A village of millions

Neapolitans want to know if foreigners like Naples. And it seems like they always assume the worst. They cannot understand why someone would want to come here from the U.S. After my first pick-pocketing experience yesterday (R.I.P. my wallet), I took some time to think about why exactly I love Naples, in all its gritty glory.

I've been living here for almost three months now, and for me, the most striking thing about Napoli is that it is really just a great big village. It's like the metropolitan area grew to 4.2 million overnight and no one noticed. Naples is actually one of the oldest continuously-inhabited cities, so maybe its inhabitants are a little stuck in the past. Either way, this huge city of millions somehow continues to operate like a tiny village of 200.

First of all, everybody knows everybody. You cannot walk down the street with a Naples-native without stopping every five minutes to talk to someone. I thought living in a big city was supposed to make people more anonymous, but here it seems to just increase connections exponentially. It's unreal. Human interactions are more important than deadlines and appointments and ambitions. I can't help but compare that with my experience in Korea. People genuinely want to be around other people. I've only been here a few months, and I already know more people here than I did after a whole year in Korea. I haven't made any major changes in my life, so how does this come about?

Well, #2: Everybody talks to everybody. I take a bus into the city center two or three times every weekend. That's an average of about five bus rides a week if we're talking round trip. I've been here for 13 weeks now. Let's call it about 70 times I've waited for a bus in Naples. I would say about 40 of those times I have had conversations that lasted at least two minutes with fellow travelers. I CAN BARELY SPEAK ITALIAN. Sometimes, the other person doesn't even realize I can't speak Italian until ten minutes into the conversation. Usually, it doesn't slow them down one bit when I do tell them. Once, I waited 20 minutes and rode the bus for 20 minutes with an old man who NEVER realized I wasn't Italian. He talked for 40 minutes straight to a complete stranger. He showed me pictures of his family he had in his wallet. Oh, AND after talking to someone at the bus stop or waiting for the girls at school, they invariably remember my name (and use it!) the next time I pass them walking down the street. If I was in America waiting for a bus and someone tried to talk to me, I would be apprehensive, but here: it's weird if people aren't talking. In fact, the only time I've heard Italians truly silent is if the Napoli soccer club is losing a match. Silent Italians are scary. You could have heard a pin drop when we lost to Rome. Terrifying.

Another less convenient implication of the village mentality is that shops just open and close whenever they want. It is impossible to predict store hours. The local grocery store was closed because it was raining the other day. NOTHING is open on Sundays because the Neapolitans have big family lunches. (I know never to invite my Italian friends out on Sundays. It is just not happening.) The privately-owned stores open late, close for a pausa in the afternoon (the hours vary store-to-store of course), and close early at night. The only exception is restaurants, which open whenever they goddamn well please. Oh, and everything closes early on Thursdays. They don't even try to make up an excuse for that one.

There's no website or guide book that can tell you when something, even a museum, will be open. So you just have to pack a snack in case and cross your fingers whenever you leave the house. But then you run into someone on the street and they kiss you on each cheek and ask about that book you were reading last week or how your work is coming along; and it doesn't even matter that the store you wanted to go to is closed because your friend heard about an awesome concert or was just heading down to the sea for a drink; and just like that you end up in an African dance club all night or eating pizza on the steps of a 15th century church or in a room full of Spanish students ridiculing the mayor of Madrid or eating sushi with a Japanese girl and a bunch of Italians or drinking beer with an opera singer from Holland and students from Poland and the Ukraine; and who cares that the store was closed anyway, because you can't plan for Naples. It just happens.

Because at the end of the day, Naples is a village of millions. Everyone stays in when it rains and crowds around the TV when Napoli S.S.C. has a match; people share their life stories with strangers, kiss the butcher hello, and see their grandmothers every weekend; there's mini-reunions around every corner and plenty of wine and pasta to go around. I'm not sure when the people of Naples are going to realize how big the city has become, but I really hope they can hold out for at least another year, because this is one seriously cool village.

There's no place like Rome

Mid-September, there was a public holiday in Naples that gave me a four-day weekend (shout out to Saint Gennaro for liquifying and giving me two days off!).  I took the opportunity to hop on a train and get my ass to Rome. I got into the city Thursday afternoon and stayed until Sunday afternoon. Rome wasn't built in a day, and I certainly couldn't see it all in one; but here's some of what I did see on my first half-day.

I quickly dropped off my backpack at the B and B where I stayed and headed out to the Colosseum, Roman Forum and Palatine Hill!

When I loaded this picture, one of the sizing options was "Original size," and boy do I wish I could do that. The sheer size of this structure is incredible. When I walked out of the subway squinting and saw this bad boy on the horizon, I couldn't help but rubber neck with the rest of the tourists (of which there were hordes).

All the guides recommend bypassing the Colosseum (momentarily) because the lines for Palatine Hill are much shorter and the ticket includes both. I followed this advice and was later rewarded by my God-given right to self-aggrandize as I strutted past the amateurs waiting in line at the Colosseum.

I guess I was also rewarded by the intriguing ruins on Palatine Hill. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I started crying tears of joy a little at this point. I took this picture partly to remember the moment but also to check that I wasn't transforming into a mascara panda bear. (You can also see in the background a French couple for whom I later took a photo. Learning to count to ten in French FINALLY came in handy, as I knew it would.)

Palatine Hill is one of the oldest parts of the city. According to legend, it is the location of the cave where the she-wolf found the infant brothers Romulus and Remus. The twins later killed people, fought a lot, and decided to build a new city. Later, they fought some more and Romulus killed Remus, thus earning the right to name the new city after himself. And so, Rome was created.

(Roman mythology also places Hercules' tenth labor -- slaying of the monster Cacus -- on the hill, which created a dent in the hillside.)

Its name also gave birth to the English word "palace." There. Now you know as much about Palatine Hill as I do.

A view of Rome from the hill.

My map was a bit deceptive and I didn't realize what this was until the third time I walked past it: the Arch of Titus! Here's the wiki cliff notes: "It was constructed in c. 82 AD by the Roman Emperor Domitian shortly after the death of his older brother Titus to commemorate Titus' victories, including the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD. The Arch of Titus has provided the general model for many of the triumphal arches erected since the 16th century—perhaps most famously it is the inspiration for the 1806 Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France, completed in 1836."

According to my audio guide, after besieging the Jews in Jerusalem, the emperor forced them to build this arch in honor of their defeat (in perhaps the earliest instance of adding insult to injury). To this day, Jewish people refuse to walk under the arch. I just stood by it and took pictures. Solidarity! 

But for real, it was breath-taking. On to the Roman Forum...

This fresco was inside the Temple of Caesar. Construction begun on the temple in 42 BCE and was where Julius Caesar's body was brought upon his death. 

These statues stand outside the house of the Vestal Virgins. In ancient Rome, noble girls were selected as early as age 6 to take a 30-year vow of celibacy, then revered and honored by the people. They were considered to be married to the city itself. At the Colosseum, they even had their own reserved section across from the emperor. If a girl completed her term, she was given a large dowry and allowed to marry. If she failed, however, she was paraded through the streets, given a loaf of bread and some water, then buried alive in a crypt.

Only these eight columns remain of the Temple of Saturn, from the 5th century BCE. It's hard to fathom how old these things are. I still can't get over it.

This was one of my favorite parts of the forum, it was so substantial and placed at the head of the square, standing formidably over the ruins. It's the Arch of Septimus Severus, so I'm not sure if my love of it makes me a Slytherin or what, but I'm willing to take my chances.

A close-up of the arch's details

At the Colosseum! (See: How girls take photos)

I was in Rome for four days. I ate gelato four times.  I'm not sorry.

Finally! My first look inside the Colosseum. The walls you see along the bottom of this photo -- which used to be covered by a stage and sand -- created a sort of backstage area for performers and animals involved in the shows. 

The walls formed small rooms that were used to store props and sets, house animals that would later fight (each other or a person), and they allowed gladiators to pop up into the arena from trap doors hidden under the floor. The word arena comes from Latin harena, which was sand used in the Colosseum (and other arenas) because it absorbed blood well.

The view from the upper deck

Interested in learning more about the Colosseum? Here's the History Channel's bit about it.

Heading home; Rome's subway ain't got nothing on Seoul's. Day one ended with a pizza, a shower, and a good night's sleep. Stay tuned for day two!

Touring Naples

My first weekend, I stayed behind in the city while my host family went off to their beach house on Capri (rough life). Here's some photos from my amazing weekend adventures!

First, I visited the Naples National Archeological Museum.

Hercules being a boss. 

And the largest statue ever recovered -- the Farnese Bull.

Some of my favorite frescoes.

Behold Athena, the goddess of just about everything: wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, law and justice, just warfare, mathematics, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, and skill (according to Wikipedia). The original total package.

Sometimes the most exciting part is just walking around.

In Piazza Dante, who is often called the father of the Italian language.

Next, I went underground to see Napoli Sotterranea, which was originally built as an aqueduct when the city was establish more than 5,000 years ago. These are some old ass tunnels.

To keep the water running smoothly, the coated the walls with oils. You can see the layering effect.

