Per Tutto Il Tempo

You failed me iTunes! I keep hearing this song on the radio, except I never caught the artist and had to conduct an investigation to figure out who it was. I got my hair cut at “Fortress America” (re: entry #1) the other night and gathered from my expertly coiffed, but almost exclusively Italian-speaking, stylist Tony that the singer was “Ruf, R-U-F” (it’s actually Raf), who’s “old.” Which means that Raf has a lot of songs, and when I tried to browse for this certain tune, I wasn’t having any luck. I knew if I listened to the radio while packing this morning, I would eventually hear it. And I did! I grabbed a pen and paper to write down any lyrics I could make out (thus making an internet search much easier) and picked up “Per tutto, il tempo.” That’s also the title of the song. When I found it, I tried to download it in iTunes, but iTunes was having none of that. Apparently, there are different stores for different countries and I am allowed content that’s in the US store only. This song was in the Italian iTunes. I tried faking out iTunes and changing my country, but no dice. After that, I resorted to other methods and eventually procured it – I won’t reveal my source – and am now happily listening to another decent Italian pop song. Enjoy the video!

A Ren Fest & Mt. Doom

My valuable lesson for the weekend – sometimes your plans go astray, but it can work out for the best. I had a grand plan to spend this past weekend in Florence, the Renaissance capital of Italy, so I hopped on a train northbound early on Saturday morning, just glad to escape Naples. It’s a 3 hour trip on the ‘luxurious’ fast train via Rome. I was really excited – I had even taken out the Rick Steves Florence guidebook from the base’s library. However, as soon as I stepped off the train and started walking to my first tourist destination, I realized that the nagging feeling in the back of mind like I forgot something was spot on – I left my passport in Naples! That ruled out an overnight stay in Florence. I thought about finding some sketchy hotel that might not ask questions, but – don’t worry Mom – decided against it immediately. Afraid that I would get stranded without a bed for the night, I ran back to the train station to check the schedule and buy a return ticket to Naples. 6:50 – that allowed me a 6 hour tour of Florence.

I hit the highlights you don’t need a ticket to view – the Duomo, Pontevecchio, the Medici Chapels – and spent most of my dwindling hours wandering the streets and window/tent shopping (there was a large outdoor market). I was too upset with myself for forgetting my passport to seriously shop though.

At one point, I found myself suddenly in the middle of a Palestinian solidarity rally, of all things. I couldn’t really make out the Italian chanting or posters, but I think it had to do with Israel’s settlement expansion in the West Bank.

Other than that, the day was pretty uneventful, but enjoyable. My biggest regret is that I missed “David.” However, I am starting to get museum-ed out so my disappointment is not too acute.

Given the semi-failure of my Florence trip, I was determined to stay away from base as much as possible on Sunday. I promised myself that if the weather was nice, I would go to Mt. Vesuvius. Lo and behold! I woke up to a perfect, sunny morning (okay, so there were a few clouds). To get to Vesuvius, I took the same train I took to Pompeii, except I disembarked a few stops before that at Ercolano, which also hosts the ruins of Herculaneum (like Pompeii destroyed – and preserved – by the 79AD eruption). While waiting for the bus that shuttles you three-quarters of the way up the summit, I met some nice Canadian ladies. We had plenty of time to chat since the bus manager – not the most pleasant man – wanted to wait an hour to get a larger number of tourists. One Canadian, Sarah, was actually living in Hong Kong with her pilot husband, who was the brother of the second Canadian, Jeanette. Jeanette works in the Arctic for a mining company – who better to see Vesuvius with than a geologist! It was a very pleasant trip with the friendly Canadians; traveling solo is difficult, especially when you want to share exclamations of wonder at famous landmarks. As far as landmarks go, Vesuvius rocks (ugh) – it looks so unassuming, but if you think about the destruction you’ve seen at Pompeii, you start to get a bit nervous. At least I did. Also, with clouds swirling about and into the crater, it gave me a really eerie feeling. Sad to admit it, but the most thrilling part of the Mt. Vesuvius experience was actually the bus ride up and down along a narrow, winding road, which sure looked to be one way, but ended up being two.

Who put Veterans' Day in the middle of the week?

First of all, thank you everyone for the birthday wishes! It really did make my day.

Second, I realize it’s been awhile since I last posted, but there really hasn’t been anything noteworthy until today, when I totally got my tourist on (I mean, just look at that outfit!). Given that it’s rained every day this week I was terrified that today (Veterans’ Day) would be the same, but the Roman gods relented and the sun shone. Even if it had been raining, I was bound and determined to visit Pompeii – every time I mentioned to someone that I had not been there yet, I felt ashamed – but I lucked out and the weather was perfect.

For anyone who hasn’t been, Pompeii is an easy train ride from downtown Naples. It reminds me of going to the pyramids in Egypt, with the city’s outlying neighborhoods literally at the doorstep of a famous historical landmark. I did have one moment of panic on the train though; the man sitting next to me shot off a rapid question in Italian, directed at me (“Sorry, no Italian-o”), but which the lady across from him answered and I thought I caught “No Pompeii.” Craaap. After my train debacles trying to reach my sister in Viterbo, Italy this summer, I am a little paranoid about train travel. However, reassured by the presence of other touristy folks, recognizable from their backpacks and tennis shoes, I stayed on the train, which ended up being the right one. Not so sure if it was the right one for that poor Italian guy though.

