Czeck-ing out Prague

My affinity for puns is made even worse by humorously named cities and even countries.  I sincerely apologize.  Actually, no I don't.  Puns rule.  Get on board.

So, like the assholes that we are for living in Europe, we put four cities on a list and then elected an official (how thoughtful that everyone, except my husband, voted for me!  Y'all shouldn't have.  No seriously, you shouldn't have, I rule with an iron fist) and that lovely, talented, intelligent, and witty (stop it, I'm blushing) who picked from the list.  And you know what won?  PRAGUE!  Or Praha, as they call it there.  I find that the number of cities with double names is growing.  Paris/Parigi.  London/Londra.  Chania/Xania (crazy Greeks and your X's...).  Prague/Praha.  Anywho, we went to this city with double names and man oh man, was it lovely.

Prague looks like Harry Potter's Diagon Alley every once in a while.  (I just want to continue my magical theme from last week)  And then Old Town Square with its magnificently beautiful spires and the clock tower right in the heart, it just felt like being in this magical little town.  It was one of my favorite spots that we've been to so far in Europe, it was just so incredibly beautiful!  But let's be honest, no one reads this blog to hear me say things were pretty.

That said, when did things get weird??

1. Medieval Themed Bar.
Nothing says Eastern Europe like a medieval themed bars.  No seriously, it's totally a thing.  We (Kim and I) wanted to go to this bar the moment we saw a guy in a jester costume, complete with shoes with bells on the tips.  Seriously, when are we going back?  Once inside, we heard the faint sound of "Eye of the Tiger" playing downstairs and lots of lighter fluid.  Something great was about to begin.  The show included a fire breather, a belly dancer (who also brought in fire to her act) and a guy laying on a bed of nails.  Nathan was probably a foot taller than most everyone in the bar and for some reason, was picked to stand on top of the guy laying on the bed of nails.  With both feet on the guy's chest, Nathan claims to have shifted his weight a bit.  Well the guy screamed.  And Nathan practically jumped off of him only to discover that there was quite the blood trail dripping down his back.  Whoops!  I mean really, what do you expect when you are laying on a bed of nails???

 2. Pork Knee

I saw on Anthony Bourdain's " show No Reservations" about 2 years ago the time that he had a pork knee.  I've wanted one ever since.  My travels through Berlin with a vegetarian didn't seem promising.  But Prague, it turns out, has pork knee on like every menu.  It's incredibly fatty and tastes like regular spiral cut ham, but hacking the hell out of this things with a tiny little knife and my slightly intoxicated husband was great fun!

3. Hot Wine

You want to know Europe's best kept secret?  Lean in really close.  No, closer.  Here goes... Hot Wine.  Mmmm....  It's the sweet nectar of the Gods.  Start with red wine.  Add magic, Brandy, spices, and a bit more magic.  Simmer in a crock pot for an extended period of time.  Serve to cold tourists.  It was SO delicious!  I know, it was like 70 degrees outside.  But I didn't care.  I had a scarf on!  Totally counts! 

Prague gets my vote for prettiest city we've yet seen in Europe.  It was amazing! But what really sold us was the foodie walking tour that we did through Taste of Prague.  I cannot recommend it highly enough!  Totally amazing and we got to eat and drink to our heart's content!

Ciao for now!

Lynne

xoxo



North Carolina After Party: Rockin the Suburbs, 1st Grade Style

The wedding weekend and insanity ended.  Lauri, my sister, and John, my now brother-in-law, full of love and wedding loot headed back to Chicago to begin a life of wedded bliss.  The hubs drove north for a work conference and I stayed at my parent's house to get some dental work done by my childhood dentist, whom I haven't seen in 6+ years.  You know, since graduating from college, getting a job, having my own insurance, getting married, and now living abroad.  Yeah, I'm not the bottom feeding little brat who was here last complaining about my econ final.  Now I'm complaining about my Master's level econ final.  Totally different!!

But I digress...  Left behind by those who moved on with their week, I was carted around in the passenger seat of my mom's SUV feeling the odd familiarity of being home.  Sometimes when I step inside my parents' house, I'm automatically 15 again.  The fact that they won't let me drive their cars just solidified the feeling.

