Un viaggio a Vietri

Translation: A trip to Vietri

Saturday, Jamie and I left Riann & Lincoln with a babysitter while we took a little adventure with our friends Jonathon & Sonja to Vietri, one of the first towns on the Amalfi Coast. Vietri is known for their ceramics. We stopped at a view point and took some pictures, then headed down to the cobblestone streets lined with shops. THIS is what I pictured when we talked about moving to Italy.

It was beautiful and quaint, a perfect place to spend the day. The views of the Mediterranean and the hillside town were amazing. The people were very friendly, offering us limoncello tastes at 10am, we stopped in a pasticceria (pastry shop) and had the most heavenly cannoli on the planet. I thought I had tried a few good cannolis before... this cannoli was out of this world delicious!! We bought some pottery to start a collection with, then we headed out for a drive further down a cobblestone hill to find lunch and head back home. We stopped at Vulcano Buono, a mall built to look like a volcano. From the inside it looks like a regular mall, from the outside it looks like they had built the mall, piled dirt on top and then planted grass. Interesting. This mall is also anchored by Auchan, a superwalmart-like store, so I bought a bunch of produce since the commissary didn't offer much in their produce section this week. We also had some gelato at the mall before we headed home... Thank goodness I've been walking so much with a diet like this!

Abbiamo una macchina!

Translation: We have a car!!

One thing I forgot to mention (and some of you have asked about): our drivers test this past week. I got a little nervous when Jamie told me we'd have to take a test to get our Italian drivers license... just what would this entail??
No driving necessary, no Italiano to understand... this was a 48-question, multiple choice test. There was a picture of a road sign and we had to pick the correct answer. Pretty easy. Oh yes, and the mandatory "Driving Brief" we had to sit through. Now I can understand why the Italians drive so crazy. We learned from the brief that Italians aren't bad drivers, they just want to get to where they are going. We have to just get out of their way when they are coming up behind us... or else. We have to let go of our road rage (Jamie might need to take a Xanax everytime we drive somewhere from now on) and just go with the flow. Interesting concept.
Jamie and I did pass... in fact we both got 100%. Nerds.

Immediately after the test, Jamie ran (sprinted??) to get our car registered so we could finally get our car that I pass everytime I go walking (working on the running still with my foot). I knew three sides and the top were undamaged but I could never see the front. We had heard horror stories of people going to get their cars only to find them wondering what large, heavy object landed on the roof/hood of their car. Lucky us once again, we have no damage to our car. And now that we have a full tank of gas, where are we heading this weekend?? I guess you'll have to check back later to find out.

Per mercato, per mercato...

Translation: To market, to market...

To say we have been busy is an understatement.
Friday morning our regular shipment of household goods arrived at 8:30am, 5 guys (only 1 fluent in English) were in and out of our place for about 4 hours hauling box after box, piece of furniture after piece of furniture. Jamie and I have a little "rule" we implemented several moves ago (though it has had to change a little now that we have kids): we have to unpack every box in less than 48 hours after delivery. Crazy, I know, but moving so many times we have learned we just like to be settled again, have our HOME back again. We're not completely psychotic, we do not have our art up on the walls... yet. We had a lucky move once again, nothing was lost, nothing was broken and this time our things traveled a lot further than they had before.

Saturday, we were invited to go to a fresh air market in Caserta with some friends, Sonja & Jonathon (they were in Mechanicsburg with us, but we never really knew each other, they have really been a huge wealth of information for us. They have everything at these markets: shoes, clothes, junk... fresh produce, cheese, meat, seafood. Some of you may have seen my picture of Riann near one of the seafood vendors - she liked the eels. Eeewww. We got quite a bit of produce which was all MUCH cheaper than the commissary (base grocery store). And it was so much better too!! We also stopped at Campania Mall for some lunch, it was quite delicious! We didn't have time to stop for gelato because Lincoln was getting past the point of miserable being so close to nap time.

Sunday, I headed to Ikea with Sonja & Jonathon for a few necessities for our place. It was insanely busy there! They also took me to another mall that is anchored by Auchan, a Super Walmart-like type of store. I ended up doing a little grocery shopping there, getting a few things to make dinner for Fathers Day, not forgetting the dessert and local beer. Of course, trying to check out at the register, I had the deer-in-headlights look when the woman asked me something about bags... Um, excuse me?? I went into panic mode, forgetting any bit of Italian I ever even thought I knew: she wanted to know how many plastic grocery bags so she could charge me appropriately. Yes, they charge for grocery bags, the plastic Wegmans or Target ones you get when you forget your reusable ones. All the woman did was hold up the bags and asked "Due o tre?" (Two or three?) Hahaha...
Jamie also met a neighbor just moving in to our building... a couple with a teenage son, the husband was leaving for a year in Guantanamo Bay while his son and wife stay here. I asked Jamie why would they stay here??? the wife has family here, she has pretty much lived half her life in the US and half in Italy. When she was in the US, she taught Italian and obviously speaks fluent Italian... Once again, could I get any luckier having Italian neighbors living on a US Navy base?? This woman, Cybil, told Jamie "whenever your wife is ready, I'll take her everywhere!" I can't wait!!!