After renting an audio guide and ticket (for some reason, the ticket guy asked me how old I was and I had to reply “25” for the first time – yikes!), I entered the unlucky (or idiotic, depending on your level of cynicism) city of Pompeii and went back to before 79AD, when Vesuvius erupted. It was impressive. Pompeii actually seemed like a great city that would have been fun to live in – the sea is close, the city is big, but not too big, they had a stadium, two theaters, numerous parks, mountain views – well, that last one maybe not so much. I ended up spending several hours exploring the well-preserved ruins with my trusty British-accented audio guide (my favorite audio guide quote: “Let’s enter the Edificio di Eumachia. As you go through the doorway, turn to your right. Can you see the niche in the wall? This niche is where they would have kept a jar!” Wait, what?). The fact that I could walk around for hours and just barely complete a full tour should give you an idea of just how large the site is. However, it’s not large enough to stop me from running into someone I know; I was walking up a street towards the end of my day and saw Tom, the ONI liaison to 6th Fleet, and his family. Will the small world incidents never stop?! After a brief exchange, we went our separate (and opposite) ways and I finished my tour. I’m glad I finally got to check Pompeii off my list, but it was more than just a 'check,' it was a thoroughly enjoyable and educational ‘check.’

Some additional highlights:
- Vesuvius rising innocently in the background
- They used urine gathered from public latrines to wash cloth, because of the cleaning-power of ammonia
- A lack of crowds, which allowed me to take some more creative self-portraits
- At the stadium/ampitheater, a spectators’ brawl turned into a full scale riot between Pompeiians and their neighbors, Nucerians; talk about team spirit!
- A lot of the destruction unsuspecting visitors might attribute to that whole volcano episode or the ravages of time, was actually caused by an earthquake 17 years prior to the eruption; the Pompeiians were still in the process of rebuilding

Yogurt

Elinas Joghurt Nach Griechischer Art with Honig. Best. Yogurt. Ever. I’m glad to see that someone else has blogged about it. Can anyone translate it?

RTVF Alum Needed!

AFN (American Forces Network), which runs the 8 television channels we get on base, has gone too far – I would nominate this for worst commercial ever!

Open on guitar player singing on sailboat. One 20-something male approaches 20-something female, both sipping from Solo cups.
Male: “Man, this guy should stick to his day job.”
Female: “He’s not so bad.” Sets cup down on table behind. Distracted by movement off screen, looks away.
Male surreptitiously spits into cup. Sets down on table behind.
Male: “I’ll be right back.” Exit stage right.
Female reaches for cup and accidentally picks up male's. Slowly lifts to mouth without looking.
Voiceover: “You might not think your smokeless tobacco habit is so bad, but others might find it…”
Female sips from cup: “GROSS!” AAAAND SCENE.

*shudder

I couldn’t find this particular PSA online, but here is another gem that I love. Indoctrination and public service announcements at their best. Other things AFN has taught me:

High Speed + Heavy Traffic = Autobahn
Autobahn + Alcohol = Bad Idea

Waste, fraud, and abuse should be reported

Explore your host country and spend money to help its economy

Sexual assault is bad

Motorcycles are dangerous

You better start the paperwork to marry a foreign national before you even meet them

Your trash is a terrorist’s treasure

Stay hydrated

At least with AFN I can watch American television, albeit from last season; I was horrified to learn that Hulu does not operate internationally. Sometimes I feel guilty about staying immersed in American culture, but AFN does not offer any Italian channels and I have been trying to branch out with the radio. I have to admit though, it's nice to be able to retreat into the "American bubble" after venturing out into Naples.

$$$

One quirk of living on base: while we use US currency at all the “restaurants” (Subway) and shops, no one accepts pennies! I wonder if anyone has ever done a study about how much money they’ve either lost or gained from rounding prices…

It's a small world after all; no, really, it is!

So I tried to keep a running tally of the things I wanted to share from the past three weeks as I was debating whether to start a blog, but of course I’m having a tough time recalling everything on command when I begin to write. My apologies beforehand for straying from a coherent timeline; I will be jumping around from story to story as I am reminded of them.

Which brings me to this: Two weekends ago, my co-workers invited me to a poker game at this place called Carney Park (don’t worry, I’ll get back to the poker part). The rumored back story behind Carney Park is that the Navy bought a large, empty piece of land from Italy in the 60s and turned it into a recreation area complete with soccer and baseball fields, volleyball and basketball courts, a swimming pool, cabins, tent sites for camping, etc. It’s actually kind of bizarre, because all of this is enclosed in a large crater, with wall-like hills surrounding the flat park. And unfortunately, you need a car to get to it (I hitched a ride with a co-worker; many of the enlisted Navy guys buy beat-up old cars since they are here for two or three years).

It definitely did not feel like we were in Italy; we grilled hamburgers and ate s’mores! As for the poker game itself, it turns out that despite hailing from Vegas, I have no talent for poker (and no beginner’s luck) and ended up the second player eliminated. Side note: Will eventually won, after about 5 hours of play, although that is counting the time we spent lingering outside waiting for firemen because someone thought it was okay to smoke inside and set the fire alarm off! Genius.

And now for the truly crazy part of this story: I was talking to my co-worker, Colby, over hamburgers and somehow we got onto the topic of Northwestern and Illinois in general. He casually mentions that his family is originally from Illinois, so I naturally ask, “where?” just in case I’ve heard of it. Well, he says that his father is from Aurora and I say no way, that’s where my dad is from too! But it didn’t stop there. Not only are both our dads from Aurora, but they went to high school at Marmion together, only a few years apart! I asked my dad about it later and he remembers Colby’s father and uncles, although my dad’s friends were closer to them than he was. It was weird – of all the places in the world, of all the people I could meet/work with, and here is this connection. I’ve proclaimed it my “Small World Story #2” (I don’t think anything will beat running into a freshman year high school classmate in a Guatemalan hostel – but prove me wrong, world!).