Naples, Italy (June 4 - 6)

Oh Napoli, your rolling hills of endless garbage, your endless streams of sketchy immigrants, and your inability to speak english at all, has our heads spinning in your beauty and grace.

Seriously, this place is dirty and scary, mostly by the train station, thank god we are not staying near there. Although we did endure a 40 minute walk on a slow and long incline in 30 degree heat, with our teenage children strapped to our backs plus a 500lb package that we forgot to send in florence, all the while trying to not be killed by the traffic, the moped divers on crack and swarms of really italian locals. Asia here we come!! This place is like practice run. Although we feel that more people will speak english in Thailand.

Despite the looming danger (dont worry moms!) we think most is in our heads, well maybe not as the guidebook gives strong warnings about being extra careful here. And we have been. We just walk with minimal amounts of anything and pretend like we know where we're going. Which is hard when we half to pull out the map (which has no street names on it) every ten steps to make sure we don't end up in the ghetto like the other evening. It was pretty cool though as we went to a very local italian grocer and bought supplies for a huge dinner for 4 euros. There was a little italian bag boy that hands your bags to you in the 2x2 space that is the store while the man behind the counter is barking things in italian at him and winking at us. Outside in the piazza (courtyard) there are kids kicking soccer balls against the buildings that would be national heritage sites in canada and people are making out sitting on mopeds. Ahhh, Italy. We asked these people what street we were on, and they said I don't know... welcome to Italy!(And all with a smile).

If you can look past the graffiti and the garbage and the homeless people, it is really quite a neat city built on hillsides with beautiful harbour views and castles all along the coast. We are staying in an amazing place. Best so far, a hidden gem in this chaotic town. Although we have to trek up 9 flights of stairs, narrowly escaping a NSTEMI (for all you hospital types) we have a newly renovated better-than-Ikea-styled room, complete with flat screen TV and Jacuzzi tub (Mitsy, Tawn really misses you!). It doesnt have a phone and a seagull has been trying to break through our window all day, but we have remote controlled AC and an a self service kitchen complete with fridge stocked with breakfast stuff and small bottles of vino!! And we are actually not paying very much for this place which is rare for italy.

Sooo...we are being so descriptive as we have no digital pictures to show. We are off to Pompei tomorrow hopefully, stay tuned for updates. And then to Forio on the island of Ischia if we don't get our asses kicked in the ferry ticket office line up. There is no such thing as proper lines here, so its elbows out and leave the nice Canadian attitude at home. This was difficult today as we stood in "line" at the post office for an hour and a half only to find out it was the wrong line and we accomplished nothing.

Updates to come, we really are OK Mom K&V, we'll call ya when we get a chance!!

çiao!!