Sun and Snow!

Happy President's Day!

which equals...

Happy 96, again! Yay!

We have two weddings coming up back home, one in MD and one in FL, so we are cutting back the spending and trying to make use of the local and more cheap resources this area has to offer, so that we won't have to worry about money while home.
Soooo... with that, this is what the long weekend had in store;

FRIDAY we simply relaxed. Gotta love Friday nights!

SATURDAY we headed to the Corso Malta market, known to the local American's as "Shoe Alley," because it's like 50% shoes (which is 50% wonderful btw). At the markets you can find really good deals on everything, and they sell pretty much everything. Produce, fish, shoes, cosmetics, clothes, under garments, sewing stuff... it's crazy, and way cheaper than in stores. I bought two kilos (2.2 lbs) of apples and 1 kilo of bananas for 3 Euro (which is roughly $4). Oh and a cute mid-thigh length jacket with a hood for 10 Euro. I'm pretty much LOVIN' the markets! Pics and a market blog are sure to come!

My goal at the market this time was really to find curtain rods. I've seen them at markets before, but of course on the day we went to buy some, I had no such luck. So afterwards we went to Ikea and Leroy Merlin (similar to Home Depot), but wasn't in love with anything in their selections, so we're still in the market (ha... ha...).

Following our curtain rod search, we decided the day was too beautiful to let go to waste, so we hopped on the bus and headed downtown. Driving downtown is rather stressful, so we rarely chose the option of driving ourselves.

Gorgeous!

The bus dropped us off in front of Castello Nuovo, which is by the water, and we walked down and around to the water front. From there we decided that we would go get lunch, then gelato at a popular desserts store. We didn't realize it then, but it would be quite a walk. Whoops.

Kind of funny though- as walked around the castle and followed the main road for a bit, we came to a tunnel that had no crosswalk, so you had to go up the stairs to get past the tunnel... then once we reached the top of the tunnel, we realized we were closer to Castello Nuovo... and thus, walked an unnecessary extra amount, hah, oh well, that's how you learn!

Another castle along our water front walk;

Castel dell'Ovo

Some love from Naples water front...

See the red hearts on some of the rocks, aw!

Finally, Gran Bar Riviera


But, we past it up to get some lunch first. We ate pizza (of course), at a random restaurant we found. Fantastic as usual.
Now, back to the goodies! Mmmmm!


After our stereotypical Italian food intake, we made the long trek back to the bus stop.
I thought this looked too perfect (and fake), so I had to capture it.


Once back to our car, the sun was setting and the storm clouds were rolling in.
The sunset was pretty pinks, oranges and reds, but the storm clouds were coming in underneath and hiding them.

I though it was picture worthy...

Once home, we had dinner with some friends and called it a night.

SUNDAY and MONDAY we had church (Sunday), cleaned, hung out, James' did homework and we had friends over for dinner (Monday). Margherita chicken, yum!

Finally, on TUESDAY, we visited Pozzuoli.


This is another costal town not too far away. Here you can find the third largest amphitheater in Italy (Amphitheatrum Flavium), Solfatara (volcanic crater with active fumaroles), and he Macellum or Temple of Serapis (not really sure of the significance).

Pozzuoli is also where it's said that Paul landed on his way to Rome (Poteoli in the Bible).
There's a church there that honors this.


Marble piece on the side of the church which talks about Paul:

At the shore port where the apostle Paul, the successor of Peter and Bishop of Rome
John Paul II
In the pastoral town pausing
November 12, 1990
Pozzuoli event includes one of the glories of its ancient history and the municipality with this marble it handed down the memory.

and

Paul of Tarsus
Apostle of the Gentiles
great champion of truth
arrived at the shores Puteolana
and here he spent seven days
with his brothers in faith

Bishop
and citizens Puteolana
this patriotic remembrance
rely on posterity
auspices of new pure glory
the year 1918


Paul of Tarsus
Year 2000

After three months we sailed (with mortar)
on a ship of Alexandria
who had wintered on the island,
bearing the insignia of the Dioscuri.
Landed at Syracuse,
where we stayed three days
and here, going along,
came to the palace,
The next day
There arose the sirocco (Mediterranean wind)
and so the next day
we arrived at pozzzuoli
Here we are brothers,
Whom invites us to stay
with them a week.
We set then
to Rome.


