Buona Sera Napoli

For those of you that I haven't had the opportunity to tell in person, our time in Napoli has come to an early end. Despite the original three-year plan for life under the shadow of Vesuvius, higher powers (not of the religious nature) have determined that the family move on after less than two.

I have had a couple of months to digest the news, and even now it is with mixed feelings that I write my final blog.

If I had to sum up my life in Naples in just one word, the word would be "messy."

Naples ITSELF is messy.  Between the crazy driving conditions, trash problems, volatile southern Italian nature and bureaucracy -- Napoli daunts even other Italians.

I've rattled on and on about the complications of living here.  Add two busy little kids and the complexity simply compounds exponentially. (Just ask me how many ways two little boys can cause me pain simply "using their active imaginations" for uses of the Bidet)  I greet every evening with a degree of exhaustion that seems unreasonable for someone living outside of an assisted living facility.

Most assuredly, I cannot say I will miss it all.  The ants, the mosquitoes, the petty crime, the bazonkers business hours (or lack thereof), the terrible water quality, the lack of consistent internet, phone service, plumbing, electricity-- you name it, it's spotty----These, I will not miss.

It's a rare day when I DON'T have a  blasphemous meltdown in which I curse the Italians at high volume for the seemingly purposeful complexity of a simple action.  Take as a recent example:

My husband asks innocuously if I might be so kind as to drop in the mail the registered letter that is required to close out our housing contract.  "All it needs is postage and return receipt."    Here's how that went.

Dropping of a piece of mail in Napoli:

1.  Look up post office location on internet.  (The last time I went to the post office near my town, I drove around asking directions for 25 minutes and ultimately learned it was up a one-way street that my vehicle couldn't fit on.  I had to park two blocks away and walk.  Since for this "tiny errand" I had both boys, I wanted to have a "simpler" option.)
2.  Confirm post office hours.  (Seems silly, but believe me-- It needs to happen, otherwise you have a nearly 100% chance of failure)
3.  Write down address of post office to enter into GPS.
4.  Confirm GPS coordinates using Google maps, including "Street View" to ensure there ACTUALLY IS civilization at that address/GPS coordinate location.
5.  Pack up kids and letter, enter address into GPS.
6.  Discover address doesn't exist in GPS.
7.  Enter GPS coordinates into GPS, head out.
8.  Find meat market at actual GPS coordinate location, ask local for directions.
9.  Miss the post office on two separate passes.
10.  Find post office located OFF the main street on a little alley.
11.  Note that post office is "a little busy."  Sigh. (There is also an "inside the building" part of this post office.  It looks about the same, is only a bit smellier.  It is July, after all.)

12.  Learn that yes, this is a single line.(!), and that the way to find the end is to say loudly, "Who is the last person?" (Yes, seriously, they keep track of their line not by standing in "line", but by noting who the person is who arrived before and after them.)

13.  Wait for approximately 15 minutes with two terrible toddlers weaving between my legs, falling into the gutter, picking up and eating unwrapped candy from the street, wrestling, and howling about not being able to pet the chihuahua. "But mommy!  He's NIIIIIIIIICE.  Just ask the man if I can pet him!!!!!!"

14.  Notice that, once inside the building, there are actually (5) separate lines forming.

15.  Ask the person behind me if there is a certain line I must go in to send return receipt mail.

16.  Be overheard by approximately 34 other Italians who then need to involve themselves in a rapid-fire argument/discussion/conversation (honestly, even now I can sometimes not tell the difference) about whether I should stay where I am or move over to a separate line far to the left for my specific task. (Italians also pay their bills at the post office.  The post office does a LOT, and it shows....)

17.  Get ushered over to a different (somewhat less chaotic!) section of the post office.

18.  Wait 15 minutes.

19.  Approve the request of a Nonna in line behind me to give my children candy.

20.  Wait 5 minutes while she fishes around in her purse for candy, emerging with a single piece of purse-lint covered fruit candy.

21.  Attempt (epic fail) to convince older boy to share fruit candy with younger boy.

22.  Attempt to console younger boy. (epic fail II)

23.  Provide younger boy with slice of wrapped mint gum, hurriedly passed forward from somewhere in the back of the line through several anxious Italian women.

24.  Younger satisfied, wait additional 10 minutes.

25.  Conduct transaction.  (Outside of a little bit of translation confusion, the easiest part of the entire process.)

26.  Thread through the line in reverse, and pack up the car with the kids.

27.  Go into the cafe to find the owner of the car that has blocked me into my parking spot.

28. Return home, 

No problem sweetie.  

But here's the thing.  While part of me revels in the knowledge that as a direct result of moving away from Napoli, my life will have a lot less "straight up crazy", I am a little worried.  

What if I can't go back?

What if what used to be so comfortable, has instead become boring, vanilla, a little bit "Pleasantville?"

I might shrink back when a waiter at Applebee's just...brings...me...my...food... instead of doing the little dance in Napoli where you order something and the waiter says, "Oh, the spaghetti?  It's finished.  The fish?  We haven't got any today.  Oh, you'd like the cannelloni?  No.  Finished as well.  (Sometimes, I just ask the waiter for his suggestion to avoid this little dinnertime dance.  He MUST know what they actually DO have, right?)

I might accidentally get slapped with a restraining order, when, instead of a clammy handshake when I am introduced, I enthusiastically "duck right, then duck left" for an introductory set of cheek kisses.

I'll probably get thrown out of the grocery store for demanding that the grocer throw in some fresh herbs and a few eggs from the garden for free when I buy my vegetables.

I will miss the bus, because I will show up late to the stop and expect it to stop on the street along the route and get me simply because I am urgently gesturing to it.

I won't recognize an ambulance, because it isn't a guy in a Fiat Punto, foot to the floor on the accelerator, white handkerchief waving out the drivers' side window, elbow on the horn. (It works.  The first time I saw the traffic parting for one of these ambulances, it actually made me cry.  For a culture that will crush you to be in front of you on the freeway-- it was like the parting of the red sea for that Fiat.  I am sure they thought his momma was in the passenger seat.)

I won't recognize "real fashion", because I will go to a mall instead of the fabulous fashion markets here in Naples where you can buy all of this! (All the text is in English because it's "chic" and it is nearly always poorly translated and often in poor taste.  Sigh.)

I will be sad and offended when I don't immediately get told how amazing and beautiful my two boys are, or see the restaurant owner high-tail it to the back of the restaurant to put on either A) American 80's music, or B)  This Song.

I will get up in the morning, make my coffee, throw open the windows and be convinced that my nose has failed-- I have become so accustomed to the daily guessing game, "What's on fire?"

I won't understand why Americans look quizzically at my rear-view-mirror-broken, bumpers-thrashed, sideswiped ride-- hey, it's transportation, not a status symbol, right?

I won't be able to eat dinner without the soccer game on.  Forza Napoli!

(Cue closing sequence MUSIC)

So, perhaps as a nod to my niggling conscience, but perhaps not....we aren't coming home just yet. ;)

Vamos a ir a Espana!!  (Let's go to Spain!)

I guess I am going to have to change the name of the blog and just keep writing. :)  But for now I have some packing and some language homework to do.

Ciao Ciao Bella Napoli, you will be missed.