Last Links

Our Italian Villa by the Sea

We are officially moved out of our house and countdown to takeoff has begun. I'd intended to write several posts this week, but I'm running on about 15 hours of sleep in the last five days. 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.

One last photo from our Lower Terrace of Pozzuoli port [ancient Puteoli]

Moving out was quite anticlimactic and incredibly surreal. Especially because our landlord met with the new tenants and a Housing representative at the house for lease negotiations while we were waiting on movers. It was a weird 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 our 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 the 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.

 

With our landlord

Also, we had one final episode of not understanding 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 downstairs for final goodbyes and 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.

Gorgeous view from our friends' terrace

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.

Vesuvio standing guard

Taking Our View With Us

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.

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!

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 to, there is so much I'll be leaving here. 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.

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!

Why I Shouldn't Waste My Time Cleaning

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:  Salvatore. 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. 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. Side note: Guiseppe plays my favorite, contemporary Christian music on his boom box (is that the term the kids use these days?), and he even sings along, so at least I get a show each day.

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.

My walk into the village. From this, you can see why I am greatly looking
forward to moving to a town with wide sidewalks, even a waterfront
boardwalk with NO traffic. But you can't beat the view here of
Pozzuoli, known as Puteoli in antiquity. Oh...if you think those are
sidewalks on either side of the road, think again. It's trick photography.

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.

A nicer view of the village.

When I got home, Salvatore caught noticed me sneaking 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 the 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.

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.

Joining the Community

Two weekends ago, I became an official member of our neighborhood association. With a little membership card to prove it and all. The Association had a fundraiser in the piazza by our home. Down by the seafront, there is a community swimming pool under construction. It's been under construction since we moved in. The exterior of the building is gorgeous, all white, no crumbling, porthole windows [use your imagination since I don't feel like walking the block down there to take a photo]. But after all this time, construction is still not complete. Next to the swimming pool is the saddest little playground you've ever seen. A couple of grass covered, rusting rides that wouldn't have met U.S. safety standards 25 years ago. Grass choked out by weeds. Frames of former benches. It has the potential to be a darling little park, other than the fact that it's bordered on one side by a busy road and the other by a railway, but we just can't have everything. Anyway, the fundraiser was for these two places. I filled out my card, got my proper tax receipt, and don't forget, my membership card. I had gone to the fundraiser with friends from up the road who know about half the people in town, so we were kept busy chatting. Actually, they chatted. I did my best to just understand what was being said. We headed over for food and found that the dozens of little children had snaked all the hotdogs  and two huge bowls of pasta, leaving only potato chips and grilled lamb behind. I eat lamb when I'm in countries like Morocco or Greece. But otherwise, I tend to picture a cute, fuzzy, little thing that I want to pet. And I have absolutely no problem with the hypocrisy in my meat eating habits. Anyway, the upshot is that what we had left to eat were potato chips. Since I'd just paid 10euros and all, I made sure to eat my 10euros worth of chips. And Coca-Cola. Then dessert came out. Have you ever seen grown-ups shoving one another to get to dessert? Not only have I seen it, I participated. But I got a piece of the chocolate dessert. And the cookie, and the lemon, and about three other kinds as well. This old man next to me thought he might beat me out when we both went for the chocolate at the same time. He was mistaken. I'm not sure how well the fundraiser did, but when I just walked down to the Tabacchi to pay my gas bill, construction workers were once again on the job. Better yet, one fellow we talked to said the Association hopes to do more such community gatherings. We should be fully integrated into the community about the time we get on the plane back to America.

Abusivo

The day we flew home from Germany, we arrived on our street to find the top of it crowded with policemen, an ambulance, two moving trucks, and an excavator sitting in the yard of a house up there. After getting our stuff unloaded, we hung about our front terrace watching all sorts of activity. As the afternoon progressed, I observed men removing things like walls and doors and placing them in the trucks. Police were everywhere. A friend reported seeing a paddy wagon up there as well. Combined with the excavator, our first thought had to be: Camorra! A mob boss found living underground on our street. After all, the same thing happened only a week prior. I called my neighbors who have their finger on the pulse of our hamlet's goings on, and her husband found out the answer for us. The house was abusivo - built without permits. Now the house has been there for a decade (or so the story goes), and it was gorgeous. Large, beautiful roof terrace at street level looked out over the sea, while the house built into the hillside had an incredible, tiled, fully complete outdoor kitchen. This house was not some shack thrown up, but more of a seaside villa. Apparently, the police are cracking down on the "abusivos," and have taken the route of tearing them down. I kept asking, throughout the week as I watched the men turn that house into a big pile of rubble, why didn't the government seize the house, bring it to code, and auction it off? Wouldn't that have actually made the government money rather than cost it money? But, abusivo is abusivo, and the answer is to tear them down, thus creating a gaping, dirty hole in a fairly pretty, upscale neighborhood, thereby lowering property values and creating an area that I am quite sure will soon become an unofficial trash dump. In talking with my friend and neighbor, I kept trying to apply reason to the tear down - maybe bringing the house to code would be too difficult, or maybe... - she finally shrugged and said, "This is Italy. It doesn't have to make sense." True that.

