Italia, the first few days

      We are staying at Royal Continental Napoli.  It is a rather nice hotel across the street from the Gulf of Naples.  There are 2 castles near the hotel. 1 is directly across from us-I'll let Juliann fill you in on that.
Since we are in the heart of the city, there is constant activity all around: sirens (lots of polizia here!), scooters moving all about, cars whizzing by, people always walking or jogging by (the Stones will blend right in with the runners here), sounds of vehicles crashing into, what I'm guessing, dumpsters or buildings or? oh, not to mention HORNS. Napolitans LOVE to communicate with their car horns. It's funny.
     I'm sure you're not surprised to hear that we are eating quite well.  There are so many restaurants for us to check out here-fun!  We could probably eat at a different place every day. I think we might try that. haha

     We all are working on our Italiano.  It's fun. Some people around here seem surprised when we say more than Buongiorno.  I wish I knew more though!  I get a little frustrated that I'm not able to communicate better..ahh..back to work on Rosetta Stone..
     2 more things: sorry I didn't post about our Arrivederci party. It was so much fun and we all were extremely grateful to see all those who came.  It truly was a marvelous time!  Thank you all so much! (pictures got left on home computer..ergh.. sorry about that.)
     Next post:Italy House Hunt!

Ciao!

     I read somewhere that when in new surroundings that it is best to take time to 'soak everything in' around you.  I think this might be my motto for this Italian adventure.
     This was my first experience flying in Executive/First class.  It is something I could definitely get used to!  Eat, sleep, watch a movie, eat, watch a movie, eat, enjoy the massage feature of the seat, eat, sleep..you get the picture. Wow!  No complaints here...

    So, that was all the way from Seattle to Frankfurt, Germany.  As soon as we got to Germany, we learned that many Lufthansa (the airline working with Air Canada-our original airline) crew members were on strike.  That caused our flight, along with 899 other flights, to be cancelled indefinitely.  Yikes!!  I always wanted to take my family to Germany and stay a while but not at the airport! haha  Anyway, an extremely creative and kind Lufthansa clerk helped find flights for us to make it to Naples-8hrs later than our original flight, but we made it!  You know those news stories about people sleeping at airports for hours on end? Well, we were some of those people last week.  In fact, I think we actually did make it in some Germany news footage-there were camera men and reporters right near us at one point...ugh..
     We flew from Germany to Milan and then Milan to Naples. Definitely not ideal but we were so grateful to get to our destination.  Once in Naples, we had to take 2 taxis (do you see all that luggage we brought?!What were we thinking? haha).  The taxi ride to get to our hotel was more exciting than any theme park ride we had ever been on. Just ask Race about it!