Why my life in Naples is good:
Friday.
Came home from work. The clementines in my yard are mostly ripe. (Can anyone tell me the difference between a clementine and a tangerine?) Had one while I chatted with the landlord. Like eating candy. We tried an orange--still pretty sour. December, he tells me.
One of the other LTs and his wife hosted "Late Oktoberfest" at their place. She's part German, part French, and a helluva great cook. Sausage, potato salad, and beer, beer, beer. I got to practice more high school German. Had "Schwarzwaldkirschentorte," which means "Black Forest cherry cake," which means, "best damn dessert I've had in my life." Also a very delicious pumpkin/nutmeg/cinnamon dip that goes with apples, for which I really need to get her to email me the recipe. Also, I finally had a navy wife make good on her word and invite her attractive single friends over to meet the single guys...for some reason, the wives on the boat were always all talk on that front. Anyway, another story for another time.
Saturday.
Spent three hours cleaning my house. About an hour of that was devoted to hunting down spiders. Now, as many of you know, like certain other men in my family (well, like pretty much all the men in the family), I'm not a huge fan of spiders. They are evil. But we've had sort of an uneasy truce going. In the summer, there were tons of flies, fruit flies, and mosquitoes that managed to make it inside the house, so I let the spiders hang out because they did a good job of cutting down on the insect population. However, it's recently started to get chilly here, and there aren't that many bugs around anymore. Which means that the spiders will start to get hungry and look for other food. And who's to say that they won't see human flesh as a reasonable substitute for fruit flies? So I banished them all to the outdoors for the winter.
Saturday night.
Went to a party at the house of a British officer in our office, for the coolest holiday ever. "Guy Fawkes Day." Have you ever thought to yourself, "gee, the combination of a bonfire, fireworks (the really big kind), and copious amounts of beer would sure be a lot of fun"? Well, the answer is, "yes." And have you ever thought to yourself, "where can I legally combine a bonfire, fireworks (the really big kind), and copious amounts of beer, and not get in the least amount of trouble for it?" Well, the answer is, "Naples, Italy." To keep the history lesson short, some guy (well, specifically, Guy Fawkes) was part of a Catholic plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament during the time of King James I (early 1600s); he got caught as he was waiting for the right time to put a match to the gunpowder kegs underneath Parliament, got sent to the Tower of London, and either hanged or burned at the stake, not sure which. But the Brits now celebrate the defeat of that plot every year by buring Guy in effigy in a huge bonfire. Which we did. And they celebrate further by drinking lots of beer. Which we did. And then those who happen to live in places where you can buy and set off your own fireworks displays with no safety precautions whatsoever (i.e., Naples and South Carolina) do so. Which we did.
Sunday.
Went to church, because I'm a good boy like that. Went to a great Italian lunch with one of the guys from the office and his Italian girlfriend (he has one because he actually bothered to learn the language before he came out here...who would have thought?). Good opportunity to practice my Italian; learned a couple more good new words. Apparently, roughly 80% of the Italian language is a double entendre for something else. Helped him put together his wine rack/baker's rack (that's actually not a double entendre). Drove through a torrential downpour and flooded streets that came up to my car door in order to go for dinner with another friend. The pizzeria wasn't open yet, so we went to a nearby bar and ordered rum and Cokes. There was WAY more rum than Coke. Went back to the pizzeria and got "pizza by the meter," which is pretty much just like it sounds. And not that crappy American pizza. Fresh Neapolitan pizza with fresh mozzarella and fresh tomatoes, cooked on a wood fire...I'm never eating Dominoes again. Drove back through the rain and did my Italian homework.
How can you argue with a weekend like that?
Friday.
Came home from work. The clementines in my yard are mostly ripe. (Can anyone tell me the difference between a clementine and a tangerine?) Had one while I chatted with the landlord. Like eating candy. We tried an orange--still pretty sour. December, he tells me.
One of the other LTs and his wife hosted "Late Oktoberfest" at their place. She's part German, part French, and a helluva great cook. Sausage, potato salad, and beer, beer, beer. I got to practice more high school German. Had "Schwarzwaldkirschentorte," which means "Black Forest cherry cake," which means, "best damn dessert I've had in my life." Also a very delicious pumpkin/nutmeg/cinnamon dip that goes with apples, for which I really need to get her to email me the recipe. Also, I finally had a navy wife make good on her word and invite her attractive single friends over to meet the single guys...for some reason, the wives on the boat were always all talk on that front. Anyway, another story for another time.
Saturday.
Spent three hours cleaning my house. About an hour of that was devoted to hunting down spiders. Now, as many of you know, like certain other men in my family (well, like pretty much all the men in the family), I'm not a huge fan of spiders. They are evil. But we've had sort of an uneasy truce going. In the summer, there were tons of flies, fruit flies, and mosquitoes that managed to make it inside the house, so I let the spiders hang out because they did a good job of cutting down on the insect population. However, it's recently started to get chilly here, and there aren't that many bugs around anymore. Which means that the spiders will start to get hungry and look for other food. And who's to say that they won't see human flesh as a reasonable substitute for fruit flies? So I banished them all to the outdoors for the winter.
Saturday night.
Went to a party at the house of a British officer in our office, for the coolest holiday ever. "Guy Fawkes Day." Have you ever thought to yourself, "gee, the combination of a bonfire, fireworks (the really big kind), and copious amounts of beer would sure be a lot of fun"? Well, the answer is, "yes." And have you ever thought to yourself, "where can I legally combine a bonfire, fireworks (the really big kind), and copious amounts of beer, and not get in the least amount of trouble for it?" Well, the answer is, "Naples, Italy." To keep the history lesson short, some guy (well, specifically, Guy Fawkes) was part of a Catholic plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament during the time of King James I (early 1600s); he got caught as he was waiting for the right time to put a match to the gunpowder kegs underneath Parliament, got sent to the Tower of London, and either hanged or burned at the stake, not sure which. But the Brits now celebrate the defeat of that plot every year by buring Guy in effigy in a huge bonfire. Which we did. And they celebrate further by drinking lots of beer. Which we did. And then those who happen to live in places where you can buy and set off your own fireworks displays with no safety precautions whatsoever (i.e., Naples and South Carolina) do so. Which we did.
Sunday.
Went to church, because I'm a good boy like that. Went to a great Italian lunch with one of the guys from the office and his Italian girlfriend (he has one because he actually bothered to learn the language before he came out here...who would have thought?). Good opportunity to practice my Italian; learned a couple more good new words. Apparently, roughly 80% of the Italian language is a double entendre for something else. Helped him put together his wine rack/baker's rack (that's actually not a double entendre). Drove through a torrential downpour and flooded streets that came up to my car door in order to go for dinner with another friend. The pizzeria wasn't open yet, so we went to a nearby bar and ordered rum and Cokes. There was WAY more rum than Coke. Went back to the pizzeria and got "pizza by the meter," which is pretty much just like it sounds. And not that crappy American pizza. Fresh Neapolitan pizza with fresh mozzarella and fresh tomatoes, cooked on a wood fire...I'm never eating Dominoes again. Drove back through the rain and did my Italian homework.
How can you argue with a weekend like that?
posted by Chris at 11:40 PM
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