​As I write this post, we’ve lived in Naples for just over 3 months.   It’s been quite an experience! When we first arrived, our sponsor picked us up at the airport with our luggage, took us to dinner at a local Italian restaurant, and dropped us off at the Navy Lodge on base.  The food was delicious, but we didn’t see much with it being so dark out.  
 
A few days after arriving, we received the news that we were to live off base.  Thankfully, someone from Ramses’ work kindly let us borrow his car, while we were in the process of vehicle shopping.  The car was a Godsend! You see, we sold our vehicles before moving here. We heard that the driving is crazy, gas is incredibly expensive, and the roads are very narrow.  We had a Honda Odyssey minivan and a Toyota Tundra truck, both large vehicles.  We didn’t want our nice vehicles getting scratched up and wanted to easily be able to maneuver around the city and park.  With the borrowed car, we were able to drive all over the different areas of the city....and we drove ALL around!!  This really helped us to narrow down where we wanted to live and where we didn’t want to live.

The Driving
Naples is a big, bustling, gritty city. The Italians in Naples drive differently than they do in the majority of the country.  Let me paint the picture for you......Italian motor scooters called Vespas are everywhere, lanes don’t exist, stop signs are not to be stopped at, stop lights are usually a suggestion, and in order to get where you need to go you need to be calmly aggressive. I know, being calmly aggressive sounds like an Oxymoron, but it’s exactly how you have to be.  When we first moved here, it scared the living crap out of me to drive.....now, I’m a pro and I love it!!  Nearly every car on the highway will pull to the right lane if you come up behind them and want to pass.  This is because if you don’t pull to the right lane, they’ll flash their lights and honk at you until you do.  It’s so insane!  Hahaha I used to refuse to drive downtown and even drove to a parking garage and took a bus to get downtown because I was so afraid of the driving, but now I’m no longer afraid. I just relax, take my time, but am aggressive.  The only time I truly worry is when I have to walk with the kids on a road where everyone is driving crazy and it’s busy.  Neapolitans will drive up on the curb to pass someone that is slow, so I have to bring my “A” game at all times. Not only that, I can’t even touch my phone while driving to call or text....I need to keep my wits about me.  Also, Vespas can carry whole families on them and I rarely see children in car seats.  Somehow it works.  I’m not sure what the statistics are, but I rarely see accidents here like I did in the states.  

The House Hunt 
The house hunt was extremely stressful.  We explained at the very beginning to our realtor that we were looking for a gated Parco (neighborhood) with a 4-bedroom villa.  Villas in Napoli are either attached or detached.  We also wanted a yard, even if it was small, and we wanted to live in a Parco with Americans and Italians. We went through at least 5 realtors because each realtor showed us different properties. It seemed as though certain realtors had contracts with certain landlords, so they each had a different inventory.  Also, there are only so many clickers for gated neighborhoods and the keys are unlike keys in the states.  They resemble a sort of skeleton key.  I’m willing to bet those are not cheap to get copies of, so landlords stick with a realtor or two to show their properties due to the logistics of access.  I hated having to use more than one realtor, being a realtor myself and appreciating loyalty, but if we wanted to find a home-we had to.  The realtors were all very nice to us, picked us up at the front gate of the base, and took us to each property.  
 
We came upon the perfect villa.  We had to go a bit above our price range....but in order to live in a gated Parco, in a 4 bedroom villa, with a yard, with Americans and Italians in the neighborhood....we had to.  We chose to live in Pozzuoli.  Pozzuoli is a city inside the city of Napoli.  Pozzuoli has a port area and another area called the Lungomare with ancient Roman ruins, restaurants, bars, gelaterias, coffee shops.  We really wanted to live in an area that was close to things to do and in Pozzuoli we found it.  Now, here’s the kicker....we live on a super volcano.  Isn’t that crazy??  We live on Campi Flegrei, also known as the Phlegraean Fields, also known as the Solfatara. It’s a volcano that’s underground inside of a volcanic crater (known as a caldera).  We can see the sulfurous fumes from our front door, and smell a gentle hint of sulfur in the evenings and after rain. There are also small earthquakes now and again that some people feel and some people don’t. You may think we’re crazy, but we love the Parco, love the area, and truly don’t mind the volcano.  People say the sulfur staves off mosquitos, but my husband is still getting eaten alive when he’s outside, so I say that’s either false or we don’t live close enough.  Locals also say it's an aphrodisiac. LOL

