Ahhh-Malfi

On June 24th  Scott and I rented a little white Smart Car from Rome and drove south to the Amalfi Coast for what we anticipated to be a relaxing, visually stunning week-long vacation.  It was beautiful, there were moments of relaxing, but the absolutely crazy and constant twists and turns in every bewildering road journey that we took around the area made for some rather car-sick days and some reasonable doubts as to the accuracy/usefulness of our car's GPS.

First stop: Naples.  Here we shall try the World's-Greatest-Pizza!!  ...Naples...the streets lined with garbage, the unsavory looking characters walking the streets, the crumbling and in-need-of-paint buildings (I don't mean spray-paint because clearly the locals had that part covered), the impatient drivers and scary intersections...we're not loving Naples.

Ever hopeful about our upcoming euphoric pizza lunch experience, we followed our guidebook to the top 10 pizza places in Naples and found several in close proximity. The number 1 pick was closed since it was a Sunday, but number 2 had a promising description and a local walking by assured us that it was "fine".   So in we go to this authentic pizzeria that has been kicking since 1923.

Trianon Pizzeria in Naples

The wood burning stove (where the magic happens)

Yea...We each got our own. What?!

 Okay, it was pretty high up on the yummy scale.  It was decent.  We ate eat and liked it.  But there was no soundtrack that started playing, no clouds parting, no spontaneous group dance of any sort.  It was in the end "just pizza".  Shucks.

So, bellies full, pizza dreams slightly dampened, we headed on south to Amalfi.  We got to the village of Furore where we would be spending a week in a small bed and breakfast that was owned by a kindly, burly man named Pino.  His father was a chef in the attached restaurant, his cousin owned the small hotel down the street, his other cousin cycled around the town, and most every other man we encountered was also named Pino.  It seemed to be a very homey, non-touristy village where everyone knew everyone else and they had all always lived there.

The views from our hotel window, from our car, from any street we walked down, basically any time our eyes were open were just as beautiful as we had hoped.  We got extremely trigger happy with our cameras.  Here are two from the hundreds upon hundreds of rather similar images we took.

Our first day out we tried some hiking.  The maps did not really help us, our bed and breakfast guy's instructions did not really help us, our GPS really didn't help us... but somehow we managed to find one of several apparently famous trails.  If they're so famous how about some decent signage and maybe a hiking map?  Just saying.

We ended up walking into a private cliff-side vineyard which was totally beautiful but not actually where we wanted to be headed. Also, there was way more "nature" than we expected to encounter on our nature walk. We had a life-threatening encounter with a super fast black snake. Found out from our bed and breakfast guy later that they're not dangerous but at the time we were certain that we were doomed.  When he had safely zipped passed us, as if being pulled quickly by an invisible string up some steep steps, Scott managed to get a photo.  Not sure how because he was pretty shaky.  That guy does not like snakes!

Another scary thing we kept encountering were lizards.  I mean these things were everywhere.  The part that made them scary was that whenever you were approaching them they would jump straight up in the air.  All the more scary when you don't know that you are approaching them!  For any of you "Annie" fans out there I think this must be where the term "leaping lizards" came from.  Before being orphaned and taking up performing heartwarming song and dance numbers Annie had obviously done a fair amount of hiking along the Amalfi Coast.

After about 2.5 hours of hiking upward we found the sign pointing to the hiking trail that we had read about. Well we did not feel like "beginning" our hike at this point, especially after running into a similarly lost couple who had just come from the trail in question and indicated that it had taken them 3 hours. We are recreational hikers. Plus we're on VACATION. Plus it was HOT.  So that was not happening.

We decided to turn around and begin our descent. They have lizards...and cactus...we were hot...there was no way that we were walking three more hours in the wrong direction from home okay? 

We still managed to see this view during our misguided travels. Yea. Worth it!

That afternoon we decided to visit the only local winery and vineyard in the small area we were staying.  It was owned and operated by a couple  and their children and was a wedding present from the husband to the wife...Scott all I got was a diamond ring...

The had actually dug a cave into the cliff-side to store and age their wine and it was pretty awesome in there.  Though they did not offer tasting we made out with a couple of bottles and some photographic evidence of our visit.

The following day we scouted out the surrounding area and collected brochures for ideas on what kinds of things we might get up to doing during our visit.  We settled on a boat tour that would take us to the island of Capri (yes the place for which those not quite pants, not quite shorts were named and also the Capri Sun fruit beverage where you poke the straw through the metal baggie thing.  You know the ones...)

