Naples

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We left Madrid yesterday and headed to Naples, Italy. This involved taking the Metro to the airport, a plane to Rome, a train to Naples, then a taxi to the hostel. Needless to say we were very happy to arrive at our hotel.

At first sight Naples seemed absolutely crazy and a bit scary. First our cab driver tried to charge us 20 euros for a 5 minute cab ride. We refused and only gave him 10. Second, cars and mopeds don't seem to follow any guidelines or street signs. When you want to cross the road you simply walk into the middle of traffic and hope that the oncoming traffic stops. This is at a marked pedestrian crossing where the cars are supposed to yield.

We felt much better when we met the receptionist at our hostel. She was very friendly and made sure we had all the information we needed to get around town. This time we stayed in a room to ourselves. We still had to share a bathroom, but it was like paradise compared to staying in a dorm in Madrid.

After we settled in we walked around Naples a bit and headed for somethig to eat. We quickly found the nicer part of Naples with the streets with all the nice shops and restaurants. We ate at Ristorante Brandi, which was reccomended by our hostel and Let's Go. We ordered two pizzas, which were absolutely excellent.

After dinner we headed back to our hostel to get some rest, or so we thought....At 6:30 in the morning Craig woke me up and said he had gotten bitten by lots of mosquitos. Craig is highly allergic to mosquitos and swells up really bad, sometimes needing to go to the hospital. We immediately closed the window and killed very bug in the room with our flip flops. Tood bad for the people next door who had to hear us slamming our shoes against the wall, but we really had no other choice.

The next morning we reviwed the bug bites. They wer fairly bad. The swelling was starting, but it wasn't bad enough to go to the doctor. Instead we went to the pharmacy to stock up on bug spary and Benadryl.

After that we didn't have too much time before our boat to Ischia so we skipped the archeological museum and walked near the water instead. We stopped to eat pizza, Then we found a clothing store where everythign was $2.50 euros. Craig bought a shirt and I bought two shirts and a pair of pants. What a deal! At 2:00 we headed to the pier to catch our hydrofoil to Ischia.

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