 It’s difficult not to live near a volcano in this area....between Mt. Vesuvius and Campi Flegrei, options are limited.  I know this is crazy, but I truly believe that one day, long after I move from here, I’ll smell the scent of a volcano and it’ll bring me back to this time and this place and my memories here. 
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The Food and Wine...Oh My!
Let’s be serious.....the food in Napoli is beyond incredible.  Pasta and Pizza is nothing like the states.  To be clearer, there are rarely restaurants in the states that serve truly fresh Italian pasta and pizza, but I’m sure they’re out there somewhere!  In Italia, most restaurants make their pasta sauce homemade with tomatoes, olive oil, basil, garlic...it’s SO fresh you can taste it in every bite.  Many restaurants even make their own noodles. The pizza in most places is made with a fresh made dough and sauce, the cheese they use is less than a few days old. You don’t feel terrible after you eat it. I actually feel great afterward as long as I don’t keep eating and eating and eating. That’s the trick!  Also, the food in Napoli is cheap.  There usually are not many tourists, so the prices are for a local clientele. We can usually eat out with our family of 5 and it’ll be €50-€60 for completely fresh food. Pizza runs between €3-€5 per pizza.

So, this is how the menu works.  There is antipasti, Primi, Secondi, and Dolce.  The antipasti is your typical list of Italian appetizers....our favorite is Bruschetta.  However, some the fancier restaurants offer a seafood antipasti, meat/veggie antipasti, or mixed (misto). If you order any of these, bring your appetite!!  It comes with A LOT of food! Only order the seafood antipasti if you're VERY adventurous with seafood.  We normally order the mixed (misto), if we order this type of appetizer. It comes with numerous dishes. For the seafood, we've had everything from an Octopus salad to raw oysters to breaded, fried little fish that look like breaded fishing bait.  When we order the mixed appetizers, they have also included eggplant parmesan, chicken, and fried dough balls. Really, these appetizers vary by the restaurant and what seafood is readily available, but it's extremely fresh.

 The primi course is a pasta course, followed by the secondi course, which is usually meat or fish.  Pasta tastes different at every restaurant and the menu varies at every restaurant, as well.  To make you aware, Italians like the meat to taste like meat and the fish to taste like fish.  They don’t put a lot of spices or marinades on the meats or fish.  They also don’t include a side dish.  The meal is completed with Dolce, which is dessert. Now, we don’t eat that much!  We usually order an appetizer for the table and either a primi or a secondi for each adult, then we all share our meals.  At some restaurants, if you order their best steak, they have been known to cook it right at the table in front of you.  The fish is generally served complete, with head on and eyeballs out. =) Also, fresh Italian bread is brought to the table before a meal. It’s plain bread, sliced, and has no garlic, herbs, oil or vinegar to dip it in. 

The pizza is brick oven fresh and at your table in less than 10 minutes after you order it.  Each pizza is meant for one person, but our family does share.  The pizza is not served sliced into pieces.   Most Italians tear off a slice of pizza, fold it in half, and eat.  
 
The wine is divine. We usually order a Vino Rosso della casa (house red wine) to the table. It either comes in a carafe or a bottle. They set the opened bottle of wine or carafe in the middle of the table and you serve yourself in most restaurants. It is unusual to be given a taste of the wine at the table and for everyone to be served. Although, it does happen sometimes at fancier restaurants. 

​I will dive further into the food, as well as coffee and gelato in a future blog post.  I’ve only brushed the surface of the basics.
 
So, we’re thriving well! There have been some good times and bad times, but we do love Napoli.  The prices for travel in Europe, once you’re on the continent, are incredibly cheap.  We plan to take every opportunity possible to travel and see as much as we possibly can while here. As I write this, we have no less than 8 trips planned before the New Year (we’re 4 months from the New Year).  I’ll happily forgo gifts, new shoes, and any extras that I used to splurge on in order to add more trips and see more of the world. My, how my life has changed.....I wouldn’t have it any other way.
 
Next Blog Post: Pompeii....Ancient History at our Feet & Hiking the Path of the Gods on the Amalfi Coast

 We took a high speed train from Madrid to Barcelona. If you’ve never been on a European high speed train, put it on your bucket list!  They take a drive that would be several hours and make it a fraction of the time!  They’re legit, too, with reclining seats, a little pull down table (much like an airplane seat), nice bathrooms, a car on the train usually sells drinks and snacks, and the scenery is breathtaking!  The kids loved it! Ha!  