It was a great day on the water and we were on a boat with a young Australian couple, a young Italian couple, and a group of Brits who had visited the place some 30 years ago and wanted to see what was new.  Besides those short pants and juice baggies I mean.

We stopped several times for people to swim along the way but decided we wanted to look glamorous and dry for our big Capri debut.

In the meantime, we enjoyed the amazing views of the cliff side towns that we passed and greatly enjoyed seeing the sights without having to drive around the crazy cliff side roads.

To celebrate not having to drive on this wonderful boat tour day, we arrived in Capri and decided to drive. This is not as illogical as it sounds because obviously a scooter is way cooler than a Smart Car right?  Way cooler.

Don't worry all ye who know of my awesome driving skills: I am merely posing in a parking lot for this picture and actually just road on the back of Scott's scooter.  Oh yeah, he wore a helmet when he drove for real too (just posing in the parking lot also).  Anyway, fedora versus helmet = way cooler.

Other than that we shopped around Capri and ate some pasta.  Besides the very strict parking laws and overcrowded beaches, we liked this island very much.

Additional days of eating, driving, sightseeing, and ooo-ing/aahing followed.  Probably our favorite day on the Amalfi coast was the day we rented our very own boat.  Boating license? Nah.  Sufficient training to be let loose with our own boat for the day? Nope.  Makings of an awesome day of danger and freedom? You betcha.

So we go to a boat rental booth and ask to rent a boat for the day.  They happily take our money and say a guy will bring a boat around for us in half an hour.  Enough time to buy a water and a sandwich and hope that Scott remembers what it was like when he drove a boat 13 years ago.  Like riding a bike right?

We hop aboard the boat and the guy shows Scott how to go forward and how to reverse, then as we are passing another boat he says "okay bye" and jumps aboard another boat his friend was on. So hopefully 20 seconds was all the review time needed. Yup. Scott can confirm that it is indeed just like riding a bike.

We puttered around for several hours, jumped out and swam a few times, and Scott even let me try driving too! It was sort of fun/scary until I came across the waves from another boat at full speed and nearly pitched my dearly beloved overboard. Ahk! End of lesson.

 



Last Visit to Italy

For 9 days in June I attended a "Dance Retreat" in Tuscany.  It was a dance camp for adults that also included cooking lessons and italian lessons.  I was massively excited because here was an experience to combine all of my interest - dancing, Italy, eating, and talking.  Yep: a dream come true!

Well it was a great time though not exactly what I expected.  I was amping myself up for 6 hrs of solid dancing every day and it ended up being a lot more laid back then that.  Some days we just enjoyed socializing and a single class or two and rather than leaving the lean-mean fighting machine that I had hoped, I ended up leaving with good friends and a belly full.

We did get to try yoga outdoors, interpretive dance in public spaces, modern, ballet, old school jazz, step dance, musical theatre, and lyrical jazz.  This sounds like rather a lot of dancing but it was more of a sampler platter rather than a full out buffet.  That's talking about the dancing.  The eating was a full out buffet for sure!  Food and wine were beautifully priced in the town of Livorno where we stayed and I enjoyed my fair share and then some.  Our cooking classes consisted of a wee bit of cooking (I love the simplicity of italian cuisine) and a whole lot of eating.  I have already tried making a cannellini bean recipe that we learned and it is scrumptious (and easy!).  I am happy to pass on the recipe to anyone who wants.

Our fun week ended with getting to perform in a local dance school's recital.  We learned a piece on a Tuesday and Wednesday morning, cleaned it up on Thursday, and performed it that night.  It was quite a treat to get to dance on stage and something I would absolutely enjoy doing again.  Dance camps and recitals are not just for kids.  As a matter of fact I think we could all benefit from revisiting a lot of things we enjoyed as children.  As a matter of face, right now I am currently yearning for a good game of tag.  Or red rover.  How will I find anyone to play with me?!

Okay, off topic...so following the dance retreat, I took a train down to Rome to meet up with Scott.  We had a real surefire plan in which we would just "meet up somewhere in the train station".  Okay fine except upon arrival each of us separately discovered that a) the place was huge, b) the place was full of thousands of people.  So imagine each of our surprise when we did in fact find each other after not too much looking at all.  Ah the good fortune that follows the naive and uninformed.  This appears to be a common theme in my life thankfully!

We had two great days in Rome wherein Scott got to eat the best pork products known to man apparently and I of course got to once again enjoy more cheese, pasta and wine than is sensible.  We did our own "best of" tour according to our guide book meaning we tried the best gelato, best cappuccino, best outdoor market, best coffee, etc.  We also did a little shopping and visited a Leonardo exhibit but for the most part we just walked around took hundreds of pictures.