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, Jamie and I had Area Orientation which was mostly a lot of small presentations on what to expect while living in Italy. Some of it was useful, some of it we had already heard or read, and some of it was just common sense. Riann and Lincoln went to the CDC all three days, Riann loved it, Lincoln did not...

Last night, we got our internet hooked up. yay!! I can finally update this, respond to a few emails and now we can skype on a more regular basis.

I have a million pictures downloading from our camera to our computer, hopefully I will be able to get them posted online one way or another soon. Most of them are from the US, but for those of you who really know me, you know I'll be taking a million more to share in the first adventure out in town!

Tasti per la nostra nuova casa

Translation: Keys to our new home

What a great day! I planned to pick up our keys to our new home today after lunchtime but had to stop at the Personal Property Office first to get an update on our Household Goods (HHG) and express-shipped items. By contract, neither shipment was due until the first week of July, so I was feeling lucky that our express shipment was supposedly getting here early. When I got to the office, the woman had Jamie's email address up on her screen, it was the email trying to schedule delivery... perfect timing! She went ahead and called the company and delivery was set up for today. She said she'd call just to check if the regular shipment had any updates, imagine my surprise when she told me it was ready for delivery!! It's coming tomorrow, 8am delivery.

Riann, Lincoln and I walked from one side of the base to the other to wait for the express delivery just in the case they tried to deliver early... no such luck, however we did get to meet our neighbors who we'll be sharing a common entry area with. Could I have any more luck today... The woman is FROM Napoli, English is her second language so she asked if we could talk so she could improve her English... Umm, only if she can teach me Italian!! She has 3 children, a set of twins who turned 5 today, a girl named Taylor and a boy named Joshua, and their older brother, William (my guess is the Dad is American). Riann has a friend, Lincoln has two soccer-loving nice boys to keep him busy and wear him out... and I have an Italian teacher! I hope she can teach me to cook too!!

Off to unpack a kitchen and other random, quickly shipped things.

Il cibo qui è delizioso!

Translation: The food here is delicious!!

I'm a little behind because Jamie had his first day of work yesterday and then last evening, wi-fi in the Navy Lodge was down.

Sunday, we had our first going out to dinner experience in Italy with our sponsors. They originally wanted to plan for 7pm dinner but now that Riann and Lincoln are back on their regular routine, 7pm just wasn't going to work for us... ahem, Lincoln. Since we still do not have our car, and our sponsors only have a four-seater (not quite the size of the Fiat I took pictures of, but not much bigger either), we had to do a few trips to the restaurant. Imagine Jamie wrangling two carseats into a tiny car in 85+ degrees... Italians typically have dinner around 8pm, so the restaurant was empty except for us. They didn't even have the AC on yet, it was almost uncomfortably hot, though the staff was all very nice and accommodating for our early 5:30pm arrival.
Dinner was very good, caprese salad, bruschetta, a variety of pasta dishes, a little vino, we declined dessert mostly because Lincoln was done stuffing himself but they did bring us a round of limoncello. I was hesitant to drink it at first because the only other time I've smelled it, it was extremely potent. But this limoncello didn't look like the kind I've seen before, nor did it smell like the one I smelled before. This limoncello was like a shot of supersweet thick lemonade with a little liquor that I could actually handle. It was DELICIOUS! My tolerance might improve while living here.

Monday, Jamie left early on the 6:30am shuttle to Capodichino. That left me by myself with both Riann and Lincoln in a long time. We made it a good day just keeping busy, walking to the Exchange for band-aids for Riann (we think she burned her toes on the tile at the pool on Sunday), then had a nice little snack at the little cafe on base, a walk in the other direction on base to a playground while on the way to check out one of the other available apartments we are being offered to move into. I was able to go into the apartment while it was being cleaned and decided this one was a better set up for us than the other one mostly because it is at the back of the base and has much more privacy, and less car and walking traffic. We get the keys Thursday, and will move all of our stuff there Thursday or Friday... that should be quite a sight since we mailed 3 huge boxes to ourselves before we left the states and we have all of the luggage we brought with us, 2 carseats, etc and no car. In the meantime, we are staying in the Navy Lodge on a day-to-day basis, hoping each day our name will move up the wait list for a room so we don't have to move elsewhere. So far, we have managed to get in 2 extra nights here, keep your fingers crossed for us that we can get two more nights.

Jamie had his second day at work today while Riann, Lincoln and I dropped off paperwork to get a home phone line hooked up, our mailing address and mail forwarding corrected at the post office, got Riann signed up for a summer session of Gymnastics and checked out the library. Lincoln thought today would be a great day to be extra mischievous... he wore me out.

