Naples - Part 2 - Europe Trip

I'm not sure exactly why I haven't written anything lately.  I've had ideas I wanted to share and then, nothing came of them.  I keep thinking back to this silly self help article where a guy wrote about why he flosses his teeth every day.  He said that he could probably get away with only flossing once a week and his teeth wouldn't fall out, but it wasn't about that.  He said that like everyone else on the planet, his motivation to floss his teeth with every day that he doesn't do it.  So he says he'll floss them once a week, but then he puts it off for two then three and soon he's forgotten all about flossing...I think that's where I am.  I felt bad about not writing, about not sharing my Europe and life experiences, but I keep thinking I'll get to it later, then I feel bad about forgetting and it's a self perpetuating cycle of procrastinating forever.  But, I choose to be done with that now, so I'm back!

Mt. Vesuvius the volcano that covered Pompeii, you know...it's cool,
 just hanging out within blast distance of where I slept all week.  

Ah-hem, now where did we leave off last?  Oh, right.  My crazy got me onto a flight to Europe and then I posted about the best pizza in the world...does that sound about right?  Turns out I've been going out for the most part every day I can with grad school and work since I came back.  My social life has just skyrocketed as I found new venues to make new friends.  :)  It's funny, I had to leave the country to learn new ways to meet people in my own city...like a tourist.  I'm finding more and more that I am not alone in my thinking that something is wrong here, for me at least.  I don't feel an iota of guilt for that feeling.  It's just who I am.  I'm not willing to settle because life's just too short to not want to go out and experience the world.

Castel Nuovo - my first real castle on 6-6-12

So onto what I did in Naples, Italy.  I have pictures now, so when I say I've been somewhere you'll understand.  The first thing you notice when you fly overhead is that all of the roofs are a red brick and there are palm trees.  Everyone is skinny, short and well tanned.  The shops are so dense it's hard to know what is where because they don't have signs like we have here.  You basically have to walk up the block to know what's on that block.  I was a giant everywhere I went, which played out very well on me making friends, short friends that is.  The first 2 nights I couldn't sleep because I was 6 hours off.  JET LAG is a BITCH!  So, since I was the only one in my B&B I stayed up on my computer all night, then slept til 2, missed my breakfast part of my B&B, and was pissed I didn't wake up.  After my first day of walking around...I stumbled upon 2 girls looking to be in an argument, half in French and half in English, with an Italian speaking ticket seller at Castel Nuovo, that I helped out with my one word I knew at that point, ticket.  After hanging out a few hours, I told them I didn't want at my B&B because it was expensive and I no one was there.  So, they took me to their hostel and I booked a room...yes it took all of one day for Europe to really like me.  I took them to a cool restaurant that was recommended by my Italian friend.  When I walked into the Hostel of the Sun, one of Italy's best, I saw attractive, young, people socializing out in a living room setting with bean bags, dvds, with a huge kitchen, and they sold alcohol.  This is how I fell in love with hostels!  :)  Also, Palazzo Reale was the first bad ass square that I hung out in and it just very very social there.  I can't say that we have places like that here with soooo many people hanging out not doing anything important.

Fresh seafood anyone?   You can literally scrap mussels of the rocks.  

Just hanging out on the Amalfi coast!
It's is so awesome, people go on their honeymoon if they're lucky.  

So through these girls I got to travel the Amalfi Coast.  It's just beautiful there.  They have fresh lemon trees, beaches, clear warm water and sunshine all day long.  There is no humidity either, which is what makes you sweat so much in Cincinnati.  The Mediterranean sea is clear, but has no fishy smell like Lake Michigan.  The mountains in the Amalfi are so tall that houses and gardens are cut into the mountain.  I have some great panini with buffalo mozzarella made specialty in Naples, red tomato, prosciutto, and cabatta bread.  Surprisingly there isn't sand in the Mediterranean so that will dissuade tourists from America.  We ended up in the city of Positano, with one cool beach with beautiful people everywhere.  I was surprised by how salty the sea water was.  Oh and one of my new friends got stung by a jelly fish. I had trouble getting back to Naples, since this was an hour out, but ended up meeting my friend's friends very late night and had homemade Italian food that YP's eat there.

Limoncello from fresh lemons.

Museum di San Martino

Europe 2012 - week 1

I am sitting in my hostel, The Yellow, in Roma, Italia writing this.  This is the short version and cannot possibly describe fully what I’ve seen or done or how it’s changed me. 

This is the first post I’m doing that isn’t only about food.  I’ve been asked to give updates on my 6 week European walkabout.  I’m sitting here waiting for laundry t be done in Roma, Italia.  After leaving my job, I booked a very expensive non-refundable plane ticket to Naples, Italy or Napoli as they call it with 3 days notice.  I have never been abroad mind you and that took some alcoholic persuasion to do.  I’ll be honest with you, I was scared shitless about traveling alone.  I’ve never been out of the country and I don’t know exactly what I was waiting for…but it never came.  I have never been in a better position in life to do this seeing as I’m unmarried, have no kids, have no mortgage, have no job but lots of open offers and grad school is out for the summer.  As my friend from Napoli has said, we can die of cancer tomorrow, so why am I sitting on a savings account?  You cannot change the inevitable future, and leaving a big house to no one is a pretty shitty future.  So instead, I’ve chosen to make memories that will last a lifetime.  I booked 6 weeks in Europe with a return flight out of Napoli on July 17^th.  This was not a good idea, seeing as I’m not going to be anywhere near Napoli at the end.  I’ll figure that out later though. 

