Losing your baggage is quite the experience, I'm sure its happened to tons of people but this was my first time and it was pretty terrible. I don't think I did myself any favors by arriving being a little under the weather and having had like a total of five minutes to pack and think about packing and even think about the trip before leaving Miami. I worked until Wednesday at like six pm, and still took a work call Thursday with a flight looming in the horizon of the evening. So, the reality was I was not in my zen place before leaving. And that is my bad. I guess in four months when I have more money than I would otherwise have had, I'll look back and feel good about that. Anyways, we had no stuff for three days. And really the stuff wasn't the problem. It was the inability to do any planning, and kind of not being sure if you had to be on call for the potential delivery of your stuff, or just being on top of the luggage handlers to see if there was any new information. Net, net, I am glad it happened, I think I had to deal with some nonsense early on and rock my confidence, in order to get my head right for the real challenges that are coming my way (India, I'm looking at you!) That said, I'm not going to glamorize these days and be like best travel experience ever! Not exactly.
It all worked out and I've learned a little bit about how I would plan for travel in the future.
So what did we do while the bags were being found or re-lost or whatever was actually happening there? Well we ate a lot of pizza and walked around Naples with one sick Iggy and an increasingly irritable Montero-contingent of the party. Mission one was to find something delicious to eat. And I think we did a pretty excellent job at that. Our Airbnb hosts glowingly endorsed a place around the corner called Pizzeria Oliva and we were not disappointed. So that was pretty excellent. Mission two was to get some clean drawers. This was more of a hurdle than one would suspect, there ended up being a flea-market type thing on the corner of the neighborhood we were staying where we were able to find some of the least comfortable tightest underwear I've ever had the displeasure of wearing. BUT, they were in fact clean. So that was good. Day two in Napoli was spent trying to find complementary clothes that could be worn while our luggage was re-lost, never found, etc.
All I wanted was a pair of shorts. This apparently was too tall an order. Not one place in the whole of Naples was still selling shorts. IT WAS NINETY DEGREES out. Which is wild to me. And just felt oh-so-un-American. I have money and a desire. How could I not get what we wanted or expected. Simple, silly American, in August we sell for the Fall. FML. So, on the clearance rack at the Adidas on via dei Umberto 1 there was one pair of shorts that were probably two sizes too big for me. But purchased they were, and worn they got. Phil on the other hand could not find anything that fit EXCEPT at the rock-bottom price of 120 euro in some deisgner boutique. Did I mention this all took about seven hours, and that I was clammy from my cold/flu/itis/contagion-virus and wearing the afore-mentioned suffocating Italian underwear (size XL, which might be a size S in the states). So this did not have any of us too please. All the while receiving no information about our baggage.
So the next day we thought we'd start our real tour of Napoli - other than the pizza, by which on the second day we were three stops deep on the tour. We slept in thankfully and got on a tour bus, about an hour in we received the news (well I called and tried to speak to a human at FCO for about an hour while on the tour to get the news) that our bags would be arriving back at FCO at five pm that day. They would deliver then after that. I asked: "When should we expect them in Napoli?" Lost Baggage Dudette: "Maybe three days time." (In a cheery voice)
So, we drove back to Roma and retrieved our luggage. I won't get into it , but there was a momentary scare where I could not see our bags in the lost luggage room. It was terrifying. Peggy had to sniff a bunch of anti-bacterial lotion just to make it through those tense moments.
So, that was that.
What have been the highlights thus far:
- Quality time with Peggy and Phillip - I said this the last time we were in Italy and when we did our California road trip. But, its trip like these that really make me happy to have people like them in my life. Also, we should do more stuff together back home. Just, lovely.
- Renting a Boat on the Amalfi Coast - This was pure bliss. I could not think of a better way to spend four hours
- Pizza in Naples - I came here for the best pizza I'd ever had. I was not disappointed. Chewy, burnt, thin, amazing tomatoes, and the best buffala mozz I'd ever tried. True Perfection.
- Wandering around and jogging in Roma - this continues to be a city that brings me joy in unexpected ways, I just love being here, and jogging in the centro storico or Villa Borhese just can't be topped. Unless it was shared.
- The drive to Sorrento - this is not a drive for the faint of heart, or for those looking to get someplace quick in August. It was congested and it was slow and it was kinda scary. But, lord, it was beautiful
- Dinner at Il Buco - Amazing service. The best scallops I'd ever had, and a bread basket for days. Yes, please.
- Hiking to Capri-town with Phil - This was an unexpected grueling workout in the peak of the day's heat. But when we got there. We were sweaty and accomplished. Also, we got to be kind of alone in Capri, which otherwise would have been pretty difficult.
- Blue Grotto - Again, Capri is oversold and full of tourist. But, this experience was like nothing I'd done before. Well worth the wait and super weird, and of course bursting with Italian flair/culture/character personified by our boat operators.
- Pompeii - Pretty epic. It could use some improved signage. But seeing frescos of ancient Romans doing it, made over 2000 years ago. Don't mind if I do. Also hearing the Italian tour guides having to mis-pronounce "Double Phallus" and make innuendo / double entendres in their thick accents was maybe some of the funniest shit I've ever heard.
- The safety warning on the ferry to Capri - There was an entire section of the overview that dealt with how women should handle an emergency if they were wearing HIGH HEELs. I can only presume this is something that is only concern for beach bound or hike bound tourists in Italy. Kind of hilarious.
I left my family at the airport in Roma yesterday and put the pin on the Italy portion of the journey - It was a great time, I turned 32, and I ate my face off. I faced some travel inconveniences. But, I'm still here on the other side, excited about what the world is going to bring me over the course of the next 8 months.
Ciao.
Some parting images:
:
