and small seating area, and the last room of light blue walls and white, leather sofas. All are lit with sparkling, but dim, crystal chandeliers. We sat at the bar for our first visit in order to watch the master work. And I do not use the term "master" frivolously. Watching the "bartender" work was pure enjoyment. Cocktails are very original, bitters & syrups are handmade, juices are hand-squeezed, and so on. Things are set on fire, lemons are smoked by hand to rub around the rim of a glass, ice tinkles as the bartender's assistant (sous mixer?) gets the glasses prepped. The whole experience is just that - an experience. I loved it.

I took a break yesterday from my final rush of projects (organizing photos may yet kill me!) to visit three museums in DC that I've yet to explore: The DAR Museum, Corcoran Gallery, and Renwick. The DAR was fantastic and beautiful. Lots of great examples of 300 year old china and silver, as well as a marvelous quilt exhibit. I'm a traditional girl when it comes to quilts, but there was a phenomenal, abstract one done by a New Orleans artist. When cleaning up her home (or her grandmother's home) from Katrina damage, she noticed the blinds in the windows were still hanging...they were bent and askew, but still there. She took a photo, screened it onto fabric, and somehow made this gorgeous design. Once you know the story, you can see the blinds. Until you read about it, the fabric is just a wavy, abstract design. She placed that fabric in the middle, added a few others for a border, then a final border in black, to symbolize the light in the middle shining out from darkness. Really beautiful. And the museum itself is in a great, old building with marble staircases, mosaic tile floors, cut glass banister finials, and so on.
The Corcoran is a nice art museum - a smaller collection, but has some fantastic pieces. And the Renwick focuses on decorative arts. Their collection has a wonderful mix that goes beyond just paintings on a wall. It was a great half day spent seeing something new in my "hometown." We could live in the DC area for 10 years, though, and not see it all.

Tonight we have our final night together with just the two of us. We've been saving our visit to one of the DC's top ten restaurants for this night, and so at 7:30 pm, you'll find us sitting in the Chef's Tasting Room of Restaurant Eve. I imagine Nathan will have to roll me home as the menu is five or seven courses. I'm also quite excited b/c I just found out that Restaurant Eve is owned by the same folks who own PX, so I have high hopes.

Tomorrow, my sister and brother-in-law are taking us to a going away dinner at their favorite restaurant in Baltimore, The Charleston. So that will be two fantastic dinners in a row. On Saturday, I'm headed off to a girls' weekend in St. Michael's with my sister and her sister-in-law. My brother-in-law started a fun tradition last year for my sister's birthday - for her birthday, he sends her and one or two other ladies to a spa hotel in a quaint town somewhere in our region. I missed last year's trip, so I'm very excited for this year's. Especially as St. Michael's is one of my absolute favorite Chesapeake Bay towns. Monday, my aunt flies in and will spend the night with us, and Tuesday, we head up to Philadelphia to spend a few days visiting with Nathan's family. Nathan's pushing for us to do a Segway tour, mainly for the amusement of seeing me on a Segway. I think me on a Segway is a terrible idea, but I'm not willing to be left behind on any sort of potential fun.

One week from Tuesday, we fly out, and the posts from Italy begin!

Temporary Digs

We're slowly settling into our temporary digs. After the fabulously, fun beach trip out to the shore, we spent a week shuttling back and forth between my cousin's house in a DC suburb and my sister's house in Baltimore, staying a couple of nights here, a couple of nights there, etc. We then had a wonderful weekend visiting friends who live near Roanoke. Great food (thank you, Sherry!), great talks, great outings. We then moved into our one month, temporary rental back in Old Town. We LOVE being back in Old Town. It feels like home. Our house is very cute with quite a lot of space for a temporary rental. We're just two blocks of Old Town's main drag, which has meant eating out most nights, although to our credit, that has included walking to Whole Foods (yes, walking! It's only four blocks to that wonderful, money-sucking, place) for a "pick out some yummy cheese and a baguette)" dinner.

