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Published: March 28th 2009
It's been quite a long and difficult stressful week for me. I've been thinking a lot about stuff and trying to make decisions, all in the 15 spare minutes I had the entire week...no joke. I worked my 22 hours/week allotment for EDS/HP in the first 3 days of the week. And all this while still working for the school here. It felt like this weekend took forever to get here. And of course, I'm still not done all my work. But I simply cannot continue to work like this. My stomach was upset all week, and I think I actually only ate a combined 6 times all week. Ahh well...it's over now. And I can't say that all things that happened this week were bad. I actually had a very nice Wednesday evening. So, there were some very nice moments as well 😊
Let's recount how the "week" started, shall we? Let's begin with last Friday night. Once again we were all really lazy since we had work on Saturday morning. Heather arrived home from her travels on Friday night, and it was nice to see her again after she'd been gone all week. It's still very strange when
The hotel in Naples
We had two floors. There were two beds up top, and a large bed on the bottom level.one person is missing. Jen was still gone also since she was in the Dominican Republic visiting a friend. The rest of us all decided to have some beer, wine and pizza. We were up very late at night, and it was a bit rough going to work in the morning. But, overall, it was a nice day at work. I got to speak with Frappi (we call all the students by their last names because there are just too many with the names of Simone, Gianluca, Francesco and Antonio). He told us (me, Jenny and Alison) that we're going on a "date" to get some pizza from a place he calls the morgue when his course is finished (next week I think). But, here is the best part of the conversation. Let's retell it here:
Frappi: You speak some Italian, right?
Me: Yes, I speak enough to get by.
Frappi: Ok good, because I told my girlfriend that I was going to dinner with 3 female teachers and....
Me: She decided she's coming too?
Frappi: Haha, no...but she said I need to take my friend Fabio along. Her reason is because "I'm an Italian man and can't be trusted
alone with three women."
Haha, sooooo very typical. This story would just continue to get better throughout the weekend as we arrived in Naples as we saw many other great examples of this stereotype. Upon arrival in Naples, we decided to buy our return tickets to Rome so we wouldn't be forced to sleep the next night in the Naples train station. After purchasing the tickets I went t close my bag, and what do you know, the zipper broke. Yes that's right, my purse zipper broke in the one city you really don't want this to happen in. After everyone told me not to wear any jewelry or a watch or to be careless with my purse, the zipper goes and breaks. Well, here I am now and I can proudly say that I survived a weekend in Naples with an open purse, a watch, and earrings. After we had our tickets, we decided to head to the hotel. We were a bit confused on how to take the metro to the Dante stop since it wasn't listed on the board. Let's also pause to discuss this metro. It wasn't a subway like we're all used to. It
looks more like an old train that just happens to run below ground. It was very strange actually.Now back to the story...we asked a woman for directions, and she was very nice and helpful. Luckily for us she spoke perfect English and was a tour guide who lived her whole life in Naples. She even walked halfway with us to show us where we needed to go. She also gave us a very good recommendation for an amazing (but inexpensive) restaurant very close to our hotel.
The hotel was very nice. Thank you tripadvisor.com for the very good recommendation. It was very nicely decorated, spacious and very clean. The people that worked there were all very nice. Before we went to dinner we stopped in to an enoteca and bought some wine...3 bottles for 10 euro. Can't really complain about that. Although, I've grown quite attached to the 1.69 euro bottle of Trinacria Nero d'avola here in Rome. We then went to dinner. We went to one of the restaurants the woman at the metro suggested. It's below the arch near Piazza Dante. The woman explained that this arch is one of the originally arches to the entrance of
the city through the walls. The restaurant, named Antica Pizzeria e Ristorante Port'Alba, is actually one of the oldest in Napoli. It has been around since 1738. We are so thankful that we found this woman and took her advice. Everyone always says to go to Da Michele for pizza in Naples. But it's very touristy now, and I think we made a much better choice by going to this restaurant instead (and the pizza was still only 3.50 euro for an entire pizza). I always said that I had one of my best meals in Bologna. But, I think this restaurant may have topped my choice in Bologna. We had caprese salad, vongole (clams), grilled provolone, bruschetta, lots of pizza, and Cristina had a platter, that is the size of her torso, of pasta with frutti di mare (lobster, prawns, shrimp, clams, mussles, calamari). Everything was amazing. And we can't forget to mention the impeccable service by Pasquale. Ok, I think he was just being so nice for two reasons: 1. he was amazed that 4 women could eat so much food and 2. he just wanted an excuse to shamelessly flirt. We couldn't help but notice that while
flirting he flashed his hand (you know Italians can't speak without hand gestures) and there it was...this brilliant gold wedding band. Ahh yes, typical Italian men. After the first few minutes, the rest of the waiters decided to devote lots of attention to our table as well...again, all were wearing wedding bands. As we were leaving the restaurant, everyone stared us down. I guess we immediately stuck out as the tourists. Then, I started going down the stairs to exit. The one waiter (the larger of the two) said "prego" and welcomed me to descend the stairs first before we went up the stairs. I got about 3 steps down and he decided he'd be funny and start climbing the stairs so as to rub against me as I was walking past him. If this is the small price that needs to be paid for an exceptional meal, well then I guess I'm fine with that.