San Daniele.  Best pork product ever.  I hear.

Roaming Rome.



Leonardo da Vinci Exhibit.  This is a Tank!

Best Espresso in Rome.  Yup good.

"enjoying" a Summer Spritzer at the outdoor market in Rome.  Actually just posing.  It was gross.

 From Rome we rented a car and drove to the Amalfi Coast.  But that is another story and another post.  Stay tuned!

A Year in Cairo

So Scott and I have lived in Egypt for nearly a year now!  July 15th will mark the day that we moved here and spent our very first evening in Cairo locked on our little apartment balcony and wondering what we had signed on for.

What a year it has turned out to be!  A year of great new friends, of witnessing political history in the making, of making some travel dreams come true, and of daily surprises/lessons/adventures.

We are now the "Old Crew" as we have seen wonderful friends moving back to Canada at the end of their postings and a new roster of people are just now beginning to move in.  It is fun to think back to how strange and different everything seemed to us when we first got here ourselves.  While we now have a certain comfort level in our own day to day routine, there is still a lot that will probably always seem quite strange and different to us.  Perhaps at the end of our time here we will be a little stranger and different ourselves...

As for the pivitol political year, we have sat on the edge of our seats waiting to see what direction the country would go following the revolution and most especially waiting to see if people would be happy in the chosen direction.  After surviving the election of a new president this past week, now we can finally look to see what changes will begin to come about and hopefully the first steps will be encouraging and promising ones.

Travel has been a massive perk for this gig thus far and in 2011 we got to go to Rome for our anniversary and Tuscany, Florence and Venice for Christmas and New Years.  Conclusion: we love Italy as much as we always thought we would!  In 2012 we got to see Paris in February which was a dream come true and we left with a long list of things we would like to see and do there again if we get to return; and most recently we went to Rome (again!) and south of Naples to the Amalfi Coast.  We just returned three days ago so once we sort through our pictures I plan to post on that as well.  Stay tuned.

As for local travel, we have been able to go snorkling in the red sea, had an amazing close encounter with dolphins while paddle boating, gone camping in the dessert, sand boarded like champs (like snow boarding but on sand dunes), visited pyramids and ancient ruins, and we have only scratched the surface of all the local must-sees thus far.

Lessons from this year: patience is necessary for survival; sometimes the most logical solution to me is not the go-to approach for others; the sense of community and genuine openness of strangers is a welcome and wonderful change and something that I hope to take home with me; learning Arabic is real hard and my charades skills need work.

With that very brief and vague recap of my missed months of blogging:  G'bye for now.  Stay tuned for more routine entries (hopefully...) as I have the whole summer off!

My Little World Keeps on Ticking

Since Cairo is being featured in the news a fair amount lately I wanted to give a quick update on how Scott and I are doing during the protests.

Well for starters, Scott is doing pretty well since he is spending the week in Berlin for a conference.  He was reluctant to go since the protesting seems to be building up and he didn't want to leave his coworker (or his wife) in the lurch.  Back in a few days, it is not clear yet what sort of scenario he will be greeted with.

I've been carrying on with my regular routine as have most of the people around me.  Our little island is quite normal with all the shops and restaurants remaining open.  Other than the traffic seeming somewhat subdued and a few more people walking around during the day, it is all pretty usual.

I have still been going to Maadi to teach dance and nearly all the students are still attending.  Some of the schools are ending early and some businesses are sending staff home early to avoid being out in the afternoon/evening.

The only real "excitement" that I have seen was on Tuesday afternoon when I left home and had to stop by Scott's work (which is about a 3 minute drive to Tahrir Square).  We saw small groups of people walking away from the square with paper medical masks slung around their necks.  Some also had bandaged heads.  A little further along the cab driver and I started to feel teargas in our throats so we rolled up the windows. We saw slightly bigger numbers of people with masks on, bleary eyes, etc leaving the square.

Then we began safely heading away South and towards Maadi and encountered a group of about 600 people marching in the opposite direction.  Our traffic was still flowing pretty well and the marchers were walking mostly on the sidewalk.  There were drums and people fist pumping and chanting.  Not sure what they were saying - we haven't covered that in my Arabic lessons yet but it definitely wasn't "my pencil in on my desk" or "the teacher is at the front of the class", or any other phrase that I have been working on.

The march was peaceful and had very diverse attendance - young men in their twenties in jeans and tee-shirts, older men in business attire, young ladies with their heads covered, ageless ladies in full burkas.