Today, Armageddon hit DC. I haven't watched or read any local news yet, but I'm anticipating some amazing stories. One of the worst thunderstorms I've ever been in hit...and keep in mind that I grew up in south GA, which I'm pretty sure is the inventor of thunderstorms. This one was so bad that I actually took cover in the stairwell, along with the dog, because I was sure that something - tree, construction material, Toto - was coming through the window at any moment. Nathan left work at his normal time to ride home on the metro. At about the two hour mark, he called me from the bus he was on. The metro had stopped at one of its stops and never restarted due to trash across the tracks. He and a co-worker got on a bus to get back to Old Town, but it's route was diverted due to trees and light-poles lying across the roads! What? Nathan and his co-worker eventually made it to the restaurant/bar where they were headed, which is only two blocks from our old house, only to find that all lights were out at that end of town. So they walked twelve blocks to another popular place - and lights out at that end of town, too. So they headed up to the area where we now live for a last ditch attempt at a fancy, schmancy tasting room...one hour wait to get a table. I'd joined them at this point, so off we went to Whole Foods, which has a lovely generator to keep them operational and serving us delicious, healthy meals.

We're headed into our countdown now. At least once/day, I have the thought that it's only "x" days now. I feel all this pressure to see everyone, do everything in these last days. At the same time, I set some goals for myself for some projects I've been putting off for a few years, and on top of those, I'm starting an accreditation class which is going to involve quite a bit of studying. But knowing that we're living in the same house for the entire month has meant I've finally gotten some sleep! Yay! After three months of very little sleep, I'm now back to my much needed 8.5 hours. I thought that meant I would no longer be a crazy person when some moving crisis arose, but today has proven me wrong.

I called the military vet office to make the appointment for Crazy Dog to get his USDA vet-approved, international certificate, only to find that since our military flight has a layover in the Azores, we also have to follow any Azores pet importation rules. Except I couldn't find any instructions on this. In addition, due to the vet's scheduling, the only appointment available is exactly 10 days before our flight, no later (the certificate has to be within 10 days of flight), so nothing can go wrong. No delays, nothing. So I handled it in the calm, cool, and collected way that I've handled all of these irritations along the way - by calling Nathan, at work, in Red Alert panic mode while hyperventilating. He took care of the problem and my blood pressure has now returned to normal. I then spent the rest of day making inroads on one of my major projects and am now off to veg on the sofa with either a book or the TV. Nathan and Crazy Dog have gone to bed - CD is in my spot, which is where he goes every night, then growls at me when I try to move him. He would be very happy if I disappeared forever and he got Nathan, his True Love, all to himself. I think this is very odd, and a little off as well, for a dog, but others have assured me that most dogs pick their Person and this attachment is normal. I'm not convinced.

Sold!

Our house is officially no longer our house. Our buyer signed papers this morning. We had an odd signing schedule due to some deed recording legality which I don't really understand, nor do I care about it. The upshot was that our closing was moved to today from this past Friday, but we pre-signed on Friday. Our buyer began moving in at 9am on Friday (with our permission, of course!), but she did not sign papers until today. But living in the house for three days apparently did not scare her off, b/c she went through with it. It helps that she, too, was homeless as she sold her house (and papers were signed on Friday).

Our brains, or at least mine, are fried. Last week was truly the most stressful moving week we've ever had. If it could go wrong, it did. Even little stuff. And it was one of those weeks where you just keep thinking that something has got to just go right, even something little, but nope. Even our closing wasn't issue free as the settlement company forgot to have us sign two documents, and they remembered after we were an hour down the road towards the beach - at rush hour. Our awesome realtor worked it out for us to continue on to the beach, though, and made arrangements with a local realty office for us to sign out here. It's so nice to be out at the beach handling such tragic issues as one twin taking the toy truck away from the other one, or the three year old standing on the beach screaming b/c she doesn't want to walk, while staring at the three adults holding: two babies, three beach chairs, beach umbrella, inflatable pool, three beach bags, four towels, and one bag of sand toys. Truly tragic issues going on.