We were already acclimated to the time difference by this point.  We went straight to our Airbnb and checked in.  It was in a section of the city called Poble Sec.  We had 2 small grocery stores on our block, the metro stop, bus stop, and blocks and blocks of café’s and night life all within very close walking distance to our room. If I ever return to Barcelona again, I’d want to stay right where we stayed!  It was much more of a local area than a tourist area, so prices were reasonable, and food and drinks were delicious.  We were not a far walk from nearly everything.....Las Ramblas, the gothic quarter, the beach, Sagrada Familia, the Barcelona Cathedral, and more.  

We made breakfast in the room every morning with groceries from the small grocery stores on our block, and then set out on our adventures, eating out for lunch and dinner.  The Spanish accent in Barcelona is definitely different. We found that they do speak traditional Spanish, but also have their own dialect called Catalan.  Most restaurants have menus in 3 languages~ English, Spanish, & Catalan.

The first day we arrived, we walked around La Rambla. La Rambla is a long, tree-lined outdoor mall full of cafes, artists, local shops, and more well known stores.  We started eyeing up the artists and their skills. The art we saw was so spectacular that we decided that we wanted a sketch or painting done of our three boys. The food was rather expensive there, but the drinks were HUGE and looked like a lot of fun, so we stopped for a drink. I tried a Cava Sangria (Cava is champagne). It was nice and refreshing after a lot of walking.  While you eat or drink just about anywhere in Barcelona, those less fortunate will come up to you wanting money....some will complete elaborate performances and then put their hat out. Be sure to know your strategy for responding to this, whether it’s a “no gracias,” or if you’d like to have some change on hand.
***Insider tip***For less expensive food and drinks, walk a couple of blocks off of La Rambla, since it’s a tourist trap.  Also, walk through the alleyways, we found some hidden stores that were very reasonably priced!
***One more insider tip: Check out the store Decathlon. It’s an amazing store FULL of sport gear for just about any sport out there. Prices are very reasonable. This store is a true gem in Europe.

​We ate dinner near our room in Poble Sec. In Spain, appetizers or drinks are usually enjoyed between 8:30pm-10:00pm, with dinner between 9:00pm-11:00pm.  We tried the Pinchos (aka pintxos) and were addicted for the rest of our trip!  Each pincho ranges from €1-€2 each.  They’re just small bites, usually with a slice of bread at the bottom and some sort of delicious topping.....sausage, chicken, shrimp, fish, etc and also with a sauce or some sort of cheese or fresh fruit.  They were served cold, artistically presented, and delicious.  Once you arrive to the restaurant and get seated at a table, walk into the restaurant/bar and pick out which pinchos you’d like to eat, and bring them back to the table.  The kids loved picking plates of pinchos and loved all of the different tastes! Each pincho comes with a toothpick through it and the waiter or waitress will leave a small drinking glass or shot glass on the table for you to put your discarded toothpicks into.  I have a picture of this above. When it comes time to pay your bill, they count the toothpicks.

​On our second day, we took a cable car down to the beach. It was beautiful and fun to ride in the cable car to the beach; it also cut down on walking for us! =) We walked along the boardwalk and beach.  The sand is soft and the water is clear. There are restaurants right along the water, shops, and gypsies selling their wares.  We did watch a gypsy stir a mojito he was selling with his finger, so we didn’t buy any drinks from them. However, they had some beautiful blankets for sale, if you don’t have anything to lay on at the beach, those blankets would make a great souvenir....they were very unique and decorative.  The sand castles and art along the water were incredible!  One guy made an entire scene from the Simpsons and had Homer Simpson peeing every few minutes when he would pour water through, another guy had an entire Egyptian scene with a fire in the middle of the pyramids.   We ate at a restaurant called El Pacifico that had fresh seafood Paella, delicious Mojitos, and excellent service. I highly recommend El Pacifico!  It was pricey, but the food, service, and water view were worth it. A truly incredible experience, my foodie heart was in heaven!  I’m not too adventurous when it comes to seafood, but I ate the Seafood Paella. The flavors truly didn’t make the seafood have a ‘fishy taste’ and I was grateful we ordered it.  We also walked to the Catedral de Barcelona (Barcelona Cathedral) and it was, by far, the most impressive church in the city.   Soaring ceilings, old world charm, the quiet peace that comes with old places of worship.