Jamie and I are working on planning our first adventure out this weekend tonight. We'll just be taking the bus and metro down into Napoli for some sightseeing since we still do not have a car. Oh how I miss having a car... and ALL of our own things.

Bloccati a Napoli

Translation: Stranded in Naples

Yesterday, after a long morning of Intercultural Relations(ICR) lecture for us and the CDC for Riann & Linc (Child Development Center, oh how I love the military's use of acronyms for EVERYTHING!), we met some friends at the bowling alley here on base for pizza, though it was average American style pizza... we have so few choices on what to eat, let alone where to eat while we live in the Navy Lodge. After wards, we were able to head over to our friend's apartment on base to check it out. After seeing their home, I'm anxious to get into our new place next week. Of course, they have it wonderfully decorated and their floor plan is about 300 square feet larger than what we have, and they also don't have a destructive 18-month old.
Today, Riann & Lincoln went back to the CDC while we did more with the ICR which was supposed to be a day trip into downtown Napoli. The plan was to catch the bus here, take it to the JFC (Joint Forces Command) base, from there, take a walking short cut to the Metro and ride that into downtown Napoli. It didn't quite happen like that. We all had to get our own biglietto giornaliero (all day ticket) at the booth, once half of our large group got their tickets we were then informed there was a scheduled mass transit strike from 9am-5pm today. The tour guides continued with our plan to take the train into the city, but we only made it a few stops before 9am struck... we were stranded at a Metro station far away from our true destination. Our tour guides made the best of our situation and guided us to Fuorigratto where we ate doughnut like pastries and downed a few bottles of acqua naturale (you have to specify natural or sparkling everywhere we’ve gone so far). We continued on to an open air market (where there was all sorts of seafood, even with the fishes heads chopped off and on display, cheese, baked goods, shoes and a lot of other random flea market-type items), then to an area of restaurants and shops all while our two tour guides tried to find us a way back to base, finally getting a couple of US government vans to come get us. We were supposed to see downtown Napoli, historic sights, the water… at least the CDC was free for Riann & Linc and we got to eat some good, authentic Italian food among the Neopolitans.

When we got back, we headed over to Vodafone where I got an iPhone!! We needed some way to communicate once Jamie starts work Monday, lucky for me it’s also like having a new toy to play with. Now I can keep up with my friends on Facebook, email a little more frequently when I have 15 free seconds to do so, not to mention check the weather, pick a restaurant, get directions, take pictures & post them…

Hopefully this weekend will be one of very few we are stuck on base(since we have no Italian licenses still, therefore no car). Thankfully there are a lot of playgrounds, the pool is open, and we now have a few friends on base.

Primo giorno dei nostri tre anni l'avventura

Translation: First day of our three year adventure

Last night was a bit like college life. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner, followed by a little nap before party time. We all went to sleep by 8pm last night, which means 2pm EST. I wasn't that surprised when both Riann and Lincoln were up about 11:30pm rested and ready to party... errr, or play in our little hotel room. Jamie was kind enough to "party" with them first, our plan being we'd do 2 hour shifts. Lucky for me, the kids were both exhausted and ready to go to sleep again before Jamie woke me up for duty. Lincoln and I were up about 10am, Riann and Jamie slept until 11:30am. Trying to get into a routine on a completely different time zone with kids is not exactly easy.
Our car has arrived but we cannot pick it up until we take a required safety course and a 50-question, multiple choice test and pass for our Italian drivers licenses. As of today, the earliest we can do that is June 22nd. Ugh.
In the meantime, we'll have to do like we did today and walk everywhere. I feel lucky we are on a military base at this point, everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) we need is within walking distance.
However, living in Italy, I don't really want to be stuck on an American base, I moved here to see Italy, and I want to be able to be out among the locals, absorbing all the Italian culture I can, not to mention EAT the authentic food!! (Subway on base just isn't quite what I had in mind.) The closest thing to that will have to be going to the cell phone store, the commissary & exchange to listen to the Italians who work on base talk amongst themselves while I eavesdrop. Oh, how I wish I had done so much more Rosetta Stone before we got here!

Siamo ufficialmente in Italia!

Translation: We are officially living in Italy!

We left Syracuse on Sunday June 6th and slept in Philidelphia; arrived at the International Terminal on Monday June 7th, flew to Frankfurt on a red-eye and arrived in Napoli Tuesday June 8th at 10:00am local time.
Thanks to a little Benadryl, Lincoln & Riann each slept about 3 hours on the long flight but Jamie and I did not sleep a wink.

Eight bags checked in, 4 carry-ons, 2 car seats, 2 kids and a stroller. Everything arrived successfully, but we are beyond exhausted.

Good news is we have housing assigned to us and we move in next Tuesday.

At 1:57pm EST, 7:57pm local time, 3 of us are sound asleep for what I hope will be 8-10 hours of much needed rest.