Blah blah blah, fast forward a few days and I came down to see my sister in NC.  You know what's awesome about America?  American TV.  Bravo, in particular.  Competitive cooking shows.  Oh sweet sassy molassey!  I watched Bravo, unbathed and unashamed for HOURS!   My sister at work, her husband at work, I sipped pumpkin beer alone during the day and watched other people work hard and have their dreams shattered.  Damn, it felt good. 



But then I had to clean up my act.  Litterally, I had to bathe.  I finally introduced myself to hygene long enough to go visit Christy's 1st grade class.  I spent a day in a room with 22 first graders.  Holy smokes, it was different.  No breaks to check People magazine and judge Anjolina's outfits (I always vote against her "Looks from Last Night" on principal.  Home wrecker.).  Talk about exhausting!  Through hours of teaching kids to read (sheesh!) and realizing that I have no idea what a baby giraffe is called (it's a calf, by the way.  Can't believe you didn't know that!), we finally got to my 30 minute lesson in Italy.  I blabbed on and on about Rome and things being old, showed them pictures of castles, taught them the 6 Italian words that I know and then dazzled them, I mean it, with European plugs.  Should you ever be forced to talk in front of first graders, always bring funny outlet adapters.  They.  Loved.  It!  I killed it with plug adapters.  I'm not even kidding.  I got the biggest laughs and the most questions about how to plug in my Nintendo DS (which I don't have) and how to make that plug fit into the American outlet.

Here's the video my sister made about the day I spent in her class.  It's so awesome!!  Brava, Christy!
We're capping off the trip to NC with the purchase of a dress for the upcoming Navy Ball and as much Thai and Mexican cuisine and possibly one sushi pit stop before I dash back across the pond on the morrow.  I won't lie that I am not very excited to be leaving.  I've missed my homeland.  I've missed my family.  Eavedropping in my native tongue.  I've missed feeling super fancy when I casually say "Oh, I live in Italy."  I've missed the comfort of a Southern drawl, the endless hours of entertainment that my 1 year old niece can provide and the familiarity of my sister's hugs.  But most of all, I've missed being back where I know how things are done.  We've spent now just over one year in Italy where I have mangled an unknown number of bathrooms, butchered thousands of Italian words and most definitely offended someone on a nearly daily basis.  The entire thing sometimes leaves me exhausted.  I must admit, and you can judge me if you wish, that I am not anxious to go back right now.  I want to stay here, away from my job, my inconsistent shower temperature and my cat's litter box just a little longer.  But I know that I can't.  It's the journey that makes us the strongest.  I sometimes wish I could just fast-forward to that part where I have a house in the suburbs and a yard full of impecably dressed, well-behaved, brilliant children, and pictures on my walls of the next two years.  But I know that I must face each day, each long distance phone call and let's be honest, each additional broken car window, with my own courage behind me.  I feel bad when I complain about the distance or the lonely nights or how much I miss my old friends.  I feel so incredibly guilty when I complain.  I wish I loved everything about Italy and Naples and living abroad.  But when I come home, I have to really force myself to remember that going back is what I have to do.  Put on your big girls pants, Lynne.  It's time to leave your American dreams on the shelf for a few more years and be that international lady of mystery that you someday will become.  Or at least, the one woman whirling durbish of crazy that you already are. 

Love and hugs from this weary traveler,
Lynne
xoxo

All American!

And we're back on American soil!  My lovely sister, Lauri, got married last weekend at the Norfolk (Virginia, USA!!) Botanical Gardens.  And good gracious me, was it a beautiful day.  Our family isn't as Southern as we'd like to be, but we make a wedding rise to the challenge set forth by our foremothers in Steal Magnolias.  Sigh... I love that movie.  And I sob, SOB, every time.  "HERE!  HIT WEEZER!"  [Insert quiet sobs, my husband handing me the 14th box of tissues in the house and me muttering "You'll just never understand..." about 100 times]

But marriage is exciting!  I flew in from Bella Napoli to my hometown of Virginia Beach on Wednesday night and the minute I hit  American soil, there were events planned.  My mom can make any event worthy of 3 or more sub-events with careful thought, 10+ Tupperware containers and a cleverly placed cooler.  My mom LOVES three-ring binders.  Loves them.  It has become a cult following to see just how large of a notebook my mom can make for any given event.  For each of our weddings, the official wedding notebook began at 1" each time and gradually ballooned to 3" and even more!  We took the task of marrying off my sister VERY seriously. 