I'm confounded at how difficult this move has been. Since I'm on a list kick, I've been thinking about how many times we've moved. This move will be, in our 14 years of marriage, our 7th military move (this includes two military moves in Key West as we moved in, moved out due to hurricane damage to govt house, moved back in to govt house, moved out of govt house to Blacksburg, VA), and we've lived in 9 houses (including three apartments in San Diego / Coronado, and the hotel suite we lived in for six months in Key West - if it's more than three months, it counts as a house!). Nine houses in 14 years - that is just plain crazy! When we get our stuff in Italy, it will probably be ruined. Our moving company did not send enough crates for our load day, and told the crew they'd send out another truck later in the day. That didn't happen. So with the rest of our stuff sitting in the front yard, one of the movers had to make a three hour roundtrip (beginning at 5pm) to trade in the full crates for some empty ones. Thirty minutes before the truck returned at 8pm, the pretty, blue skies opened up and rained all over the stuff in our yard. It was so torrential, and accompanied with horrific, close-striking lightning, that we could not even move it inside. Nathan watched with complete glee, I'm positive, as the sofa he detests sat in the rain. It was covered with a tarp and sitting at the end of our neighbor's front pathway, which she had just had redone, complete with a concrete pour that afternoon. We watched as all the concrete washed out of her pathway right to our sofa. I think I heard Nathan actually chortling. He really, really hates that sofa. And when the new crates arrived, and the crew informed us that there wasn't enough room for the rest of the stuff and the sofa, meaning the sofa would have to go on the back of the flatbed (it's still raining at this point), I think Nathan might have actually laughed out loud. Meanwhile, the mover who went to get the fresh, new crates didn't think to cover their sides, so our wet stuff was loaded onto wet crates at 9pm, too late for me to call the military office who handles these types of issues. An inspector went out to the warehouse the next day for me and confirmed that yes, indeed, our stuff was "slightly" wet. The moving company assured him they would repack it, call me to let me know they'd done it, and then I could send out a new inspector. They didn't call me, so I talked to the head inspector today, and he said, "If they said they were going to do it, then they'll do it." I was astonished as in our week long dealings with this company, they did absolutely nothing they said they were going to do. I shared this information with him, but he assured me they would have done it and who I needed to call today at the company to talk to. I called, left a voicemail at 9am this morning, and surprise, surprise, did not get a call back today. I'm shocked, really. The written word may not be conveying the heavy sarcasm I feel.

I'm off now to see if the local bookstore is still open. I don't really know why as I brought about 20 books with me, but I did notice they're having a book signing this Thursday. I'd like to see the book and get the details. Then I'll spend the next five days going to the beach, riding by bike around this adorable, beach town, and playing with my niece and nephews.

Still no passport

So our countdown is really on now. Five days before the movers show up, 10 days until we sign closing papers on our house, six weeks before we actually cross the pond...maybe. To use a phrase I'm growing to hate: there's a small catch. My government passport has not arrived. You may recall, my regular passport had to be sent in with the government passport application, thus, I have no passport. No red one, no blue one. Which means I also do not have my permit/visa/whatever from the Italian consulate allowing me to move to their country (that the internet says takes up to three months to get). The lady handling my passport application has not returned Nathan's phone calls or emails in the last week, which frankly, is quite worrisome to me. In addition, the lady (perhaps a different lady? I really don't know) who is supposed to be scheduling our flight to Italy has not done so, nor is she returning Nathan's phone calls / emails. If it's not the same lady, then I'm sensing a real trend here. Nathan's response to my daily inquiries is that it's the summer season when everyone is moving overseas, so our "handlers" (my phrase, not his) have us on the backburner. But I'm a firm believer in the whole squeaky wheel cliche - be polite, but very, very squeaky.

At this point, we still have no clue whether we'll fly commercially (yuck - can you imagine the search we're going to have to go through with TSA on one way tix to Italy; we'll have to wear the good underwear that day) or on military transport. And if it's military transport, will it be the rotator flight out of VA Beach? In which case, we're going to be fighting for a hotel reservation with holiday vacationers having a last summer hurrah for Labor Day weekend at the beach (can't stay on base b/c of the whole dog issue...again; if that dog weren't so darn cute...).

