Paradise

Napoli, Campania, Italia

This place feels like paradise. Even if it weren't juxtaposed with that other not so great farm experience, i think it still would feel perfect. Every day we wake up, eat melons and drink espresso, then go on a tour of the city, weaving in and out of vespas with three people on them and blazing through red lights like they are polite suggestions. Then we end up at our destination: The spanish quarters which are in the old center of naples which are narrow streets with bridges of laundry hanging overheard very much like a film set, or the ruins of pompeii which are stunning, the ashes buried a metropolis and now that it's excavated we wandered through the streets and went into little houses and into a whore house and into people's gardens and pretended that it was 2000 years ago and that if i turned the corner i might run into jesus (who, according to me, hung out in pompeii), or we end up at the old fishing section of napoli, red and yellow and balconies with lots of little old men on little old boats yelling and if you didn't understand what they were saying you would think they are arguing but in fact they are just reminiscing about something or telling jokes, or we ended up at vesuvius today and lucio picked up a lava rock for sophie off the side of the road. Also they sell lava sculpted into designs, one was sculpted into a marijuana leaf and painted green with the words 'legalize' underneath it, so clever i almost bought it. Wait. No I didn't. We also visited positano, google image this too if you've never seen it, i forgot if i already wrote about it but it is beautiful.

Then we come home and eat a huge lunch in the backyard in the shade of two big apricot trees on the grass next to about 50 turtles who eat better than we did on the last farm. Some of our finest lunches have included gnocchi alla sorrentina which we had today, pasta con le vongole, pizza direct from napolis finest pizzerias, prociutto and melone, always fruit and salads and wine and acqua con gas (good for the digestion, which is something that is very important to italians, they love talking about digestion. Here are some other things they say are good for digestion: caffé, lemon skins, liqueurs which are called digestivos, black liquorice, warm water instead of cold. I find this hilarious.)

Then we usually nap or go out on another excursion. then come home for dinner where we feast again on amazing food home cooked by my aunt Marilena who really knows how to do italian food. Insalata caprese, potato cake with cheese and ham, artichoke hearts, grilled bell peppers and roasted tomatoes with string beans, pasta sempre al dente, and always great salads, wines and fruits and then desserts and THEN the digestivos that she makes from scratch. There is limoncello, apple liqueur, one made from loquat seeds called nespola, noccillo which is made from walnuts and cloves and tastes warm and christmas like, and grappa which burns me less now than it used to. We eat all of our meals over long periods of time, lots of fast italian which goes over my head but also lots of joking and storytelling and (lovingly) forcefeeding on the part of lucio, who thinks that a compliment on something means 'i want four of those immediately'.

Stupidly, i left my bathingsuit at the last farm, where it is probably getting ripped to shreds by evil children and chickens and scabies, so i have been searching for a new one this whole time. Unfortunately, the style here is to really only cover a small portion of the butt crack and leave it at that, which doesn't really work for me at all. Also, they all have weird frills and beads and sequins and oh they also cost 100 euro. Just when I was about to give up hope, Lucio saw a store and we went in and i tried on 4 of them and found one that worked. It is black and has a bunch of beats and multi colored thread and also mini mirrors embroidered into the breast part- that way you can see yourself in them when you're looking at them, woo hoo! I figured i might as well embrace the tacky bathing suit thing and have some fun with it. Also, it fits and also it cost ten euro. Fantastico! I am starting to wish it was more ridiculous, tassles and maybe some happy faces or some designs on the butt part too. Oh well.

I think, i hope, that we have killed all the scabies. We burned them in the suns heat and also at a sulfuric volcano and also washed everything a billion times and i think i bleached my skin off today in the shower with a pesticide. So i hope that will be the end of them.

buona notte