Well wed they did!  It was a seriously GORGEOUS ceremony.  Lauri looked more beautiful than I've ever seen her.  Seriously, if I weren't already married and it wasn't illegal, I'd contemplate marrying her!  But alas, John got there first.  Queue the white dress, a rendition of "Bless the Broken Road" that brought nearly every person to tears, and a supposed bald eagle sighting (Come on, really, Kara???  I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, but it seemed a bit too good to be true) and you had the makings of a great wedding.  And then came the reception. 



My mom had booked the same wedding photographer that did Team Keenan's Wedding, Andi Grant (HEART!) and with her came a photo booth.  Now, no photo booth is worth its salt if there are not two critical ingredients: 1) sparkly hats 2) a rubber chicken.  People underestimate the value of a good rubber chicken.  Those people are fools.  And I don't even want to socialize with them.  For those of you who haven't scoffed at the rubber chicken, go buy one.  You'll find that it comes in handy in SOOOOO many situations.  Dinner parties, Mexican dinner nights, laying it casually on a really well decorated bookshelf.  Seriously, I could go on and on.  But those would be $7 very well invested.  Leave Pier 1, go get your rubber chicken.

A wedding brought me to America.  My family was so awesome, I extended my trip right before flying out and stayed.  Stay tuned for next week's exciting conclusion: America, the NC after party!!!

You Bet Your Ass(isi)

Let's be honest that I'm probably going to hell for this blog title.  But come on!  Assisi?  My inner 7th grade self just couldn't resist.

So it's hot here in Naples.  And everyone's gone.  And I wanted to be gone too.  Our apartment is stagnantly hot.  It's miserably hot.  There's that weird smell of hot things probably spoiling around me, the source of which is less important to me than the idea of sitting within inches of a fan's rotating blades.  With all of that in mind, we packed up the Civic and headed north to Umbria, which was equally hot, so perhaps that wasn't our best plan BUT there was crazy effective AC running in the B&B where we stayed, so va bene!

Totally unrelated to Assisi but, as I was drying my hair on the world's least efficient hair dryer at our B&B, I'm not ashamed to say that I mused.  And mused and mused.  I had recently read an article about the Spice Girls defining our generation on HuffPo, my go-to source for celebrity gossip (which I openly refer to as "the news"), and fancied that if this chick could get published writing about the Spice Girls that I certainly had career potential in the online writing world.  (I mean, at some point in time I'll end up getting more than 36 followers, I hope.  Not that I don't appreciate every single one of you who continue to read my mindless drabble each passing week(ish))  BUT ANYWAY!  There I was, using this horrifically slow hair dryer and thinking about how it looked like a Harry Potter wand and that if I was a witch at that time-honored school, I would be a Hufflepuff.  I know, it's not fancy and EVERYONE wants to be a Gryfindor, but I'll say it, I would be a Hufflepuff.  And my patronus would be a floppy eared bunny named Pugsley because, why the hell not?  [At this point, I was at like minute 7 of the 25 minute hair drying experience.  Tom had shoved a bar of soap into the wall-mounted hair dryer to force it to stay on because I was whining.  I know, I know, me... whine?  Shocking.  And almost impossible to imagine.  On rare occasion, it does happen, though.  And poor Tom just watches the crazy unfold.]