My trip started with getting together with 2 friends from Napoli, a German, and a Cincinnati friend and going over the lonely planet guide I was told to get.  This travel guide is like the bible to me here.  It has everything from maps, train guides and prices, metro info, hostels, food, language tips, and random tidbits like Roma was founded on a scene including the raping of the women from a nearby city…weird I know!  We went over places to see in Italy as well as Austria, Switzerland, Germany, France, and Spain.  I have nothing set in stone, no reservations to stay anywhere, and I am just wandering from city to city getting a feel for them.  I am learning from other people who have traveled my road about how long to stay in these cities, new cities, hostels, prices, great areas I’ve never heard of, etc.  I don’t like putting myself in a box and giving a definite timeline on shit to see and places to stay.  I think that ruins the experience because you start to worry too much about getting things done.  I am making a rough checklist from my guide book, but I’m not going to be angry if I randomly meet cute girls and take a boat ride in a park instead of going to a priceless museum (note: this actually happened). 

My friend was nice enough to let me use his Italian cell phone which has come in handy.  He and his girlfriend even contacted their friends in Napoli so that I could meet them, which has made this trip less of a touristy thing and I got more of a feel for what the natives are like, what they think about other cities, unemployment, etc.  My friend set me up with a bed and breakfast for 2 days, and then he said I can make my own decision if I wanted to stay there more or find a hostel.  My B&B was 50 euro, which is pricey for 6 weeks.  Hostels on the other had are 20 to 35 euro.  The word hostel made me think of bad things for some reason.  That fear of being robbed by shady Europeans has been completely blown away by a fear of being robbed by rich American kids. 

My 3 plane tickets included an outgoing trip from Cincinnati at noon Monday to JFK in New York with a 7 hour layover, then an overnight to London with a move from one London airport to another, then the London flight to Napoli.  My 7 hour layover let me hang out with a guy in New York I haven’t seen in like 2 years, but it’s always fun to catch up!  I learned London is cloudy and cold and I would never want to stay there long term . The bad thing is my transfer from airports combined with my luggage being an hour late made me almost late for my Napoli flight, and had to put my big bag through security.  This meant I had to throw away every liquid, including soap, shampoo, cologne, etc.   Landing in Napoli without these things sucked hard!  Within minutes of landing, my view on the world was completely shattered.  The place was a culture shock to say the least.  I immediately love the high 80’s F weather.  Taking a taxi to my B&B, the driver didn’t speak English…turns out most people in Napoli don’t.  This has been part of the shock.  My friend wrote down the address of my B&B so I handed it to the driver.  I learned that service is not an Italian thing.  This guy literally dropped me off on a loud and crazy corner but didn’t know where I was going.  He just said this is the cross street, but I don’t know where you are going and I don’t care, GET OUT!  Fucking awesome!  The Italian mindset is more of a they just can’t be bothered to give a fuck.  The best food is in the places with the least English and worst service in dirty alleyways.  I was in the Centro Storico district of Napoli, Italia.  I was told that this is one of the most densely populate areas in the world, and shit it was crowded.  It was alive with an insane energy.  I saw hot Italians everywhere and it was Tuesday at 5pm.  The streets are smaller then alleys back home with cobblestone like streets that were surrounded by 5 story buildings that go for miles.  This blocked out most of the sun unless you got into one of the hundreds of piazza’s or squares.  You will find so MANY people at the piazza’s.   I hear there are 3 million in the city of Napoli and it’s packed.  There is no parking really, and all of the cars are “smart” cars.  These are like normal but they have the trunk cut off to be shorter.  People drove like crazy people and almost never follow stop signs, lights, or traffic laws.  Scooters are EVERYWHERE.  If there is a 2 lane street, that’s like a personal challenge for the Italians to make it a 5 lane with 3 scooters between the cars.  Because of the heat I’ve found that everything happens very late and dinner is usually t 8:30. 

I have never dealt with foreign money and didn’t have time to take much money with me, so I kind of fucked myself in many ways.  I found out that just because your credit card company says you can use your card abroad does NOT mean that that country will let you.  L  Most places do NOT accept credit cards like home.  My B&B did not accept cash and that was an entirely weird story.  I randomly have been talking to anyone and everyone as I wander and if we hang out, I’m adding them on facebook.   I was lucky enough to meet 2 girls from Canada that spoke French and English at Castel Nuovo that said they were doing my trip, but in the opposite direction.  Turns out they were staying in the best hostel in Napoli, Hostel of the sun, and they took me there.  How weird is that?  I know that everyone wants me to post hundreds of pictures of the places I go, but wi-fi is hard to get a good signal here.  I have wandered Napoli for 3 days going to museums, saw 2000 year old Pompeii’s ruins, took a boat to Procida and Iskea (think Capri island), traveled the Amalfi coast (this is where you take your honeymoon), and met people from across the world….and it’s only a week into my 6 weeks. 

I will post more later, but just know that I am not the same person I was.  I have had to go up and talk to a hundred random people in 7 days just to not be alone and have conversation and learn about the world that didn’t exist to me until last Monday!  I have seen so many things while walking 10 to 12 hours a day.  There is so much more in my world now, and I know that I could go anywhere in the world and meet people and connect them.  I had dinner with 11 awesome Italian women and 2 Americans last night after I walked Roma’s Spanish Steps and rented a boat with 2 cool European girls that were just in town visiting each other.  It’s funny that I had to describe what my tattoo meant last night and many other nights.  It’s a phoenix, a symbol of not only making a change in your life, but the continued spiritual death and a rebirth not just once but over and over again.