Seeing this church was the main reason we went to Pozzuoli that day. We had recently heard about it and were excited to check it out. And it's a good thing that the church was our purpose because the amphitheater is closed on Tuesday, (go figure) and we walked around and around and could not seem to find the entrance to the Temple of Serapis!
So this is the best I got of the temple;


Another cool thing was walking through this little (graffiti covered) tunnel. The first time we came to it, we just walked around it because it looked intimidating, but on the way back, we were just ready to get to the car!

Pretty sure this wouldn't be legal in the states...

...but it was fun in Pozzuoli!

That was it for our "96!"

However, February continues...

To bring February (and winter) to a strong finish, we chased down a cold front and hopped on some snowboards!

It was snowing like crazy on the mountain- awesome! It gave me the real feel of winter that Naples has been lacking. James and I have never been skiing or snowboarding, but we've been wanting to, so when our friends invited us, told us the details (price, distance, etc), it was hard to resist!


We both absolutely loved it- there will SO be more of it in our future! We had to borrow or rent all our gear for this trip, so wea re going to work on getting our own stuff during the summer, (hopefully we can find some sales) and then hit the slopes a lot more next winter.
During winter you don't want to be out in the cold site seeing, so why not pick up a winter sport!


The day started out great, it wasn't too hard to pick up on, it was just a little rough on the muscles. Not saying I didn't fall, just that it made sense and we slowly learned how to steer and stop without seriously damaging our bodies! After about my third time down we realized my boots weren't tight enough, so I was working a little extra and making way for blisters! No fun!


After lunch we finally headed for the blue slope, which was just on the other side of the lift from the bunny slope. OH yeah! That slope was steeper and not too long, so once we did that one, we decided to head for the longer, but less steep run.

The ride to the top was long, cold, and actually kind of Eerie...

The higher we went up the mountain, the less the visibility! Eek!

When we reached the top, we were a little nervous about the lack of visibility, and the fact that there was no one else around except the guy manning the lift. Hmm. But we buddied up, locked in our boots, took some pics (on the ground), and were off...


The visibility came back pretty quickly on our way down, and by the time we reached the bottom I was beat!!! However, we decided to power through one last slope before it was time to go... Buuut... it just so happened we got on the wrong lift, and there were only Red slopes... whoops. Needless to say we braked like the whole way down, and I was SO ready to collapse! During the second half of the day, most of my falls were just me taking a break! It's quite a work out... but well worth it!

Boarding was Saturday, then on Sunday- I could barely move! So Sunday was a day filled with Motrin, baths, movies, and being pampered by the worlds greatest husband!
I LOVE MY JAMES!

Happy March!

February Fun!

I failed to mention that my cousin Lauren is studying abroad in Rome from February to May. If you're my friend on Facebook you might have picked up on this, as I've pretty much been counting down the days! We'll, it's finally come! I have a piece of my family only two hours away! Yay!

Just a week after Lauren arrived in Rome, James and I took the train up for a day visit... and we didn't go empty handed. Being spoiled by the Commissary on base, we often don't realize that certain items are hard to find, such as peanut butter. So, by request, we brought two huge jars of good ol' Skippy with us! Though we do miss some things like Sour Patch Kids, Hot Tamales (the candy) and UTZ Salt N' Vinegar chips (yes, specifically UTZ), but that's besides the point.

We met Lauren at her place, then walked and "tram"ed around a bit where we first saw The Cat Sanctuary. The official name is The Torre Argentina- it's where Ceasar was murdered. And as I'm starting to notice a trend- I don't have pics, oops. But you can use your imagination as you read; it's old ruins that you can't go in, you can only look down on and there are lots of cats running around, and the Italian Government provides food for them.
Side note: There are ridiculous amounts of stray cats and dogs roaming this country!

Then we walked around the Trastevere area, which was really cute. To me it was kind of like the Italy you might imagine.

Those were little stops was on our way to Piazza Navona!


The Romans used this as a gaming area (surprise, surprise), so it was once known as Circus Agonalis.
There is a really cool fountain in the middle of the Piazza; Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi, or Fountain of the Four Rivers

Lauren, me, Melissa (Lauren's Rome roommate) in front of the fontana
There are also two other fountains, one on each of the two sides of the Piazza...
*This Piazza was used in the filming of Angels and Demons*

Next we happened across the Pantheon which was built in the second century AD as a temple to all the gods of Ancient Rome...