Still drying my hair, I then began to ponder the European shower experience, having just completed it for the day.  Showers in Europe have these strings with a little plastic thing at the bottom.  For a long time, I thought it was for travelers to hang their clothes on when they wash them in the shower.  You know, you're putzing around Europe for a month and want to wash your delicates.  And then someone told me that it's an emergency signal.  Which made me begin to wonder if there is a rash of shower-related injuries in Europe.  Are people falling all of the time in these confusingly small little showers?  They drop the soap and in an attempt to bend down to pick it up they get stuck?  I mean, it's plausible.  The "space pod" shower is very popular....  I was now entering minute 17 of hair drying and began to ponder pulling the emergency cable, just to see who would come.  The little hamster that runs my brain saw it like the Beacon of Gondor from Lord of the Rings letting all of Middle Earth know that they need assistance.  I expected the Rohirrim to crash through the door to my aid.  (If you haven't seen LoTR, first of all, watch it.  This instant if you can manage.  By fiscal quarter is really the best way and director's cut.  I'm always available.  [Puts LoTR Marathon in my calendar as "Important Meeting"])  Anywho, I'm a chicken shit and didn't pull it.  Because as I was pondering pulling it, I remembered that time that I called 911 as a child just to see what would happen and you know what?  911 calls you back!  And lectures you.  And that's scary.  So, I just forsaw the Rohirrim getting all decked out and riding in from New Zealand just to discover that I wasn't in any peril aside from a case of the crankies and my hair still not dry and how their lecture would probably be REALLY scary.... 

But Umbria!  It was great!  That about sums it up!  Of note:

1. We had the most fantastic meal at Redibis in Bevagna.  New-Italian, the bastard child of Italian food and openly called such by "real Italians," is amazing.  You know what?  In America we bastardize everything.  And we love it that way!  So I thought that this place was freaking amazing.

2. At the urging of my co-worker, we went to Santa Maria degli Angeli (Santa Maria of the Angels) cathedral just outside of Assisi.  There's this monstrously huge church there, built in 1776 (holler, America!).  Inside of this monstrous church is a little church, supposedly St. Francis' original church.  It was weird.  One of those things that my co-worker told me was the most amazing thing and when we saw it, Tom and I both said "That's kind of weird, right?  That they built a church around a church?"  Also, if you are sitting just behind the little church, good luck seeing what's happening on the altar.  You are just going to have to picture it mentally. 

2.5 days, 6 hours of the weekend spent in the car and 6 cases of wine later, we returned to Naples and... wait for it.... someone broke into our car again.  Mother effing Hubbard.  They stole my headband from Pier 1 and the cable for our GPS which was in the glove box.  I keep hoping that who ever broke my window is wearing that headband and it's given them lice.  Special lice that hasn't taken to my hair but will flourish in their thieving hair.  It's cool, I'm sure that's what you're supposed to think after spending the weekend in a city of churches....  Now go forth and do great things.  And let me know if you've pulled the emergency beacon cable before, because I'm super curious if you've met the Rohirrim!

Buon Ferragosto!

It's August in Italy which means that most all of the Italians are gone somewhere south of Napoli, lounging on a beach somewhere.  But!  There was a big festival this week which managed to keep a few in town for a moment longer!



Ferragosto is one of those holidays that I have never experienced before.  On August 15th, Italy shuts down to celebrate the Assumption of Mary (which for you heathens is the day when the Virgin Mary ascented into Heaven).  I ventured up to Monte di Procida with a few girlfriends (taking a day off of work mid-week) to see what all of the fuss was about.

At 10 AM a crowd of no less than 2,000 Italians had gathered outside of the main church in this little town of Monte di Procida, waiting for a statue of Mary to be carried out and then to process through the entire town, making stops at four other churches along the way.  We were watching the crazy from a bridge above this crowd, just waiting and speculating which way Mary would be carried throughout the town.  At 10:30, (it was supposed to start at 10 but let's be honest, 10:30 is close enough for Italian time!) clapping ensued around us and a hodge-podge band of children, adults and elderly men began to make their way through the crowd.  A collection of elderly men followed closely behind the bands, making sure that the mob ahead of the group cleared a path.  Behind them, groups of younger men dressed all in white with yellow scarves around their necks held hands along two lines - they made a passageway for a group of priests wearing microphones and chanting.  The microphones were linked into speakers that broadcasted their prayers and chants throughout hte entire town, allowing the mass of thousands to sing the responses regardless of their relative location to the parade.  And finally, there was a probably 6 foot tall statue of the Virgin Mary on a platform carried by several Italian men.  Behind her, around her, in front of her, there was a mob slowly walking, some holding hands, some fanning themselves from the unrelenting August sun.

