ITALY!!! Day One

Leaving London. Our expressions tell how we felt about our Egland experience.

Tim waving goodbye to England. Really, please tell us how you really feel.

When we were on the airplane to Italy, they were giving the emergency instructions in Italian, Tim looked at me and asked, “You can’t understand anything she is saying, can you?” I answered, “Not a word, Baby. I don’t learn by osmosis or by direct deposit. Keep trying though.” 

It was really weird to realize he COULD understand. What was even weirder was when we got to Italy and he started SPEAKING Italian. To have him open his mouth to speak and have gibberish (although beautiful gibberish) come out of it was and is fascinating to me. J

I dozed on the plane for a few minutes and when I opened my eyes, Tim had a glass of “OJ” for me. It was RED. It sort of looked like grapefruit juice and I was nervous to try it as I do not like grapefruit and I thought Tim might be playing a joke on me, but it was delicious! OJ squeezed from ‘Blood oranges.” Yummy.

I started asking Tim about the Italian language. How do you say this? How do you say that? “Volio= I want. Mangiare (pronounced Mon-jar-e) means, “to eat. Volio mangiare= I want to eat. I find myself saying that phrase a lot.

Once we arrived in Rome and collected our bags, it was time to find the rental car agency where we had booked our car the night before with a BRITISH car company. 

I seriously couldn't handle one more cock up fromthe British. This is where I almost lost it.

The car rental place wasn’t there with all the other car rental places. We make call number one. They tell us, “Carhire3000 is actually Advantage.” OK. We take another walk along car rental alley. There is no car Advantage. Tim asks. They don’t know. It might be by the train station. 

So we walk a mile down to the train station. We see a car rental place but it is closed. GRRR. We call again. They say go to Terminal 3- so we walk BACK the mile we just walked. Nothing. 

Call number 3- they direct us to go downstairs and catch a shuttle near Terminal 3. Away we go. Still nothing and no one knows. 

Call number 4- we are told to wait there and that he will come get us, it will be 5 minutes.  This is feeling very shady and now I am getting pissed. Tim seems oddly calm. TWENTY minutes later the damn bus arrives and takes us to Advantage. 

When we get there, they need a $100.00 deposit but won’t take our card because it says debit on it. I have had this problem before when I have rented a car. For some reason it has to actually BE a VISA credit card. We only have one credit card and we keep ZERO money on it. We don’t pay for things with credit. We just don’t. “Ok, no problemo, can we use your Internet to transfer money?” No Internet. LMFAO. WHAT? Hmmm, ok. This is too much for me. I am tired, hungry and mad.

At this point I think I told Tim to forget it. Let’s cancel the reservation and go back to the airport and rent a car from a REAL car rental place. They won’t let us cancel it. Ok. Next plan.  Thinking. Thinking. Thinking. Call Shaelynn and have her transfer money for us. Get her on the line but she is on the bus for school. OMG. DUH! It’s 9am in the states on Friday morning. Next plan, call my friend Kristen and have her do it. Problem solved. So we fill out paperwork and ask for a car wit GPS.

Their cars don’t have GPS. WTF!!? Not even the portable kind? Nope, not even that. Grrr. OK. Can we get a map? No, they said they were out of  maps. This was the smallest, diviest, not busy car rental place and they were OUT of maps? YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!!

Tim tells me it’s fine, we will figure it out. Uh huh. Ok, so now we are on the road, in Rome, with no map, no GPS and a general sense of where we are going. 

Food always make me feel better.

Tim oddly calm after the car issue. We are in Italy now. He is happy.

CAPUA!

For those of you who have not jumped on the Spartacus bandwagon, first of all, get on it! The show is SO good!  Capua is the home of the second largest arena in Roman times, the Coliseum in Rome, being the largest. 

CAAAPPPUUUAAAA!!!!

When we get to Capua, I realize we are IN Italy. This is NOT “Touristy Italy.” Nope this is ITALY. No English, crazy ass drivers, very SMALL roads, cobblestone streets. It’s AWESOME!!! 


We don’t have a hotel booked so we look for one in Capua. We check into this ummm…”quaint” little place and drag our 3 large suitcases to our room. 

The key to our hotel room in Capua.

The door ro our room...Do I dare peak in?

Our Capua Hotel room

The bathroom

The shower, where there was NO curtain or door of any sort. Just a square on the floor with a nozzle in the wall. The water smelled like rotten eggs out of the tap in the sink. We never even turned on the water for the shower.

The hotel swimming pool. Anyone want to go for a swim?

Apparently the chickens don't have a probblem with the condition of the pool.

Swimming pool.

I am giggling the whole time. I wanted the Italian experience and boy did I get it! As opulent and modern as the hotel in London was for $1000.00 a night, this little place was sparse and very plain. It was only 60 Euro ($90.00) and we had literally NO choices. I loved it.

Then we went for a little walk and in search of food. We found a little Italian ristorante and settled in for the YUMMIEST food we have had on the entire trip so far! OMG it was SOOOOO good! I had Arraviata which means “angry pasta” or spicy pasta. Oh yum!

The streets of Capua

The ristorante where we ate

Real Italian bruschetta. BTW...Americans mispronounce this word everytime. It is NOT pronounced bru-shetta, the way we like to say it. It is pronounced bru-sca-ta.  E's are always pronounced with a long A sound.

Tim got this steak which doesn't look that great but it was YUMMY!

Arrabbiata - which literally translates to "angry pasta." It is spicy pasta. OMG SO GOOD!

Yumm Yumm Yumm

When we left the Ristorante, we thought weren’t to far fom our hotel, so instead of going back the way we came, we took a little walk that ended up getting us a bit lost. 

Luckily, I am married to someone who apparently looks German but speaks fluent Italian and we were able to ask for directions.  As unhelpful as the English were, the Italians are EXTREMELY helpful. They talk a lot with their hands, so I felt like I could almost understand.  It was funny because they (Tim and who ever he was speaking to) would have a 3-5 minute conversation, while I just stood there, but the Italians would make eye contact with me like I knew what they were saying.   After the conversations were over, Tim would say, “He said to go here here, and here.” All that for 3 left turns? LOL 

We had this type of experience a few years back, where we met an Italian couple at a resort and they latched on to us because we were the only ones they could talk to. The woman would be having a full on conversation with me, going on and on, speaking Italian and speaking with her hands. At one point I had to ask Tim, “She knows I can’t understand a single word she is saying, right?” No they don’t care.

Tim on one of the streets.

CAPUA ITALY

I thought this wedding dress was beautiful

We headed back to the hotel for some much needed rest. The beds were super hard and lumpy. I say “beds” because they were actually two beds pushed together and they actually separated during the night so we took turns sleeping in the crack. The next morning, Saturday, we woke up and got on the road pretty early. No showers- there wasn’t even a shower curtain around the shower- and the water smelled like rotten eggs when you turned on the water. Total Italian experience. LOL

We have walked miles and miles. If there was one thing in my life I wish I could undo, it would be the very first surgery I had done on my right foot.  Not only is my foot (both of them actually, but especially my stupid right one that has had 4 surgeries on it) killing me. 

I have now developed a nice sized blister on one of my toes. Excellent.