Talking with a few others I have heard that college students have been returning to the square each afternoon, sometimes bringing their parents!  Expats are even going down to see what's up.  Men, women, and youth.  Egyptian and foreign.  Everyone waiting to see what happens next.  Well so am I, but I'll just watch from a safe distance on the news.

Gluttony, Reverence, and Chilly Awesomeness

On October 20th to 23rd, Scott and I joined a group of people from his work as well as representatives from Britain, Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, and Italy (to name a few) to attend a World War II memorial service.

We took a 3ish hour drive to northern Egypt to a small town on the Mediterranean coast called El Alamein.  Now if you are better informed about our history (which assuming you are a 4th grader or more, you most likely are), perhaps you already know all about this place.

Just in case, here's the lowdown:  Commonwealth Forces (and a couple others) fought German and Italian Forces there between 1940 and 1942.  Winston Churchill has an allegedly famous (I'd never heard it before...) quote about the battles fought there: "Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein, we never had a defeat." Well, many people on both sides were killed so there is a war cemetery there as well as memorials for the Commonwealth, the Germans, and the Italians.  There are 37 Canadians buried at the Al Alemein War Cemetery where we went to attend the service.

Before tending to the solemn purpose of our trip, we were treated to a wonderful, marvelous hotel stay.  A rather grand hotel that literally stepped out onto the beach.  Being that it was the ONLY hotel open around (everything else was closed for the winter - yes, apparently even in the dessert this happens), we were awfully lucky that it was so great.

Neither Scott nor I had ever visited the Mediterranean before and truly it was spectacular.  White sand, turquoise waters.  Here is a view from our balcony.  Though the evenings are cooling off a bit, we were able to sleep with our patio door open and fall asleep to the sound of the crashing waves.  Yes, you should definitely feel sorry for us and the time we are having here.

We were actually treated to lots of free time and Scott was needed for only a small part of our time there.  We lounged and walked by the sea, played Phase 10 (it's a fun card game!), chatted with friends, and ate our FACES OFF.  That's right we're talkin' three buffets a day, each and every day.  There were so many salads and desserts that I rarely made it to the hot entrees.  But melon sculptures and banana swans just keep calling me back up for seconds and thirds.

Despite all the eating, when we finally gave swimming in the sea a try, we did indeed still float.  It was freezing, but the blue water and rockless bottom was amazing!  We bobbed in the waves and even did a bit of official swimming to work up an appetite.  Bring on the next buffet...

Staying at the hotel with us were people from all the other countries involved.  It was really pretty neat to see and meet the others and especially good to see people from the historically opposing sides all eating and enjoying the beach together.  What a difference 69 years makes.

On Saturday Scott and another co-worker went to set up for the memorial service while the rest of us lounged a little more.  In the afternoon we visited the El Alamein War Museum that had information and various articles from the war displayed.  Then off to the Commonwealth Memorial site.

The space was pristine and maintained year round by a team of gardeners.  There were pale tomb stones as far as the eye could see, several monuments and a huge archway watched by Egyptian soldiers.  A few other quick facts:  there are 7,367 buried in this cemetery and 821 of those are unidentified personnel.



The service was much like a remembrance day ceremony in Canada with a few hymns, the laying of the wreaths, the moment of silence.  And yet it was quite different because we were actually in the region where the people we were remembering fought and died.  The other major difference was that it was not just the Canadians we were remembering - there were people in uniform from so many countries there to pay their respects and represent their country - Australia, New Zealand, Britain and Kenya were all in the rows right near me for example.  It was a pretty special experience that I shan't sully here with my "deep thoughts" - just that I pondered that the world is a fair bit smaller than I  thought before and that it was encouraging to gather here with this diverse group and remember our common need for peace.  Shoot - I just "thought deeply" didn't I?

It could not be helped...  I must also mention that I was very proud to be there Scott.  A handsome young man in his uniform that came to represent Canada and to remember. 

I Got Dizzy Just Watching...

In a city where you can't always walk down the street without someone trying to sell you something, we recently got to enjoy a refreshingly FREE experience.  In fact, our entire evening was choc full of delightful new discoveries in Cairo.

The social coordinator at Scott's work organized a fantastic night for us which included visiting Al Azhar Park, eating some superfly Egyptian food, and watching a whirling dervish show (which was FREE.  I know!  I love free).

First of all, walking around Cairo, one comes to accept a certain amount of physical obstacles.  I am talking about animal poo, sandy dirt, and bits of garbage.  Thus our trip to Al Azhar Park was a lovely brief respite of cleanliness.  The ability to walk in a straight line without having to dart around illegally parked cars and the possibility of keeping your eyes on the sights rather than continually looking down to check for poo were both such welcome treats.

