Little lessons of daily life in Napoli

August 7

It has been a bit of a slow news week as far as exciting things to blog about goes.  Life over here isn't all a bed of roses.  Perhaps that is blogworthy though if you want the true picture and not the movie version.  We have spent time in recent days just getting used to living here-where to shop for normal stuff, sports gear for kids, hardware, household items.  I found the italian version of a Super-Walmart and even went on a Saturday.  You'd think I know better.  I don't even do that at home!  Neat store though...during the week.  I am super-excited about finding the local fresh wine shop (enoteca), cheese and meat market, and produce stand, yeah!

Everytime you leave the house it is an adventure, whether it's going around a roundabout three times because you missed the turn (after which you HAVE to laugh at yourself), or paying the same toll booth twice because the exit ramp just simply doesn't have a turn-around that would make complete sense (after this you want to throw your GPS out of the window).  No!  Things sometimes just don't make sense here.  But it wouldn't be living overseas if everything was easy, that is the nature, and the sooner one succumbs to this fact, the easier it is.  I did say this was not only going to be an adventure, but a journey.  This journey will at a minimum make us appreciate home.

The boys and I set out to take a tour the other day with a base tour group.  We were excited and had to get up and at 'em for it.  We missed the bus.  Why did we miss the bus even though we were there twenty minutes early?  As we watched it drive right past us, we realized we were at the wrong bus stop.  Oh?  You didn't know that although this IS an official bus stop, that bus picks up behind that building, on the corner, in the back, behind the blue fence, next to the green sprinkler head, by the little ant hill?  Thank goodness we got a refund AND my kids were watching me, because I was &*(^%!  Life in Naples...better yet, me adjusting to neopolitan ways.   

One thing we are learning to do more here is to make limoncello out of lemons (Get it?  As opposed to lemonade out of lemons, come on people!).  The silver lining of the missed tour came when we met the other person who waited for the bus in the wrong place, Diana.  She lives in America, but her mother and father live here, she is Neopolitan.  We had cappuccino together, had a great chat, and she gave us some great insight into Naples and life here.  Here is a picture of her with the boys.

The day just got better.  There was a parade and festival with local and military emergency personnel right here on base.  The boys had a blast hanging out with their orientation friends (ones who arrived around the same time and our families went through the orientation together). 

That's Ian taking his frustrations out on the padded robot dude.  All in all a good day that started out poopy.  Now, for that limoncello... :)