Naples: Epic Fail.

Hi! I hope everyone had a good weekend. Happy Birthday weekend to Samantha, Michelle, and my Aunt Rose! I wish we could have spent your birthdays with you.

So Michael and I decided, only a few days beforehand, to spend the weekend in Naples. It's about a 6-hour drive, give or take 45 minutes for the inevitable traffic jam in Florence. I've seen pictures of Naples and we both had been wanting to go, so Michael found a hotel, plugged the address into the GPS and away we went. Thursday afternoon we were on the Autostrada by 5 pm, and for the life of me, I could not figure out what it was that I'd forgotten. You know that feeling, the annoying little tingle in the back of your mind that says you've left something at home, and until you figure it out, you're stuck going over your packing list again and again. So what was it this time? I had everything I needed, which wasn't much. I'm a light packer. Jericho had jammies, clothes, juice, snacks and his lovies. He was good. Michael had 2 days' worth of clothes. Cell phone - check. GPS - check. iPod - check. Laptop - check. About 2 hours after we left the house, I finally nailed it and discreetly let out a string of expletives.

My camera's memory card.

Obviously we weren't going to turn around and go back for it, but I was severely depressed the entire trip down. How was I going to record this trip and share it for others to see and enjoy? How was I going to give them something to live vicariously and see what it's like to have Europe right outside your back door with a weekend road trip to Naples? I'd failed. I knew there were expectations upon my return. Give me a few days, then see the pictures I've posted and read the day-to-day adventures we'd had. Nope. Not this time.

I will say, though, if it makes you feel any better, we did not enjoy Naples. There has been a huge garbage problem there for the past few years, and there are several theories as to how it started. I won't go into detail, but I will say it put a damper on our expectations of the trip. Where there weren't giant piles of trash on the highway, there was a constant string of litter everywhere. The driving was chaotic and scary but we expected that. We ended up spending a lot of time at the naval base in Capodichino. We visited the Solfatara, a volcano with sulfur geysers where Michael was stung by a bee and I was almost physically ill from the strong smell of rotten eggs. The hotel had provided us with a nice book full of places and surrounding towns to visit, but they were nowhere to be found. Friday AND Saturday night, Jericho and I were both kept awake into the wee hours of the morning by wedding receptions and the thump of loud music. So come Sunday, I was actually relieved to finally check out of the hotel and head home. The last disappointment of the trip was when I found out that the hotel had indeed charged the wrong credit card upon reservation, and they had also charged us 15 euro per day for parking, which was not mentioned in the website's details. You bet there's gonna be a review there soon.

So that was my weekend. It was an experience, and I realize that not all experiences are good ones. But geez...do the bad ones have to be so expensive?