It was one of those moments where spirituality has truly gripped me.  There is something about being in the middle of a group so large and so devoted to their faith that moved me nearly to tears.  It was beautiful.  I honestly cannot even put into words how amazingly spiritual it was to be in the middle of this event, to hear thousands of responsorial songs and prayers to the Virgin Mary in Italian.  It was amazing.  And crazy.  And exciting.  And about 10 other emotions all at once.

The day concluded with prosecco and one of those amazingly large Italian lunches that makes you really appreciate the need for riposso (the mid-day nap).  I can honestly say, it was just such a wonderful experience that I am so very glad to have been a part of it and experience a little piece of Italian culture.

It's all Greek to me!

I never thought I'd say it: I came back from Greece and actually let out a sigh of relief upon hearing Italian again!  "At least I can sort of eavesdrop here!"  Greek is a tough language.  Somewhere between what sounds like Arabic, Russian, Italian and made-up language is where Greek lies to my ear.  I think it's all an elaborate rouse to make tourists feel foolish.  Maybe I'm a bit too paranoid, though...

Tom had a work meeting on the island of Crete so I tagged along the weekend prior to explore a bit.  Observation: Greek food is heavenly.  Everything was so flavorful and interesting.  Italian food is good, don't get me wrong.  But Italians love things to be very simple.  If you are eating pork, it should taste like pork.  Everything tastes like the best  version of itself.  Which is nice and all, but sometimes, I like to hide my food under layers of spices and cream sauces and tons of herbs.  Greeks, it turns out, do too!  We have so much in common already! 

Crete is a hard island, made harder by the blazing sun, 100+ degree temperature days, being overtaken by Romans, Turks, Germans and being in the middle of the ocean!  The people, much like Neapolitans, have struggled and persevered and somehow come out on the other side. 

We stayed in Chania, pronounced "Haan-ya" which is bustling with tourists, fishing boats, and tons of shopping!  It seemed like Sorrento, walking down the leather goods alley, with all variety of purse, wallet, jacket and sandal hanging outside of stalls until midnight or later.  The streets were narrow, made of stone and crammed with people!  In our very European way, we dined at 9 or 10 at night, conducting an independent study on tatziki, dolmas and vegetable fritters at each place.  Shockingly, Tom was a fan of all three! 

Before we left, I found a horseback riding company on TripAdvisor which was very highly rated and emailed the owner to set up an appointment.  He emailed me back to tell me that I was crazy, that his establishment was far from Chania and again, that I was crazy.  I booked it anyway and we spent a hot day driving through the coastline and exploring the ruins of Knossos, King Minos' palace where the Minotaur Labyrinth is said to have been.  The whole place was 4,000 years old but had been rebuilt in the 1920's to look like it might have looked back in the day.  We thought it a bit hokey, but did relish at the site of a German man, in a white linen suit with beach flip flops.  Now that's how you do business casual in Germany!  So after judging the German, seeing an ancient site and eating approximately 40 dolmas, we made our way to the horseback riding place. 

It was all in all, a pretty fun little trek.  The landscape was lovely, full of olive trees and little farms, Greek children stared at us as we rode by on our horses, shouting inaudible things to their mothers.  The owner of the horseback riding company was a fairly insane man, foul mouthed and raunchy but very generous at the same time.  Tom's horse, picture above, was bat-shit crazy (and that's putting it nicely!).  He was constantly about 1/2 a mile ahead of the rest of the group, his horse likely to freak out if another one came too close to him.  It was all a bit odd, but we got to spend some really quality time in the car (the town being some 2 hours from Chania), me singing Tom various whiny Indi songs from my college days and having serious discussions about future Christmas plans.