To keep the water clean, people would climb down a well and use these small hand holds to scale the walls, skimming the water like we do pools. 

Some parts were completely dark so we carried candles.

It was hard to capture, but the tunnel was so tight in parts. We couldn't bring any bags and everyone had to turn sideways and scoot through. The smaller tunnels kept the water pressure high.

Now it's a tourist attraction, but during WWII, Neapolitans moved into the aqueducts to take shelter from air raids. They blocked all the wells and created stairs, sometimes living underground for weeks at a time.

After the underground, I took a tour of a long-lost Greco-Roman Theatre. It started in a normal Italian apartment situated on a normal Italian street. An elderly woman lived here for years before archeologists came to the area searching for the theatre. These bricks in her apartment alerted the researchers to the ancient treasure under her bedroom. 

To reach her wine cellar, the bed pushed back into the recessed wall and a door appeared underneath. The woman's wine cellar backed up to the ancient dressing rooms where the likes of Nero prepared to take the stage.

The passageway from the dressing rooms to the stage.

This arch supported the highest seats in the theatre. Six similar arches once formed the semi-circular edge of the theatre. This window is in someone's house. Perhaps the most incredible thing about all this history is how Neapolitans simply take it in stride and build right on top of it. This is also because there used to be a law banning the building of houses outside the city walls, so space was at a premium.

I met another girl (an opera singer from Holland!) at Napoli Sotterranea, and we decided our next stop should be the Palazzo Reale, or Royal Palace of Naples.

The main staircase. It was breathtaking. And I was really glad we asked for audio guides -- it seemed like every little thing was symbolic for something.

Pure decadence. Every square inch was dripping with luxury.

Il Trono.

Sometimes the ceilings were the best part.

Or maybe the view of the Bay of Naples was the best part... Either way, about the time we walked through the queen's third antechamber, I realized it was good to be queen. Check out Vesuvius on the left.

My favorite paintings in the royal collection were these depictions of everyday life as it was.

The nosebleeds in the royal theatre. Not bad at all.

The girl I met wasn't exactly a photographer. 

Next, we walked down to the sea to visit one of the castles. Unfortunately, it closed early on Sundays, but we still had a nice stroll along the bay.

Hopefully I'll get to go inside the castle next time! Overall, a really amazing weekend. 

This past weekend, I met up with the opera singer again and we had the best pizza I've ever tasted:

 The beer wasn't too bad, either.

This weekend, I'm taking on ROME! Ciao for now!

The Italian Job

Well, I guess it's been awhile since I've updated this... oops. A few things have happened since then: I finished up my year in Korea, took a vacation trip to Thailand, went home to Michigan for a few weeks, and then moved to Naples, Italy to be an au pair.

I'll start now by writing about Italy and then backtrack to wrap up my Korean adventures and maybe write a little about Thailand.

Okay so first of all, I wanted to talk about my preconceptions of Italy and Naples in particular. Before I left, I definitely thought I was going to see a number of things:

• People talking with their hands
• Lots of smoking
• Romance/public displays of affection
• PIZZA AND PASTA AND WINE
• Beautiful landscapes and seaside views
• Rollings hills dotted with stucco buildings almost on top of each other

Despite expecting these things, I was still surprised by how completely accurate my preconceived notions were. Within my first 24 hours, I was treated to close encounters with (almost) all of these things -- I haven't had any wine or pizza yet. Yes, everyone talks with their hands. It is so entertaining to watch people talk. Yes, it seems like everyone smokes. Yes, I have seen multiple couples, mostly young, making out in public places. Yes, I have been eating amazing food. And holy shit yes, the views are amazing.

So that's my first impression of Italy in general. 

The family I am living with has a great apartment with a terrace that is probably about the same square footage as the inside area. The mom is a (divorce?) lawyer and the dad owns an electrical and/or security company and also maybe just bought an online newspaper. I'm a little fuzzy on those details, but I know they must have the euros rolling in because they have had American au pairs for 6 years and also employ a full-time housekeeper.

Let's talk about the joys of having a housekeeper because frankly, I don't know how I survived without one before. Her name is Patrizia and she comes  to the apartment with fresh groceries every morning. She cleans the entire apartment (I don't know why you would have to mop every single day, but whatever) and also cooks lunch and dinner for all of us. Which means I get to eat homemade authentic Italian food twice a day, every day. It's unbelievably good. I don't know how picky the previous au pairs were, because they keep telling me I don't have to eat something if I don't like it, but everything is so delicious. Let's just go ahead and add housekeeper to the list of things I would like to have when I grow up.

The awesome view from the terrace -- you can see the sea on the left and a hill covered in houses to the right. It's even more breathtaking at night, but impossible to capture.