The park was built on a rubbish dump site in the 1980s.  When they built it they excavated tons of debris and discovered an ancient wall and other cool things like stones with hieroglyphics.  It is beautiful, lush, green; has amazing views of the city; and did I mention it is impeccably clean.  There is a lot of neat information about it here:

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/azharpark.htm

After walking around the park, we went to a rather fancy restaurant within the grounds where we ate delicious egyptian food and watched the sunset over the Mohammed Ali mosque.

We then went on a "20 minute walk" to the theatre for the whirling dervish show.  Our friends who guided us were 7 feet tall marathon speed walkers (I may exagerate here slightly, but honestly they walked really fast) so it really did take only about 20 minutes, but if it had just been Scott and I it would have been pretty near 45 minutes (and/or we would have caved and hailed a cab).

 The theatre where the show was held probably has some cool historical story too because it looked really old and was located in the Khan El Khallili market.  I unfortunately don't know the story so feel free to be less lazy than me and google away.  It was a very old stone building with 4 walls but no top.  For some reason they give the tickets to everyone for free.  Yes, I think I mentioned that.

The show began with fantastic musicians playing traditional instruments with great gusto, huge smiles, and cantagious dancing about.

Then came the whirlers.  Some of them wearing as many as 3 or 4 skirts and twirling for an unreasonable length of time.

It was a feast for the eyes and ears and a must-do for anyone that ever comes to visit me.  Seriously guys, get over here!

Pretty much the best trip EVER

Somebody has to call 15 yr old Shannon and let her know I am finally addressing her list of hopes and dreams.  That's right.  I'm talking about Italy:  Been there; done some of that; bought the coffeetable book.

For our 10th wedding anniversary Scott and I visited ROME!  Really and truly, it was all that we ever hoped it would be:  narrow alleys, cobblestone streets, sun soaked beauty and to quote one of our new friends - "a bunch of really old stuff".

We stayed in a boutique hotel that was a converted defense tower built in 1247 and was called Rezidenza Torre Colonna:  http://www.torrecolonna.com/ .  Since we were staying right in ancient Rome we did a lotta lotta walkin'.  Good thing because this was accompanied by a lotta lotta eatin'.

Though there were more quaint little restaurants along the cobble stone streets than any one city should rightly contain, we still managed to visit the same place twice in our four short days there.  Scott was having an affair with the ham they had there which apparently "really does melt in your mouth".   I was content to drown myself in cheese.  Mmm cheese.

We also found it incredibly cool that there was free access to clean, cold drinking water everywhere from fountains all over town. A refreshing change from Cairo where drinking water off the streets is not necessarily a good idea and where restaurants serve only bottled water which is certainly not free.

We truly wanted to have a relaxing couple of days and tried hard not to overwhelm ourselves with too many touristy activities.  Half the time we did not totally know what we were seeing, just that it was beautiful and a whole lot older than a whole lot of other stuff.  One of our two truly touristy ventures was touring the Vatican - namely the Sistine Chapel, the Vatican Museum, and St Peter's Basilica.  We did the whole bit - tour guide, headsets, hundreds of pictures.  We even got to dress as Roman soldiers where we purchased tickets.  No dignity spared here folks.





That said, a person HAS to be a tourist in Rome.  Everything really does deserve a history lesson and a good handful of pictures.  Scott even nabbed a few in the Sistine Chapel which was strictly forbidden... So of course I can't show them here!

The second full out touring adventure was to the Colosseum. Did I mention we had a view of it from the rooftop jacuzzi at our medieval tower hotel? That's right. Whose life am I living?!

Anyway Scott was all 'touristed-out' by then so I got the headset guided tour while he relied solely on all the information he had learned while watching the movie Gladiator.  Upon comparing notes we discovered the movie yielded about the same information as the audio tour (which lost points due to the decided lack of Russell Crowe appeal... movie wins).

Speaking of movies, we got to put our hand in that face thing like that couple did that time in that movie.  You know the one...  It was actually rather anticlimactic and fairly unromantic compared to Roman Holiday (and later "Only You" for all you non-movie buffs).  The experience consisted of waiting in a 15 minute single file line, snapping one photo each, making sure your hand wasn't lopped off, and exiting immediately.  Checkout the legend for yourself at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bocca_della_Verit%C3%A0

 And speaking of legends, we also visited the Trevi fountain and each threw a coin in.  The word is that those who toss a coin in the fountain will someday return to Rome.  I really, really hope it's true.

Ciao!