Easter Sunday - American Style

April, 2010

So, one of my biggest laments about living in New Zealand is their lack of holiday verve. In America, we eat up the community spirit, the decorating, the commercialism. (Some people complain about America's holiday commercialism, but I LOVE IT!)

Here in New Zealand, Christmas happens in the summer, so it's not dark enough to hang out lights, trees go brittle after 2 days, and they have BBQs on the beach instead of hot winter roasts. St. Patrick's Day goes by without so much as a pinch. Thanksgiving and 4th of July, of course, don't exist at all, and their replacements - Waitangi Day or Queen's Birthday, have no exciting traditions or spirit attached to them. And Easter is no exception. Easter Monday is the holiday here - which means a day off work (that's enough excitement for the Kiwi's), but there is no revelling with the Easter bunny or hunts for hidden eggs.

Egg dying is a totally foreign concept. So foreign, in fact, that I had to go to four different supermarkets before I found white eggs - ones that would accept the Paas dye that I'd had sent from America. (In New Zealand, eggs are brown, and often have shit and feathers too - you know, like the real thing.) And after my victory at achieving this mission, my husband had the gall to suggest that no one coming to our Easter party would be interested in dying eggs.

Boy, was he wrong! (It helped at at least 3 of the guests were Americans.) Everyone loved it. Jeff even begrudgingly dyed an egg, between playing his $15 secondhand record player and box of records (Ninety percent of which were 1960's western B-tracks.)

Overall, happiness and fun for all, even without the bunny.

Deco Days

OK, (Marti), it's time for a new post. I was uploading my photos and found some fun occasions to share. The first was from February, 2010, Napier's Art Deco Days. Mum was visiting then and she and I loved classing it up in Art Deco style.

On the first night, all of us (me, Jeff, Mom, Mary, & Ray) went out to for a dinner/murdermystery. It took place at Napier's classiest gentlemen's club (kind of like a super hoity-toity Elk's lodge). Dinner was lovely, but none of us were able to correctly identify whodunit.

On following days, Mom and I went casino hopping and parading around town. ;)

The Best Pizza in the World

On our last night in Naples, we decided to get the most out of the pizza capitol; we would not order a pizza each at dinner, but order only one pizza, share it, and then move on to another pizza place. Even though we were full after the first half pizza, we still went through with the plan…

In all, we ate at five pizzerias (in four days) – Da Michelle, Trianon, Azzura, Sorbino, and El Pizzaiolo del Presidente . They were all delicious. Strangely enough, and Jeff and I are in agreement about this, the pizza we enjoyed the most did not come from a place on “the list”. Our favorite – Pizzeria Azzura – Bellisimo!

As for dining experience – we agree that we were best entertained at Trianon. This place had three floors, with a pizza oven on each floor. Next to us was a large family with three or four children. They must have known the owners (or been the owners) as some of the children (5 or 6 years old?) were carrying globs of dough from the kitchen. It was adorable to watch them decorate their faces with it – dough balls plastered over their eyeballs, over their noses… preciosa!

Saving the Best for Last - Capri

Monday, 27 July

We decided to wait until Monday for Capri, as then we would not have to battle the weekend crowd. I wasn’t sure what to expect, except that I hoped we could swim in the Mediterranean – I feel giddy when I get to at least dip my feet into a new sea or ocean. Jeff had at first tried to quash my expectation by describing the waters around Naples as pointedly un-beachy, filled with trash, and of a color that would make your stomach turn. While this was somewhat true of the Naples port waters, we were pleasantly surprised with Capri.

The water was a giant blue sapphire. As soon as we arrived, Jeff suggested that we look into renting a little boat to sail around the island. Although the price was steep for us, it resulted in the most magical 3 hours of our trip. Our boat was not, by my definition, little. It was very roomy. It was probably 16-17 feet long, with plush towel-covered pillows covering the bow, and an adorable green and white striped awning over the middle. I couldn’t believe we had it all to ourselves. Our driver, Guiermo, was middle aged and suave (polite, not creepy). He spoke broken English, but had actually worked in New York for 5 years as a singer. Of course, I couldn’t let that information pass me by, and as we floated off the coast of Capri, the azure world around us, I begged him for a song. He sang a classic song – about Maria – and there I was with my boy in Italy, sailing, and loving every second of it.

We felt like royalty as we circled the island, stopping at each magnificent grotto and island villa for a closer look. When we arrived at the “Grotta Verde” (Green grotto), Guiermo suggested that we swim through the grotto, which was essentially a tunnel under the cliffs with sparkling green ocean water glowing with the afternoon sun. Gleefully, we dived off the boat into the warm Mediterranean and swam through the enchanted grotto. (Is this sounding good yet?) It was stunning.