Logistically speaking, I'm already exhausted with six more weeks to go. We have managed to avoid homelessness thanks to the kindness of relatives (and relatives of relatives). We sign closing papers next week and go to the condo of my sister's in-laws for the weekend. Nathan will return to DC and stay with my cousin and his family for five nights while I remain at the beach with my sister and her kids. It will be very 1950s with the women and children out at the beach colony for the week while the men are slaving away in the hot city and driving out on the weekends (as a note, my sister and I will be caring for a very active three year old and twin 17 month olds, so while we will be having picnics at the beach literally, figuratively, it won't be any picnic at the beach). The following week, Nathan & I (and Scully) will stay at my cousin's house. Then off we go to visit dear friends in Roanoke for a weekend before returning to take up occupancy in an adorable rental here in Old Town for the month of August. But for now, off to sleep, where I can dream about logistics, sleep fitfully, and then wake up at ODark:thirty, resulting in a complete crash on the sofa about 3pm until the dog shoves his nose into my face and whimpers b/c he has to go outside.

Nathan's Pics

Here are a few pictures from Nathan's trip to Naples last week. His favorite area of Pozzuoli is not included. I'll add one from that batch later as those pics are on a different computer that I don't feel like turning on right now.


This is a view from Monte de Procida of the islands of Procida (foreground) and Ischia.


In downtown Naples


In Capri


More Capri

One Load Gone

We will post some photos of Nathan's trip to Naples soon. We have not had a chance to even sit down and look at them together yet. Maybe tonight. If one of us doesn't fall asleep at 7:30 as has happened quite a lot lately.

Our first load of stuff has been taken away from our house. Gone, gone, gone. I love it. This pack-out is destined for long-term storage. Really, it does beg the question, if we don't need it for the next three years, why do we need it at all? I have had that refrain running through my head for the past week as I've been squeezing my way past piles of stuff in every single room (I had to pull it all out of the basement and unpack it from my completely unsuitable for a move storage bins).

I had a great pack-out crew with only two incidents. The first was I spent the entire day going from room to room saying, "I would like that put into a box." The crew just was not using boxes. Lots of things they just wrapped in padded paper. So odd. All became clear at the end of the day. As I signed off on the paperwork, the crew boss showed me where he inventoried the # of boxes used, and said, "I didn't include the boxes you added at the last minute b/c you'll get charged extra." What? We don't pay for our moves. I never even thought about the crew just trying to save me money by using less boxes. So kudos for their thoughtfulness, but this is my seventh, military move. Boxes keep things from getting broken or going missing, and boxes cost a whole lot less than having to pay for something missing or broken. Next time, I'll alert the crew ahead of time. This is never anything a crew has ever worried about before.

The second issue was a biggie, and also a first for me. I had a pile of framed artwork headed into storage on one side of the living room. On the other side of the living room are the pieces we're taking with us. The crew packed the right pile, but I kept noticing one particular piece was not packed. I kept moving it to piles of stuff waiting to packed, telling the person packing an area that it needed to be packed, etc. At the end of the day when I did the final walk-through to make sure all was packed, I noticed a familiar frame sticking out of the pile going to Italy with us. Sure enough, when I go over and start flipping through the art, hidden amongst all the rest are two pieces that had been in the stack to be packed, one of which was the piece I'd been taking to the crew all day long and reminding them to pack it. And these two weren't leaning in the front as if someone placed them there and forgot them. No, they were tucked in amongst a pile of about 20 other pieces. They hid them from me so as to not have to pack them! How crazy is that. My only guess is the last art box packed was full, and they didn't want to use a new one for only two pieces. It all goes back to the box issue!

The "big" move begins a week from Monday. It's a three day ordeal, then a day to clean the house, and on July 16th, we will hopefully be signing our settlement papers on the house. The buyer won't actually sign her bits until Monday as there was some scheduling issue with the title company. Since we're off to the beach on Friday, our realtor (we loved our realtors, the Blumel Adams Group) arranged for us to sign ahead of time. We're still waiting on the appraisal to come back, so we're not in the free and clear yet. This area is really tricky with appraisals, so I'm basically turning into a complete basket case after having almost zero anxiety on the whole house selling issue. I hope we get it soon and can at least move forward, whether it's good news or bad news!

by Nathan

This is the first entry of a public log to chronicle my first trip to Italy. I may or may not be all that disciplined as to write every day, and I may or may not resume once we have moved here for good. But that seems to fall into perfect line with the Italian way of life - a way in which nothing is linear for that matter. So Andiamo!