Gods? They clearly didn't listen to Peter very well, just sayin...

And Lauren decided to take pictures of the pigeon on the fountain in front of the Pantheon.

OK, not really, but that's kind of what it looks like ;-)

James and I were glad we passed by there because that was our third time in Rome and we had yet to see it.

Now off to the Colosseum!


James and I had been in the Colosseum once before, but we followed an audio guide and a Rick Steve's book, which was very helpful, but this time, the four of us decided to take a human guided tour (who would also guide us through Palatine Hill).


The tour guide was humorous and interesting, and I'm glad we joined it.


He had a picture book with him which helped us to fill in the gaps that you can't see because the Colosseum obviously looks nothing like it once did.

Love my cousin!

Next, the tour guides switched and we followed the new one just down the road to Palatine Hill.


This is pretty much a "neighorhood" on the top of a hill where the rich and famous Romans lived- the White House/Beverly Hills of the BC era Romans.


Palatine Hill overlooks the Roman Forum (formerly Forum Magnum)

Which is ruins of Ancient Rome government buildings. It was the center of the Roman public life (wikipedia).

I don't remember the details of each building, but this one has the original door, lock and key- which is over 1500 years old. Pretty sweet.

However, there was a dead bolt on it as well- I guess just because it's there, doesn't mean it's fully funtioning!


This is the Arco di Costantino, built to celebrate a won battle in the 300s.


Taking a quick snap in the Roman Forum before getting the boot.

It was closing time... for the Roman Forum and us. The Super Bowl was on at midnight, so we got on our way!
I had a blast with my cousin, as usual, and can't wait to see more of her before she heads back to the motherland this summer.

In other news-
James had his first homemade OJ...

Valentines Day falling on a weeknight was a little complicated to work with, so we tried to make it fun in our own random way :-)

The following weekend GALLAGHER did a show on base, which was a blast!!!

Our new bff ;-p

I had never heard of him, but James had.
He's a comedian


who specializes in smashes random things to go with his act.


I felt bad for the clean-up crew- whoops!


With that... Stay tuned... More fun to come!

Under the Tuscan Sun...

I've never seen the movie, but I now share the love people have for Tuscany (...and it's sun).

As part of this New Year, we have decided to take advantage of holiday weekends. The CO (Commanding Officer) of the hospital James works for is rather sweet and gives them a "96" (96 hrs off = 4 days off) for almost every holiday weekend, so it'd be pretty lame to them go to waste! After all, we only have 2 1/2 years left (sounds like a lot, but it's really not...)!

January's "96" was Martin Luther King Jr Day, and since we didn't have flights previously book, a nice six hour drive to Florence was in order!

Giorno uno!
Was mostly spent on the road. It was a six hour drive, plus some minor detours. We lodged in a hotel on another base about an hour outside of Florence and 20 minutes from Pisa! So once we checked into our place, we freshened up and headed out to do the touristy thing at Pisa!




This part of the city has a wall around it, and unfortunately by the time we got there the sun was setting behind it, so we agreed we'd have to try again another day before the sun was setting...





But not before trying to sneak her into the back pack of course...







Now to the top!



After paying about 15 Euro per person (Sigh...), we climbed some crooked winding stairs...










To a romantically fabulous view at the top... well, this was almost at the top, but still romantically fabulous!













Ciao for now Leaning Tower!






Toscana Giorno due!

We drove to the Pisa train station to ride into Florence. We bought one ticket for the group, which was about 30 Euro, only to forget to validate our ticket and ended up with a 40 Euro fine! Grrrr! But we all chipped in money and called it a learning experience. At least we bought one ticket, because if we would have had five individual tickets and wouldn't have validated any of them, that would have been 40 Euro times 5 tickets- which is a whole lot more Euro than I care to think about losing! Needless to say, we are all now compulsive ticket validators... with the exception of maybe Chris who slept through the whole incident and thought we were messing with him when we told him what happened...
Hmm, maybe I should sleep on the next train ride...

An un-budgeted 20 Euro later, alas, we were in the wonderful city of Florence.

We found out that some friends of ours were going to be in Florence as well, so we gave them a call, met up at the local McDonalds (so American right), and headed to the Accedemia, which hosts the statue of David.