After dinner we went back to the hotel. While trying to cross the street and not get killed, here's what we saw: a family of three on a motor scooter, a group of three girls on a motor scooter, and an attempted "goosing"
by two young boys as they rode past us on their motor scooter. None of these people were wearing helmets. I don't quite understand how this city manages to function. I thought Rome was bad, but really, there are NO rules in Naples. There is this saying that goes like this: In Milan, traffic lights are instructions, in Rome, they are suggestions, and in Naples, they are decorations. After seeing the traffic situation in Naples, I can't agree more.
Sunday we spent the day in Pompei. It was freezing, cloudy and windy all day. This spring weather has been crazy so far. But the day was very nice. The girls really enjoyed Pompei and I was happy I knew enough to explain some things to them. It really is good to have a tour guide because there's really a lot to see and learn about. I think I fell a bit short of the expectations of an actual tour guide, haha. We ate pizza in Pompei also. We complained about it (ok, it wasn't too bad) but it's a good thing we ate there anyway because everything was closed in Naples on Sunday...everything. It was so crazy. I thought for sure that some stuff would be open, but nope. No restaurants, no shops, nothing. But, the strangest thing about Sunday was the couple that kept following us. We compared it to being on an episode of the Amazing Race. We started the day fairly early with breakfast. As we were finishing up our breakfast this couple, who were also staying at our hotel, left about 15 minutes before we did. When we arrived at the Circumvesuviana train station we saw them also arrive a few minutes later. They got on the train that arrived about 10 minutes before our train arrived. We thought they would've been going to Pompei also, but their train wasn't going to Pompei. We took our train, and when we were getting ready to exit we spotted the couple...on our train! How was this possible? They must've realized they took the wrong train and switched at the next stop. As we were walking around Pompei, we saw them again...this time they had joined a tour group somehow. But guess what? They were on our train back to Naples, and then again at the metro. We took the metro only one stop and then walked the rest of the way. This couple must have switched lines and taken the other metro line also. We had to go back to the hotel because Denise had left her jacket there. We were at the hotel as the couple came back in. After that many hours they had still be following us. But, we won that leg of the Amazing Race, and it felt good.
After the stop back at the hotel we went to Piazza Bellini to get a coffee. As were were enjoying our delicious coffee a couple came and sat at the table next to us with their dog. The dog was very nice and just calm and relaxed. Suddenly he stood up and was looking around very attentively. You know why? There was a female dog in the area! He suddenly gave chase and followed this poor female dog everywhere. She kept trying to get away and avoid his advances, but she wasn't having any luck. Finally she gave in and let the male dog sniff her. The whole time, we were just laughing. Even the male dogs behave the same way as the majority of the men in this country. Again...I said the majority, not ALL of the men.
Hmm, what else am I forgetting. Ahh, yes...remember the little 7 year old girl that comes to school every Saturday for lessons. She's the one that told me she needed to pee. Well, we were joking on Friday night that I was certain she'd tell Alison she had to pee again. Sure enough, she had to pee. After, I had her in the lab. She was watching a movie...it was her choice. She was really really bored I guess because she kept checking her watch (which was almost 10 minutes fast) and making very loud sighing noises. Oh right, also Dino (Alison's boyfriend) calls Denise by the name of "Denis". He doesn't speak much English and Denise speaks no Italian. So, it's always interesting getting those two together. He was complimenting her and said she had very nice "young teets". What he was trying to say was "young teeth". Haha. Alison and I nearly died of laughter. On Saturday in my lesson with Frappi, I was quizzing him on his vocabulary words. I asked him if he knew what tights were. He looked at me very confused, so I wrote the word for him. He then exclaimed, "Ahh yes, 'tits!'" with his best attempted English accent. I had to kindly explain (after laughing, of course) how the word was really pronounced. And then he asked what he said. It was kind of funny seeing an Italian guy blush from slight embarrassment since they usually have no shame at all.
Now, I'm just taking a much needed relaxing break and waiting for Jen to arrive from the airport. After that, we're going to do some shopping, go to Mondo Arancini, go to Frappi's favorite suggested gelato shop, and then finish at the 24 hour bakery. Maybe it was best that I didn't eat all week 😊
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ittech@ comcast.net
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Hotel
Great looking Modern Hotel room, very surprising compared to the ancient look of Naples. Would not believed it looked like that and not many other people either until they see the pic. The Ice Bar in Rome was also very surprising to people I showed the pics to. Had to comment. Love you. bye