One thing to know about Tom: he hates the sun.  Loathes it.  Thinks Italians (and me) are crazy for laying in its rays for hours on end, seemingly enjoying that form of torture.  Now me?  I LOVE the beach.  It's my favorite place to be.  I'll spend hours swimming and floating and lounging and swimming some more.  It reminds me of my childhood, of building drip-drop sand castles with my mom and my sisters, finding enormous pieces of kelp (which we invariably called "Lioney" each time) and dragging it all over the beach for hours.  My mom thought we might have been part fish.  I took this with me, this constant love of the water and the sun and the lazy days at the beach, onwards to Greece.  We spent a day, surrounded by the Tower of Babel clad in various levels of Speedo.  The clearly northern Europeans already blotchy from the sun, laying out again as proof of their Greek vacation.  Tom hid beneath our umbrella, covering it with our towels just to be sure that no sun snuck in.  I swam and swam and floated and swam and read and swam and drank several beers.  It was my favorite day in Greece.  It was perfect.

Now back in Naples, I find myself missing those lovely beaches, complex food and relatively courteous drivers!  But I also have that feeling of familiarity that comes with living somewhere for over a year.  Our brief sojourn in Greece was lovely!  Some day, when our internet is working again, I'll add the rest of the pictures.  These are uploaded via my iPhone, so please forgive the quality!

Baci,
Lynne

Pigging Out

Back in October, we openly mocked our friend, Molly, for suggesting that we go to a Truffle and Sacred Chestnut festival.  Then it turned out to be one of the most fun days in Italy.  Since that time, when someone says "There's a random festival for [insert food item here] going on this weekend, do you want to go?"  The answer is unequivically 'yes.'  This past weekend it was 'cinghiale' or wild boar.  We met up with 11 of our closest friends and hopped into various cars, driving northward to the tiny town of Dugenta. 

About an hour later we arrived.  And it was decidedly not open.  A few humorous photo shoots later and we had an open bottle of prosecco, some plastic cups, a blanket and 3 iPhones coming up with a new plan.  The reason I love our friends here is this: killing time normally takes the form of wine tasting.  With an iPhone in one hand, a glass plastic cup in the other, our good friend, Gillian, was quickly chatting with a winery and setting up a tour.  So up we drove, through vineyards and cute little towns as I squealed about my deep love of roadside produce (which I will still note, we did not procure.  Totally a missed opportunity.  Drat!  Those peaches!  They would have been lovely for the ride back.  Drat!). 



The little vineyard was adorable.  For about 20 minutes, we wandered around on a tour of the vineyard in Italian.  Now, I'm not fluent in Italian.  I won't pretend to be.  I know enough to figure out that when someone points to a huge cask and says something about it that they are probably talking about fermentation.  Then they point to bottles and say something and it probably still has to do with winemaking.  See?  I've had enough practice at this whole "drink wine at a vineyard" thing to know what comes next.  Explain your product, nod, nod some more, wait a bit, then, at long last, drink.  The wine was fairly good, for 5 Euro and a way to kill some time, it was definitely worth it.

And we were off!  Back at the festival, things were not quite as bumping as I thought they might become.  To be fair, it was the last day of the festival and 2:30 pm and a Sunday.  That's pretty prime riposo (similar to "siesta" in other countries. I have also very recently discovered that I've been saying "riposto" which is a town in Italy, NOT the afternoon rest. [Re-read above where I am very honest about not being fluent in Italian]) time in Italy, so the festival was more like a smooth jazz crowd than an electronica concert.  Regardless, there was a little menu and cinghiale (wild boar) was a star in almost every dish.  Cinghiale ravioli was probably the best, second to the Wild Boar festival caraffes of wine, of course.  They were stamped with a wild boar.  Oh stop it!  That is too darn cute!  They were 3 Euro and as the festival was winding down and they people running it had brought us more and more caraffes for free, we figured we'd take one or two for momentos.  The rules on whether 3 Euro bought you a caraffe were fuzzy.... 

Fat, dumb and happy, we piled back into the carivan of cars (with a quick and delicious gelato stop on the way back.  Mmmmmm gelato....) and back we came to Napoli!  A quiet little weekend, but still something fun nonetheless.