After arriving yesterday (19th June), I checked in and did the typical routine with rental car, hotel, etc. After a short party at the home of a prospective coworker, I set about the task of defeating jetlag. I dare say that I was successful in the first day thanks to the cafe and ... well, more cafe.

Today, was all the more productive for those efforts. After a short run this AM (and some cafe), I hit the road in my little car to see the towns of Vomero, Posillipo, and Pozzuoli. Vomero was nice but a bit too urban. Posilipo was exactly what we want if not a bit hard to access. In Pozzuoli, we have a winner. the town is surreal and the people are incredible. the sea is everywhere (and everything) in this little enclave with its cobbled alleys, cafetterias, seafood, and pizza.

Drama was unavoidable as the predictably unthinkable happened - I hit a pothole and blew a tire. Whilst changing the tire in the rain, I thought about this little metaphor: the best Italian phrase in the language is "Va bene." "It's fine." You can say anything you want in basic Italian, but chances are you will get something else. Knowing you are struggling, they try to please and hand you their best guess as to what you want and ask, "Va bene?" Just say, "Va bene!" Enjoy whatever it is, learn your lesson, and move on.

Va bene.

(If you know me, then you recognize that this is a life-changing epiphany. Feel free to applaud now.)

After returning my "guide" (i.e. the guy whose position I will assume in Sept) to his car, I went back to my room, exhausted and unmotivated, to head out into a rainy if not otherwise peaceful Neapolitan Sunday afternoon. Italians typically "roll up the streets" on Sundays - days for church and for family. Most of the businesses are closed everyday at mid-afternoon, and on Sunday, it's hard to find any sign of activity. But this is not just any Sunday. Italy is playing New Zealand in the soccer World Cup. I just can't bring myself to stay in, so I drive back to Pozzuoli for the match.

I make it to Pozzuoli in time for the second half whereupon a passing thunderstorm interrupts the TV signal. No worry however, as the Italians are as much fun to watch as the game. In fact, when Italy are playing badly (as was the case in this match) it was just as well to turn my attention to the fans. During the frequent TV outages, the fans kept me entertained all the same.

After the match, a 1-1 draw to otherwise hapless New Zealand, I set out on foot to see the parts of Pozzuoli I missed in the car. Though there are no car-free zones anywhere (including sidewalks), it's easier to take it in on foot. If you come to visit, be prepared to walk.

The Pozzuoli harbor is my favorite so far. The rain kept many away, but I was joined in the streets by quite a few locals looking for a distraction from the memory of an underwhelming performance on the soccer pitch. I chatted in 4- to 5-syllable Italian phrases (my limit) with a few people at a coffee bar. The staff there knew no English, but I imagine that if Bon Jovi were to come up, then they'd learn - they accompanied him flawlessly as he sang "Always" on the radio. A dopio (double) cafe went down wonderfully, and I bid arrivaderci to my new friends.

The trip was a total success in teaching me that there are a great many beautiful things about this place that too many are reticent to share amidst all the bad-news stories of crime, drugs, and burglary. The Neapolitans enjoy life. They love to smile, and I think they really love it when you smile back at them.

Va bene!

Ciao, Nathan

Contract!!!

We have sold our home. Yippee! Or rather, we have a contract. I have to temper my excitement as you never know what will happen between contract ratification and closing day. However, we feel great about the buyer, the process, the timing, and so on. Actually, I firmly believe this is the Lord’s timing. We set our main personal property move for July 12-14. We had to just guess a date. When might the house sell, when might the new owner wish to take possession, would the new buyer be willing to negotiate our timing at all, and so on. All complete guesses. (We had a contract offered 7 weeks ago in which the buyer was completely unwilling to make a concession on the timeline – among other issues as well - so this whole timeline thing has been a source of anxiousness for me). For this contract, the buyer is pretty firm on her closing date as well…for July 16th! I couldn’t believe it. It’s the exact date I prayed for. Our moving truck will pull away on the 14th, and then I have one day for light cleaning & wall touch-ups on moving scrapes.