*Sidenote: We were told the Accedemia is expensive and that the line can be hours long, so you will want to buy tickets in advance online. Right before we left Naples, we went online to reserve tickets, which were totaling to 17 Euro a person. However, when we went to purchase them, the site wouldn't let us because you have to order them 48 hours in advance, and we were outside of that window. Bummer.

To get to the Accedemia, we followed our guide Matt (our friend equipped with a map) who lead us to a door that we thought might be wrong, walked up to a ticket window that we thought had to be in the wrong museum, and bought tickets for less than 7 Euro, which too seemed wrong. Turns out, we were not there in peak season, so it was a good thing we procrastinated and the website didn't let us buy tickets on line- we were there, and for less money! Strong work Matt.

Inside there are tons of paintings and sculptures, but like most tourists, we went strait for the David!





...Where you aren't allowed to take pics...

Huh???









From this far back you can kind of see how his upper body seems to get a little bigger. This is because he was meant to be placed high up, and they wanted him to appear all one size, so they were trying to account for the high distance up that he would be, however, as you can see... Well, it was a good thought Michaelangelo.

After much walking around and naked-sculpture viewing, we headed to lunch. They put us outside under a canopy, and those of us who were more easy to please were in awe of the birds above:


After lunch we headed on to the Duomo.


A better look at beautiful the Duomo.


Next we enjoyed a leisurely walk through the city as we headed to Ponte Vecchio.


This is a bridge said to be built in the Roman times, as it first appears in writing dated back to 996. There are shops all across the bridge, mostly jewelry shops, and previously butchers occupied it.

But mostly, I think it's just really old and beautiful with a great view!


To end day two, we headed to a lookout point, were you can look over the city.

On the walk there, we saw some sites that we can safely assume are only legit in Italy.

Park however and where ever you fit...


Do not enter when carrying a large table...


And of course, what would site seeing in Italy be without a bunch of stairs to climb?


But, as always, it was well worth it.


Shout out to the Japanese group who took this pic and gave us a Polaroid of it from their camera... all with a language barrier. Love it.


Finally we headed back to the train and then car, got some Chinese (Asian, in honor of our new friends- totally kidding), and called it a night.

Giorno Tre!


After the hassle of the ticket and the parking garage, we decided it would be more worth it to drive into Florence instead of taking the train. Aside from not calculating the tolls, I think it was a success.

We parked outside of the Florence stadium, which was one train stop away from the major downtown area where we started on day two.

We stopped by Giotto's (bell) tower



and the baptistry, but chose not to pay to go inside on this trip (as we expect there will be plenty more opportunities for that). Then we attempted to hunt down other chapel that Michelangelo painted the ceiling, but it was closed. We did some shopping in the leather market (forgot to take pics), where I bought a gorgeous long brown leather jacket, yay! This was all in route to Santa Croce,

the resting place for the bodies of Michelangelo, Galileo, and Machiavelli.

Here is Michelangelo's tomb, each statue represents each of the different artistic things he did (ie, painting, sculpting and architecture), but I can't remember which is which.


Here lies Galileo, but I completely forgot all significance of his tomb, whoops.


That was all for day three. We grabbed dinner just around the corner from Santa Croce, made our way back to the stadium and headed out for the night.

Giorno quattro

At this point, the time off was dwindling, so we had to head back south. But not without a revisit to Pisa, a green Tuscan drive, and a true Tuscan-town pit stop!

I was trying to wiggle it out, but it's just wouldn't budge...


"Chris, move a little to the left, here... I'll why don't I just move you..."


It was falling so I tried to shift it ;-)


Ahhh, don't fall on us!


I think we had too much fun with the gang in Pisa!
We hopped back into the car and were on to the tourist trap of San Gimignano!

An old and beautiful Tuscan town, that was way in the mountains,

And, we learned by experience, that it pretty much shuts down for the winter.

So we pretty much had the city to ourselves, kind of cool.

Of course, we did have to wait a few minutes to take over the well... but then we totally took it over...


View from the city...


I just thought this alley way looked cool.


And that was our "96" in Tuscany!
Love this pic of the drive home... the individual personalities...

Pocket Espresso anyone?

That's all for now... good lookin' out Dr. MLK!

And who knew Tuscany was a state, not a city?
Yeah, I totally knew that...
;-)