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Published: October 24th 2013
Our beautiful room when we first arrived
We got a free upgrade...which we were grateful for as you'll see in the next photo.It seemed like a good idea at the time...
So we arrived at Napoli's main train station armed with google map directions to our hotel, that should take a total of 20 mins to walk to. It is absolutely chucking it down with rain and the station is filled with people waiting the rain out. However, we decided that since it was not far we would make for the hotel and hope for the best. In the blinding rain, unable to pull out the ipad, it took us almost twenty mins to get across the piazza in front of the station. Finally found the right road and started off, took us over an hour asking several people, who all agreed we were too close to catch a taxi, even though they didn't know exactly where to send us. Finally a shop where they actually knew we were close and where to go.
Fortunately we had gone with a nice hotel, so we got bath robes and slippers to change into, which was necessary because all of clothes including the ones in the luggage were drenched. Every spare inch of our hotel room had clothes hanging from it. After a
Room destroyed
Had to hang everything up all over! nice long hot shower, we each found the driest clothes we could and headed to a place that the hotel said had great pizza and crappy service. The pizza was great!
Because of the rain we decided to play a potential trip to Pompeii the next day by ear. Our back-up was to do a little shopping and then hit a Pompeii museum in town, rather than spend the day outside at the Pompeii site.
The best laid plans. HAHAHAHA
Along the way Kimmy started to feel a little off and needed to pee and then pee again and then pee again and then pee again. OH OH! We dashed from one coffee shop to the next trying to find bathrooms. Along the way we quickly figured that Kimmy had a bladder or urinary tract infection. We got back to the hotel room and asked them about a doctor, they helpfully told us about a pharmacy where there is "ALWAYS" a doctor on duty. With Kimmy needing to pee every two minutes, we made a break for the pharmacy. Where, after some poor English and our poor Italian, found out that it's Sunday and they don't know
Lunch in Napoli at Di Matteo
Their claim to fame is that Bill Clinton ate here. And it was fabulous! where the doctor is. They sent us to a nearby hospital. Never a good sign when at a 'hospital' the security guard looks confused when you ask for a doctor. He eventually sends us up a rickety elevator in search of administration, which we are hoping is our Canadian equivalent of admitting. We get upstairs and administration appears completely closed, at least that it what we surmised by all of the locked doors we encountered. It has now been at least 20 minutes since Kimmy has peed, so we are wandering the halls looking for a bathroom in what appears to be an extremely run down hospital. A man in a white coat stops and tries to help us, we are hoping for him to be a doctor, turns out he is not. However, by fluke we are in the urology department of the hospital, so at least the nurse/orderly is able to understand what is wrong with Kimmy. It did take some strange gesturing and pointing, but he understands, blood in her urine, burning sensation, possible infection. He writes all this in Italian for us and is preparing some directions to get us to another hospital. Kimmy has to
A Napoli piazza
Running past on our way to find another bathroom. run off the bathroom as she can no longer hold it. After a minute he comes running after her carrying a medical waste bucket, with me in tow. He is banging on the stall trying to get this bucket to her to pee in. She thinks everyone is telling her the toilet is not working, which was too late to tell her anyway. On top of this madness all taking place in the ladies toilet, there is a random Italian woman who obviously though it would be helpful to join the nurse/orderly in yelling at me in Italian. Kimmy eventually emerges confused and thinking she has just messed up the plumbing. The nurse/orderly goes into the stall and starts removing her toilet paper with his bare hands. He wanted to see the pee...
After his inspection he is much more relaxed and starts gesturing for us to follow him into another room. We understand that he thinks this is just a common infection. Then he finds us boxes of drugs. One filled with glass vials of a clear liquid which he breaks open and pours into a cup telling Kim to drink and explaining that it will help with
the blood. Then gives us the rest of the pack and gets across that she should keep taking it till the blood stops. He also gives us a pack of antibiotics which she is to finish.
He then sends us on our way back to the hotel, not asking for any money. By this point we are confused and very sweaty. In the elevator we did have the presence of mind to wipe our hands down with antibacterial wipes, as we had just shaken hands with a medical worker who reached into a toilet with his bare hands. We go back to the hotel to rest and I ran back out to get pizza and loads of water. All this was happening with us due to fly back to London the next day. We googled the drugs we were given and found out that they appeared legit. We resolved however, that we would visit a doctor in the morning, just to be sure. Kimmy did get better slowly throughout the afternoon and night, with less blood and less frequent urination.
We went back to the pharmacy that is supposed to have a doctor on duty on Monday morning.
It did not. Again they are not sure where there doctor is? The pharmacist did confirm though that the drugs where good for a bladder infection. So we had some comfort before our flight back to the UK.
Morale of the story is don't get sick in Italy on a Sunday, you might not be able to find a doctor. But you may find a nice, non-handwashing, non-glove wearing man in a white lab coat to give you free drugs that make you better.
Kimmy was much better in a few days, which was fortunate because we had our trip to Malta all booked and ready.
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Mioara Wilcox
non-member comment
Wow glad Kim is feeling better!! Italy looks so beautiful, and I love the cat on the scotter :)!! Loving the blogs!!!! xo<3