Naturally, the process couldn’t go too smoothly though. When all these guesses started happening, they revolved around Nathan’s work trip to Italy in July (supposedly leaving the evening of July 16) for 10 days. I hoped to move out, close, Nathan immediately goes out of town, and my sister invited me (and Scully) to the beach with her for the time that Nathan’s gone. Voila. Short term housing solved until August. Nathan now leaves next week. My sister & I are moving forward with our beach trip, but Nathan & I are trying to figure out if we can find a 6 week sublet, or can he sleep on someone’s sofa for the weekdays (and come to the beach on the weekends), and so on. Immediate update: While I was typing this post, my email dinged with a response from one of my craigslist, sublet inquiries. There is a cute (by the photos anyway) rental available right in downtown Annapolis for August. A summer month in Annapolis would be great fun! “I love it when a plan comes together.”

Nathan & I went to dinner at our fabulous, neighborhood restaurant located across the street from our house (Vaso’s Kitchen), and at dinner, we discussed how chaotic the preparations for this move have been. Nathan said he has this vision of us sitting down to a nice dinner in Italy, looking around at our home, and saying, “I don’t know how all those pieces ended up getting us here, but somehow, it happened.” That’s what our life is like right now – one of those 1000 piece jigsaw puzzles. And we’re just following Puzzle 101: Get the corners.

Boring

I know it's been quite a while since I posted anything. Mainly because our life right now is pretty boring. Not boring to us, mind you, but would be really boring to all of you. Much like last week when I pulled out a vacation photo album to show a friend a few photos (only four pages, that's it - not the whole album!), and Nathan started rolling his eyes and making rude comments about looking at other folks' vacation photos. That's what it would be like for all of you to read a weekly post from me right now! Just not much going on.

A funny thing did happen in applying for my government passport. I have to get a government passport, even though I already have a regular passport (and as a side note, my traveling around Europe has to be done on my regular passport; the govt passport is just sort of...extra). But into the government passport has to be stamped a special Visa from the Italian Consulate. In filling out the passport application, I noticed the instructions to mail in my regular passport with the application. Why? This made no sense. So I called the handy, dandy 1-800 helpline, just to verify that they would actually send my regular passport back to me. The representative from the State Department who answered my call actually said to me, "We don't normally send back your passport, so just put a post-it on it requesting it back." A post-it! Are you kidding me! Nathan insisted I had to follow the instructions, so yes, I actually mailed off my passport with a post-it note taped to the front. In the days of iPad and Blu-ray and GPS, I have entrusted one of my most prized possessions, the thing that gives me freedom to move about the world, to a post-it note (and prayer). I'll let you know if I actually get it back.

We did go on our family visit vacation and had a great time visiting with all our family over the course of two weeks. Despite the fact that we'll hopefully see our families as often as we currently do, it was a weird feeling to say goodbye and know that we'll be across an ocean from them. Living in the continental US, even when we lived in southern California, there was always the knowledge that we could get in our car and drive "home." No matter what happened, as long as we had a car and gas money, we could get to family. Just having the ability to do such a thing can stave off homesickness. We've been reading books, articles, blogs, etc. about Italy and the rest of Europe, though, and are enjoying talking about all our, "It would be fun to..." plans. So far, we've come up with enough vacation plans to last us for two lifetimes, so we'll have to cram all of that into three years.

Once we're moved "over the pond," then I do intend to post weekly, at a minimum. Possibly more often. For now, just occasional updates. Next week, we should get our schedule for the actual flight. Because we'll be travelling with Crazy, I mean Scully the Dog, then we'll most likely be put on a military, Space-A flight. In doing some research, we found there is a military flight every two weeks out of the Norfolk area, so our guess is we will be put onto that. But who knows. This move is full of interconnected pieces, each one managed by a different person or office. I don't play chess, but I feel like a pawn right now, just being shuffled about the board, with each move depending on prior actions and anticipated future actions. Very confusing.