On our third day, we purchased metro tickets for our last two days. This is because the places we wanted to go were a bit further than we wanted to walk.  We took the metro to La Sagrada Familia (The Sacred Family) and walked through Parc Guell to take a look at the famous Catalan architect, Anton Gaudi’s works.  Tickets for La Sagrada Familia were €15 each, which we found to be too expensive for our family of five, so we opted for walking around the outside to admire the architecture. We also ventured to the Acro de Triunfo de Barcelona (The Arch of Triumph of Barcelona). We have seen other Arches and they always impress us. 
We read on a tourist pamphlet that there was a magical water show in front of Montjuic.  We went and the kids had fun, but it wasn’t the most impressive water show I’ve ever seen!  In hindsight, we probably won’t do it again, but it was a fun way to spend the evening and it will be a great way to entertain the kids if you venture to Barcelona.  The top of the steps of the Montjuic Castle certainly did have an amazing view, making it totally worth it! 
On our fourth day, we took the metro and walked to La Boqueria.  La Boqueria is an enormous food market.  It has everything from fresh juices, fresh fish, meat, jamon, nuts, candies, cheese, etc. Seriously, worth it. My oldest son adventurously tried the dragon fruit smoothie....it was gross!!  HAHAHAHA We all tried it and turned up our noses, but we always encourage everyone in our family to try everything once!  The picture below is of my husband after giving it a sip!

​For our last two days, we went back to La Rambla and had the boys sketch completed by a local artist. She truly captured the personality of each of our boys and we felt it was money well spent and a forever memory that we can hang in our home.  It was €20/child, so €60. We later saw a Flamenco show at Flamenco City Hall Theater for €65 for the whole family. We elected not to see a show with dinner, as all of the reviews of the dinner shows did not entice us to those particular shows. This one was in a small theater.  The ticket included a free drink and the show was only about an hour long from start to finish. It was beautiful to see and we were all wrapped up in the song and dance....except for the kids, they fell asleep because the theater was so dark. 

, ​For days, we kept seeing an amusement park and a church on a mountain in the distance. After careful research we decided to check it out. The park was called Tibidabo.  We were able to use our transportation passes to get there....it entailed a metro ride, cable car, and a short walk and was ALL included in the same pass. The park was neat! The church is called The Temple de Sagrat Cor (church of the sacred heart). The view from the parks and the churches are of all of Barcelona.  The park has day passes and tickets for separate rides. We bought tickets for 3 rides for the kids and just stayed at the top level of the park, as the park had at least 2 levels that we could see. The ferris wheel was super cool, but not for those afraid of heights! Everything pretty much hinged off of a cliff, which added an extra level of excitement. We were glad we only bought tickets for three rides because the lines were really long, even though it was early May.  We ate a few standard jamon sandwiches there for a late lunch and then headed back.  The kids had a blast, but were tired of the lines and ready to go! Wrapped into the awesome Spanish mentality, we took a Siesta and then went out for tapas and dinner...refreshed and ready to enjoy every bite! 

​On our last day, we went to an FC Barcelona Futbol match!!  We had to purchase our tickets from the FB Barcelona Official Store.  This is because we all wanted to be seated together. Finding 5 tickets together for a futbol match is no easy feat.  We couldn’t get tickets until a day or two before the match, when the majority of the futbol tickets are released.  They do not serve alcohol at the match, but do have non-alcoholic beer.  However, there are bars ALL around the stadium serving alcoholic beer before, during, and after the match.  Smoking is not allowed in the stadium, but during half time all of the smokers go right outside of the main part of the stadium and smoke.  They have a jovial, carnival atmosphere before games, with people playing drums, dancing on stilts, and working for the crowd. Messi was truly impressive to see in person. He is a very aggressive player and dominates the field. I highly recommend watching a live futbol match if you never have.  The boys LOVED singing, waving flags, and watching a sport they love.

​We really lived in up in Barcelona!  We ate well, had plenty of adventures, and truly enjoyed every moment of our travels. However, at the end, we were ready to head to our new home.  Off to Napoli and our new life!  Ready to figure out our home for the next few years and experience Italia!!  Adios Espana, Ciao Italia!
 
Next post:  Welcome to Napoli