:: Click here for a list of useful websites when planning a trip to the Amalfi Coast, Naples & nearby

>> Photos of Toronto :: August, 2008

Colorful St. Lawrence Farmer's Market

Greek Festival quail on a spit: I ate it

>> Japan:: February 15, 2008

We didn't even have to leave Philly last night to go to Japan. We just
went to Yakitori Boy on 11th Street with Tom and Colleen and Jane.
Sadly, this is all the travel this website will be seeing for a while.

>> Beer Travel in Belgium:: September 6-17, 2007

These photos help prove the theory that YES, six people can drink their combined weight in Belgian beer and not die.

>> The Atomium:: September 13, 2007

If ever you find yourself in Brussels, visiting The Atomium is a very cool non-beer-related activity. Possibly the only one we partook of.

>> Brussels Public Art:: September 17, 2007

>> Thinking About Belgium:: July 6, 2007

I am starting to shake off the depression that resulted in being forced from my home in Positano for this hostile alien city of Philadelphia. It is humid here, and everyone speaks so loudly.

To ease the pain a little, I have been focusing on our upcoming Belgium today, really only a few weeks away (yikes)!!

I found this website, dedicated to all things Belgian Frites and stole from it the joke below...

2 men are sitting in a Bar, talking about space traveling.
-- "We, Americans, can easily fly to the planet Mars."
-- "We, Belgians, can easily fly to the Sun."
-- "To the sun??? But the Sun ... is much too hot!"
-- "That's why we go by night."

>> Naples, Italy Graffiti :: July 4, 2007

I am looking through photographs of Naples. I took some shots of the graffiti, but there must be a better word for it -- it's really cool.

			.

>> Proof That We Didn't Just Go to a Sex Resort :: June 17, 2007

We're home. Brendan says whatever I type here is stupid, so instead, I'll just post some photos (below) of our 2 weeks in Positano and HE can write what he wants.

We made it to a lot of towns up and down the Amalfi coast and inland during our 14 short days: Sorrento, Naples (twice!), Amalfi, Ravello, Paestum, Avellino (Sorbo Serpico, where my grandmother's family is from), Montepertuso, (and that star of a transportation hub!) Salerno. The SITA bustop at the Salerno train station might be my least favorite 20 feet of pavement on the planet.

	Leigh didn't really seem to mind shrinking down to one eighth of her size as long as the camera kept rolling.		I swear to god, when Leigh drove this car her head had to fit through the roof, no lie.
	Seriously, if doing the Buffalo Stance means hanging out in a pool of mud and my own make, I think I can only do it for fifteen minutes, tops.		Just like the Buckingham Palace guards...except they're Italian, better looking and made of wood. Okay they're nothing like the Buckingham Palace guards.
	And the Baba lady goes doo-da-doo-doo-doo-da-doo-doo... Three of Leigh's newest pounds are a direct result of having met this woman and her pasticceria.		Here kitty kitty kitty...
	Scusi Signore, I know we're in Italy and you guys are a little bit more touchy-feely and everything, but please let go of my garlic.		Ice cold Natty Blue at the Pupetto Cafe, Fornillo Beach, Positano.

>> Napoli Pizza Mission :: June 17, 2007

Pizza was born in Naples. We followed Carla Capalbo's excellent Campania Food and Wine Guide and internet advice by Arthur Schwartz (link) to find authentic pizza in the city. There are thousands of pizzerias. We made it to three (Da Michele, Di Matteo and Brandi). Curses on Del Presidente for not having the Pizza Fritta when we were there.

	The lunch crowd at Da Michele. Typically Brendan is not a fan of waiting in line for food. We were number 97 at 11am.		At Da Michele. Margherita or Marinara. That's the menu.
	Patiently waiting for pie at Antica Pizzeria Brandi.		Del Presidente, named for Clinton, where we missed the last of the fried pizza for the day. Serious tragedy to Leigh.
	SURE, I can eat another whole pie...		Do you think they'll mind if I vomit on my plate?
	One wit Wurtzel. (Go Jane, go!)		Only if I can vomit on mine and you'll say it's yours.

>> A Vacation Within a Vacation :: June 8, 2007

Today we are relaxing. Yesterday was a day filled with travel and transportation woes. We schlepped to Avellino, to a winery (Feudi San Gregorio) for lunch, and to Sorbo Serpico (one of the villages of my family history). We were there for about 3 hours, but travel time was long and slow. We finally bartered for a ride home in a taxi from Amalfi around 9pm. Driving was a maniac who looked like Elvis Presley (hair and all) and who swerved around the curves of the coast at break neck speed while singing along to his Elvis CD. ("Alora, non, it is not-a Elvis, it is-a Little Tony.") Clearly, he wanted us dead.

