Second Lazy Tuesday

I declare Tuesdays my unofficial rest and recover days. My parents caught the train to Napoli but I was too terrified. I slept until the afternoon. Tried going out to find some people who speak English but I was mostly unsuccessful. I managed to order a huge Pizza Pocket for super cheap. It was a full meal within itself and, of course, tasted amazing like everything else Italian. I started to feel heat stricken walking around on the streets and retreated to my air conditioned hotel room to catch up with my internet life until my parents got back from Napoli. They went to some underground tunnels below Napoli that used to provide water for the city.





We loved the restaurant from last night so much that we went again.




Grandpa Pizza!

Huge chunk of mozarella cheese wrapped in a crispy thin pasta. Caserta is known for its exceptional mozarella.

"I'm gonna eat you, little lamb"

It's not the angle, that wine glass really is the size of my head. Yes, MY head.

Napoli here we come.

It's Monday and I have internet once more. We didn't do anything special today but drive to Napoli, get lost, drive through Napoli, get terrified, leave Napoli. We checked into a hotel about 20 km outside of Napoli in a Camorra-run city, Caserta. They control Napoli too. Camorra is mafia-like organization in Italy. We got some good advice about where to get dinner from a police officer who was probably in the Camorra too. The pizza was baked in a fire oven pretty close to our table. The place was called Massa and was pretty fairly priced for everything it had to offer. We ordered two appetizers, I ordered a Calzone for the main dish. We were full after the appetizers but couldn't stop eating. Their house wine was amazing. I wish I could take some home with me. It tooke us nearly two hours but we finished all of our food and went home and passed out immediately.

Thank God for Skating

Woke up, ate breakfast, layed in the sun.

Parents wanted to go walk around Rome and see the sights like the Vatican and the Colliseum. I was dead tired from the night before but agreed anyways. I dragged my feet the whole day and got a few pictures before my camera battery died. Here they are:










And here are my dad's pictures from the rest of the day:

Roma Day One

Our flight was short and customs went smoothly. Once outside the terminal, the heat started to set in. I told my dad that Italians are fun to look at because they work so hard on their appearance he said hes glad somebody noticed. They all looked the same though, pretty flamboyant. I think my hat made me stand out because everyone else had too nicely styled hair to be wearing a hat. I think hats would also prevent them from stylishly wearing their sunglasses on their foreheads. Renting a car took about two hot hours. I was starting to sweat just sitting in the shade.

We finally got our car and drove to our hotel to check in. I immediately went for a poolside nap to enjoy the sun I so dearly missed while we were in London. The lifeguard spoke a fair amount of English and suggested a few places where I could find more Americans like myself. When the sun dipped behind the hotel building, I went to the hotel room to take a shower and found my dad napping like a baby.
We caught the 7pm bus to the center and I was completely awestruck.

I couldn't stop taking pictures, I thought it was the most amazing city ever.







I really liked this statue. I want it outside my house if I ever get one.

Before it was actually dark we enjoyed a sweet deal on dinner. 9.50 Euros for pasta or pizza, salad or brucheti, and a glass of wine. It was a touristy spot but still the best Italian food I've ever had. After dinner we grabbed a gelato cone to split between us and my parents took the bus back to the hotel. I stuck around and took a walk around in search for some night life. The two most popular suggestions were a pub called The Drunken Ship and a club called Anima. I got to where The Drunken Ship was supposed to be but couldn't find it so I asked the police officer where it was and he told me they had some trouble with the police. I said, "I'm in the wrong place, eh?" and strode off towards Anima. I was told there would be a younger following but I don't think there was anyone under 25 there. I befriended some consulting group from NYC that got sent to Rome for a 2 day paid vacation. Most of them were ghastly boring but atleast one of them bought me a drink. The guy who bought me a drink was too drunk to remember who I was by the end of the night. A lot of drunken things happened that night that I don't think I should share with the internet. Some locals helped catch a night bus home and I finally got to the hotel at around 4:30am. The only problem was that all the doors were locked and I couldn't find a buzzer to wake someone up to let me in. I thought I was going to have to climb into our hotel room but decided against it for two reasons. 1) I wasn't sure which balcony was ours. 2) I wasn't confident I could even pull it off. I walked around the hotel testing doors and managed to find one that wasn't completely closed and that was the end of the night.

Crazy Taxi

We had to wake up at 4am to catch our 7am flight to Rome. I actually woke up a little earlier to claim the shower. We packed, checked out, and met our taxi driver. He was the best driver. He ignored all the useless laws, spotted cops blocks away, cornered perfectly. He got us to the airport in half the time it took us to get to our hotel from the airport. I knew it was a minivan and our speed was probably unsafe but I didn't feel uncomfortable for one second. Simply spectacular driving. I salute you, early morning taxi driver. It reminded me that the Ferrari I saw parked in the middle of the Heathrow airport is wasted on poor drivers. I saw people entering the raffle but I was the first to actually look under the hood. I was very disappointed to see that it was only a V8.

Chicken Vindaloo

Friday evening was the first time I saw anything close to a blue sky. The brits would probably call this sunny. I couldn't find the sun all week and Friday was no exception.

After seeing advertisements of some British energy company at every tube station in London the said, "A woman enjoys some chicken vindaloo to celebrate turning down her heating one degree," I got inspired to try some Indian food in London. We walked around for awhile and were unable to find any Indian restaurants that actually served any kind of vindaloo at all but I did find this convertible beamer that was doing a half decent job of going JDM. Chameleon paint isn't really JDM but I thought it looked cool anyways.

After checking out 3 or 4 restaurants we settled on one in a rather pretty neighborhood. The food was great and we each had about a liter of a beer called Kobra.


If my memory serves me correct. Kobra is the kind of beer you drink in a 40 oz bottle chilling on the corner with your homeboys. Maybe thats why my dad was moved to order the second round of these huge bottles. We each definitely had more than our 40 oz share.

Strange Coincidence

Yesterday I was playing with the idea of being a skate instructor at Woodward camp, the biggest skate camp in the world, next summer. I wasn't sure on how I was going to accomplish this goal. Strange coincidence, on my daily trip to BaySixty6 I ran into another rollerblader from the States who has been skating for 7 years like me. He was from New York, the state not the city, and we were practically on identical ability levels. After chatting for awhile I discovered that when he returns to the States from his vacation he is going to be teaching at the east coast Woodward skate camp. He said I could definitely do it too if I just send it an application and bug them by phone every week. Watching him skate inspired me to try some things and by the end of the session I was comfortable spinning fakie 7s (translation: come in backwards, two full rotations, land backwards) over a fun box. It's something I always wanted to learn but having someone like him around really motivated me. Our hotels were pretty close to each other so we caught the train back together and exchanged contact information. I was hungry to the point of side cramps but the beer I picked up on my walk back helped settle that. Got online and started chatting with the blurberati for ideas on where to go tonight. Jason Bull gave the best suggestions on where to find the "hip youngsters".