Here's the old palace we walked by quickly in the city center.

I guess now I should talk about what I'm actually doing here -- taking care of Chiara (key-are-uh), who is seven AND A HALF, and Vittoria (emphasis on the second syllable, kinda roll the r), who is 6. They were all over me the second I walked in the door, which might be a sign of some kind of attachment disorder, but maybe it's okay because we Skyped before but I don't know... Regardless, they're very affectionate, but also very temperamental. Almost every activity we do ends in tears (sometimes they're even real tears), but we had a talk about expectations and rules today and I think that will help. I'm sure it's difficult adapting to a new caretaker every year or so. 

This week and next, they're still on summer vacation so I'm taking care of them all day which means a little overtime pay, but it's also a little tough to start out with them all day. The family is also renovating their apartment, which means a lot of toys and games are packed up. Sometime this month, we'll all move into a temporary apartment while workers invade the current apartment in order to join it with the newly redone apartment next door. In the meantime, I went from a studio apartment to sharing a room with a 6 and 7 year old. The transition has its downfalls, but overall, I'm enjoying myself and keep smiling to myself about how happy I am to be doing this.

Today, the mom took me down to the city center and we had some gelato and walked along the sea. This weekend, they invited me to come along with them to their beach house, but I'm considering staying behind so I can explore a bit on a my own. But we'll see.

I won't have much free time until the girls return to school, but I'll try to keep you guys updated as best I can! Ciao!

Changes + decisions = stress

Here's some exciting things that happened/are happening this week --

• On Friday, I found out I've been saying a bad word with some regularity and in front of various people including but not limited to: my boss, my students, and other teachers. Apparently, it's not bad enough that anybody thought to correct me, but it's kinda like saying "eff" instead of the actual f-word; you might not be saying it, but people know what you mean. Oops. 

• The co-worker I'm closest with is leaving on Friday :( She will still be in Seoul, but school won't be the same without her. I'm pretty bummed about it. Which also leads to...

• The new teacher is coming Monday! He's a Korean who was raised in New Zealand, so he's our bilingual teacher. He will be my partner for the five-year-olds, which I'm nervous about because they're babies, and are used to female teachers. He doesn't have any teaching experience, but knowing Korean is a bit of an advantage. Fingers crossed! No matter how good he is though, next week will be very stressful for myself and the classes we share. We're preparing as much as we can, but I think it's just going to come down to lots of caffeine and patience.

• I went to a restaurant with my friend where they served our bulgogi (meat) on a shovel! Afterwards, we went to a self bar where you grab bottles of beer from standing coolers, then turn in your empties and pay when you're finished. Then, we went to a place called "clubby bar," which was more like a club with a bar hidden in the back. It was lots of fun and really crazy! After that (changing place is the Korean way!), we went to noraebong (a karaoke room) until the buses started running again. It was a great time and we made a lot of new friends. Oh, I also tried chicken neck stew this weekend! It was delicious! Did I ever tell you guys I tried jellyfish? That was good, too! Moving on...

• I have agreed to help a few friends improve their English with a weekly study group they organized. Each week, they'll send me a paper on a topic of my choice, I'll edit it, and we'll discuss any revisions on Sundays. I'm looking forward to this because I get to pick the topics -- so I'll definitely be learning a lot about Korea -- and because, uh, money!

• The time is quickly approaching when I'll have to make a decision about next year. My choices are: stay in Korea for 6 months or more at my current position, stay in Korea for another year at a different school, au pair in Italy for a year, or decide to return home and start looking for jobs right now. There are some weighty pros and cons to each option. One I think needs some explaining...

I never thought I'd be considering turning down a job as an au pair in Italy. This is why I am doing just that: I have grown to love teaching over these past few years and although I would be "tutoring" the girls in English, it would not be anything like teaching; I would be living with FOUR other people, one of whom speaks English; I would be sharing a room with a five-year-old; the job is in Naples, which is a notoriously dirty, dangerous place that is not foreigner-friendly; due to the above reasons, it would be nearly impossible to make friends; the money is not good (can't forget those student loans!); and I don't like pasta (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA just kidding, that's actually the first "pro!").

Considering all those things, I don't think this is the right opportunity for me to explore Italy and/or Europe. I'm not writing it off yet, though. I'll keep you guys updated.

Anyway, those are a few things happening in my life right now. If you hadn't noticed, I've switched my posting schedule to once a week, usually on Sundays. Hopefully that's enough to satisfy your curiosity for now, but I'll be sure to post more often when it gets warmer and I can have some more exciting excursions! 

Have a good week!