Today, everyone went off elsewhere, so Brendan and I stuck close to home, wandered the entire internal Positano road, took goof ball photos with every Fiat 500 we found, and then came down to the beach. All 364 steps to the beach. I will sit here and type forever, Nastro Azzuro in hand, mosquitos nipping at my ankles, rather than reclimb the steps to the house.

Also, I should mention, there are some trash related issues on our particular beach (the Spiaggia Fornillo, not the main Positano beach). Yesterday mom & Mike said there was TAR in the water, big globy goopy piles of it. A Frenchman came out of the water covered in it. There is a cafe on our beach, and they gave him a liter of gasoline to clean himself with, and, instead of using it to wipe the tar off, he poured it all over himself (!) and inhaled it and caused a huge scene. Screaming & cursing (in French, bien sur) and all the while his wife casually smoked a cigarette (about one foot from him). There were gallon jugs and other trash, and there is still some of it in the water today, though, luckily no tar.)

It is more beautiful here than I can possible describe, and we are seeing so much and loving it. Until I gather the fortitude to climb the steps again, Ciao!

>> Positano, Amalfi, Ravello & Ischia :: June 5, 2007

Well. There was a delay in updating, I will admit it. There are about 1,000,000 steps between our house and the internet cafe at the beach. And it turns out that here in the playground of the rich and famous (or, in our personal experience so far, not) there is just no trash issue.

When we landed in Naples, I asked out taxi driver about the trash, the fires, the BUBONIC PLAGUE, etc., (since there was not even a panino wrapper on the sidewalk) and he said that they took care of it: the trash all got sent to Rome. Our town has empty bins for trash, at the ready, just WAITING for a crisis. So, that is that. No news story. I am not an intrepid reporter. Poop.

Otherwise, I may or maynot update this again while we are here. There is beer at this particular internet spot, which makes me about as happy as I could be after a long day of riding along the Amalfi coast on the bus. And, like I said, there are a LOT of steps back home.

Ciao!

>> Festering Heaps :: May 28, 2007

I've been finding more online today. The Neapolitan trash is floating south.

OK, ready?? Read this:

May 23, 2007 - Life in always-gritty Naples has just gotten that much worse. Thanks to a garbage crisis that has suffocated the southern Italian city in recent days, over 3,000 tons of uncollected trash is piling up on city streets and is scattered throughout the picturesque countryside. Plastic bags of debris float in the bay, and everything from soiled diapers to plastic water bottles have washed up on the famed beaches as far south as the Amalfi Coast and the islands of Capri and Ischia.  In some parts of the city, garbage bags writhing with rats and cockroaches are stacked up to 10 feet high over several city blocks. Some narrow alleyways are completely blockaded by overflowing dumpsters; other streets are made impassable by swarms of flies hovering around the festering heaps.
Taken from: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18830866/site/newsweek/

AAAAAHHHHH!!!  Festering heaps!! On the Amalfi Coast!!

We leave on Friday June 1, and will be back on June 16. Staying in Positano and day tripping all over the Amalfi Coast, Capri, Ischia, the Cilento and Avellino. I will attempt to update this page everyday with a report of what the trash situation is like where we are. Stay tuned!

>> See Naples and Die :: May 26, 2007

I find this all very amusing. Or scary. Right now there is a huge trash crisis in Naples, where we plan to visit (but luckily not stay) during our upcoming trip to the Amalfi Coast.

The landfills of Campania are filled and no one will permit more to be opened. So trash is piling up (by the tens of feet) all across the city. Then they started burning it.

Here’s an up-to-the-moment blurb from a Naples blog: (taken from this Roman blog)
"A garbage fire every 10 minutes. An appeal from the prefect that fell on deaf ears. 7,000 tons of garbage left in the streets, destined to grow, 13 new cases of hepatitis A (but the health department was quick to point the finger at some mussels sold in the outdoor markets, and they could be right), a meningitis scare, and rats as big as rabbits. This is the province of Naples as I saw it yesterday."

Click here for some amazing photos.

Now for the best part. This is the best quote: (taken from the same Roman blog)
"I had heard stories of Naples' periodic garbage epidemics, even so far as having heard that some years back there was an outbreak of the bubonic plague caused by the refuse in the streets."

The bubonic fucking plague.
Arrivederci!!