Going to hell...twice

Yesterday, we met with our landlady and realtor at the house we hope will soon be ours. The meeting went well - basically, we asked our realtor if we could have things like patio furniture, the alarm hooked up to private police, the gas tank fixed, etc., and the realtor replied no, we could not - as I understand it, our house is considered pretty desirable, so we don't get any extras. Our house is pretty desirable to us, but the other lady who looked at it first hated it, so who knows. The landlady and her husband built this house and lived in it for decades; she now picks who she wants in it, and they have to take it as it is. She cleans it up and makes repairs as needed, but we don't get to come in like all the other Americans in rentals and negotiate a whole bunch of things, like maids, gardeners, private police, patio furniture (which we desperately need!) and so on. We can live with that.

Since Nathan didn't have time to attend this meeting, ferry me back to the boondocks, return to work, then return home, we had a couple of hours to explore some nearby sites. Without prior planning, the two places we visited were both once considered entrances to Hades. How on earth we managed this coincidence, I don't know. First up was Vulcano Solfatara, an eery, volcanic crater with fumaroles (smoke) escaping all over the place.

This is a dormant area, so no threat of catastrophic eruption, but it's unique in the numerous fumaroles of sulphuric gases. There are also a couple of bubbling mud-pits. We alternated between two names for the place: Fire Swamp, since it looks like an all white version of the one in Princess Bride, and Earth's Anus - it smelled seriously bad. In fact, for any of you coming to visit who wish to visit this place, I have already determined that I will be waiting for you in the car up at the entrance. I just cannot smell that again. The Fire Swamp name really stuck though once we crossed paths with a couple on a little tour. Their guide lit up a torch and started waving it across the ground. The fire sucks out oxygen, which then causes more fumaroles to steam up. We walked across this area just after the tour guide finished and the ground was still burning hot in some places and soft from the steam. I kept imagining steam shooting up as I stepped on a patch and then a pit of boiling mud opening up. Hell, indeed.

Tour Guide in the Fire Swamp

Bubbling Mud Pit, OR...Pit of Despair

We also visited Lago d'Averno, which is just a short walk from our (hopefully ours) house. We have two lakes and the sea (the Tyrrhenian, not the Mediterranean, is our shoreline) just a short walk away. Lago d'Averno has a walking path that goes all around it, about 1.5 miles total, and several restaurants line the shore. The restaurants are concentrated on one quarter, though, leaving the rest to vineyards, ducks (and duck blinds - guess hunting is big on this little lake), and a couple of ruins. Odysseus entered the Underworld from here as did Aeneus in the poet Virgil's writings. The Temple of Apollo is thought to have once been a thermal bath area and had a domed roof rivaling that of the Pantheon in Rome. In 37 B.C., Agrippus (the Roman General) turned this lake into an important naval port, linking it to Lago Lucrino (right by our house) and the sea with canals. He also built the first, major road tunnel that allowed chariots to travel to and from nearby Cumae - it was just over half a mile long. That tunnel was in use up until the 1940s! Yet another interesting tidbit is that just two months ago, police seized the lake from it's owner, who is accused of being a mafia frontman. News reports state that he allegedly purchased it on behalf of a former godfather Giussepe Setola. Setola was featured in the book, Gommorah, a bestseller about the Camorra (mafia) here in Campania (the region of Naples and surrounds). I haven't read this book yet, so I hope our library on base has it in stock.

And finally, Sibyl's Grotto is also located on the shore of Lago d'Averno (although other locations have also been suggested). Sibyl's were legendary ancient prophetesses, and this one, the Cumaean Sibyl, was the most famous among Romans. She first appears in writings from 500 BC. She is later featured in Virgil's Aenid, and also makes an appearance on the Sistine Chapel, painted in among Old Testament Prophets. This is due to the Middle Age belief that one of her prophecies foretold the coming of a saviour, perhaps because Emporer Constantine interpreted one of the written Syballine Oracles as holding an acrostic in which initials from verses spelled out "Jesus Christ Son of God Saviour Cross." The Cumaean Sybil lived 1000 years due to a deal with Apollo, but because she refused to sleep with him, he granted her only a long life, not youth. Sybil aged the entire time, so by the end, only her voice remained. Or so goes the legend. My favorite reference is in Virgil's poem - Sybil is a guide to the Underworld, which is entered through Lago d'Averno (Avernus):

Trojan, Anchises' son, the descent of Avernus is easy.
All night long, all day, the doors of Hades stand open.
But to retrace the path, to come up to the sweet air of heaven,
That is labor indeed. (Aeneid 6.10.)

We did not get to view Sibyl's Grotto. At the mouth of the path up to it were still smoking, fire remains. We passed those and continued up the path, to find the same thing. At the third fire, we turned a corner and glimpsed a man with a loose dog hanging about. Considering we were heading into a tunnel with a man who seemed to like to enjoy lighting fires within 10 feet from one another (creeeeeepy!), we elected to turn on our heels and quickly exit back to the lake path. The lake is a nice walk from our house, and will be a good place to walk Scully, so we'll save it for another day.