Once off the boat (sadly, we did have to get off), we took a ride up to Capri to finish with some gelato (of course) before the ride back to Naples. The view was spectacular. Perfect day.

Man Vs. Food: Food Wins

Sunday, 26 July

A bit of a rest day as we explored Naples and spent most of the day eating. Actually, I’m not sure I can say that, as we only had one main meal, lunch. (But it went on for hours, had four courses, and made dinner feel impossible.)

We started off with a walk through Naples, visiting more astonishingly beautiful buildings and churches and staring at them open-mouthed. Eventually, we gave up the walk, and took a taxi to an old favorite restaurant of Jeff’s – Restaurante Ciro in Mergellina. This place was top end. The waiters were all wearing white jackets and black bowties, and many of the diners looked like they’d just stepped in off their seven million dollar yacht or were meeting another VIP for a “business discussion”. We ate parma-wrapped melon, fried risotto morsels, squid, spaghetti with clams, carbonara, chocolate beignets, tiramisu, wine, and to finish – limoncello. Deliciosa. Then, we were comatose for the rest of the afternoon and didn’t even go out for dinner.

Italian Taxi Drivers - The Exuberant Kamikaze

In Rome, Jeff and I took a taxi back to our hotel one night. We’d had a little to drink, which no doubt made it even more exciting, but I feel strongly that it did not alter my memory of the somewhat harrowing journey. In fact, it is really good that we’d shared that bottle of wine, otherwise my knuckles may have remained permanently white.

It is important to note that the streets in Rome are quite narrow and often quite bumpy. This doesn’t stop the Italians from parking on the sides of the street, however, or even on the sidewalk. But, knowing that cars will be passing at 60 or 70 k, we could see that most conscientious drivers had the foresight to turn in their side mirrors (every inch counts).

I knew the name of the street our hotel was on. Or, I thought I did. Via Viafranca. The taxi driver had not heard of this street. We’d already started driving, cars everywhere, pedestrians crossing in front of us, in a three-lane road with no painted lane lines, when he started typing it into his GPS. It wasn’t coming up. “Viafranca? Viafranca? “ and then more fast loud Italian words that sounded something like, “I’ve never heard of Viafranca! You crazy tourists don’t even know where you are staying! Viafranca? There is no street called Viafranca! I don’t believe you, you must be making it up. Viafranca. Ha!” He kept shouting out to other taxis that were passing us (or cutting us off), asking if they’d heard of Viafranca or Hotel San Marco.

Finally, we had a winner. Our driver threw his hands in the air and shouted, “Villafranca!!! Villafranca!” and then something in Italian that must have been, “You silly girl, you were so wrong. You weren’t even close. Villafranca, not Viafranca.” I remembered then about the L’s – I’d been reading them as if it were Spanish. Italian is not Spanish, whatever you may have thought, it is not even that close.

To make up time, our driver decided to go twice as fast as everyone else. He weaved in and out. He drove far too quickly up very narrow streets. At one point we heard a loud thump and I had to ask Jeff if he was all right, thinking he may have had his hand out the window, but no – someone had forgotten to turn in their side mirror (live and learn).

….

I’d thought that was going to be as good as it got, but then there was one afternoon ride in Naples. Driving equally as quickly, as if the cars around us were an obstacle course to weave around, this driver put icing on the cake by exhibiting his opera singing skills. As loudly as he could, waving his arms about the car, with a big smile on his face, he sang Italian opera to accompany our adrenaline high. I couldn’t help but enjoy it, actually.

When we stopped at a light, a pretty young girl with her window down stopped beside us. Our driver, who must have been at least in his late 50s, paused in his singing for a moment to cast out his best line. I don’t know what he was saying, but she was just laughing at him – and when she pulled forward, be pulled forward – shouting out the window, not forgetting his opera. The girl finally waved and drove away, giggling. So did we.

The Best Honeymoon Moment

Ok folks, remember after all that this is my honeymoon. This isn’t going to be x-rated, but it does include the word “naked” so read on at your own risk.

Yesterday after lunch Jeff and I were on our way back to the hotel for our daily cooling off nap. Just next door to the hotel was a “Spadfofosa,” the Italian word for “really yummy sweet bakery.” We stopped in and bought two delectable looking treasures. As we were taking them to go, they were placed on a cardboard tray, put into a decorated bag that was folded over to look like wrapping paper, and tied up in a gold ribbon. It felt like my birthday when they handed it to me. I was all smiles.

Then, back at the room, Jeff and I had our cold showers (really not bad considering how hot it is), and laid on the bed – just chatting, he was looking at something on the computer – I got my little parcel and rolled over, opening it like it was a priceless thing and we gobbled the most delicious treats – naked, in bed, in Italy. Best Ever.