Viva Italia!

I know, I know I should be using my child’s treasured naptime to be writing one of three papers that I have due this month or working on my internship duties but seeing as though we are now 7 months out of Ben’s Navy PRD (projected rotation date) I should probably work on adding more entries to our blog!

What can I say, the past year or so has been incredibly hectic! Our little bambina, Camille Rose, entered the world on June 12 or 2011 and since then we have been spending our time learning how to be parents, working (in Ben’s case completing!) on our Master’s Degrees,  and travelling wherever and whenever possible.

We counted the countries that we’ve visited since the little peanut, who is no longer so little ;( , has graced us with her presence and it has been incredible. In her first year of life this kid has been to the following places:

-Budapest, Hungary (3 months old)

-US- Boston and San Francisco (3 months old)

-Nice, France (5 months old)

-Chania, Greece (5 months old)

-Stuttgart, Germany (5 months old)

-US- San Fran and San Diego (6 months old)

-Amsterdam, Holland (8 months old)

-Krakow, Poland (11 months old)

-Manila, Philippines (12 months old)

-followed by a trip back to the States (SF and Boston at 12 months) before returning to Italy.

Can you believe it?! She has travelled to more places than most people I know at one year old!

Looking back at our time in Italy I’ve realized there are phases people often experience, at least many of those who are in similar situations as Ben and myself.

The first 6-7 months is the “Honeymoon” phase. Newcomers are thrilled to be living in Europe and all that it has to offer. You walk around town, delighting in the Italian being spoken around you. You feel excited to be picking up Italian words and conversations here and there. You eat prosciutto by the package(you’ll have to ask Ben how many times I caught him polishing off an entire package of it. When he’s quiet in the kitchen I know he’s up to no good!). You try as many varieties of pizza as possible. You relish at how easy it is to hop on a plane and be in Paris in two hours. Most of all, you want to soak up every ounce of culture and opportunity that this new life has to offer.

After this initial phase is “disillusionment.” People start to encounter all of the bumps along the road, both literally and figuratively speaking here, that accompany living in Naples. You know, your house floods and the workers say “domain, domani, “(tomorrow) because they are closed and no one is available to help you- true story for my dear husband. I was at a birthday celebration in Napa Valley while Ben was scooping out bucketfuls of water from our kitchen ;( , you start to get sick of people staring at you as you speak English, after several VERY close calls with getting into car wrecks, you just start to miss sushi and all of the other modern conveniences of the life that you have been accustomed to living until you moved to Italy seven months ago.  The one common misconception that friends and I have gotten SO sick of hearing are people who think we look out into the fields of Tuscany. Sorry , folks. There’s nothing but trash and prostitutes (and no, I’m not kidding, they operate at all hours of the day. Some sit under a little umbrella by the highway, some even use their breaktime or slow days to read- we see it often) here. In all fairness, Ben and I went from living in an absolutely stunning part of Naples, one does exist, Posillipo to the countryside of Gricignano so life is a little different here. Many who live on the base do not take the time to travel downtown and see the sights or leave the base at all. Thank God I’m not one of them! But truthfully speaking, it is very easy to start to feel homesick for family and frustration at the inefficiency in Italy.

I would say disillusionment lasts oh, about a year until you reach the “appreciation” phase. This is when you start to love Italy again. Instead of being annoyed at the fact that your plumber has spent more time on his cigarette break outside than actually fixing your sink, you find it amusing and smile.  Instead of feeing disgusted that a stranger is touching your baby affectionately with cigarette scented hands that have been God knows where, you start to feel proud that you live in a country that appreciates and loves children so much. You become proud of yourself for the conversational Italian that you have picked up over the years, knowing that you can get by without having to ask “parla inglese?”, not that that matters because they typically don’t anyway. You go out between the hours of one and five pm and instead of feeling annoyed that the shops are all closed you find yourself admiring that people take this time to spend with their families; that family and quality of life is more important than making money to them.

Each time that Ben and I travel home our hearts feel so heavy saying goodbye before leaving. We take full advantage of the modern conveniences of twenty four hour stores, Target, and all of the varieties of food offered in the US. We know that we will miss our families so much and dread the feelings of “disconnection” that we feel in Naples. Before we left this time we had contemplated returning for the holidays. Now that we have returned to Naples and gotten back into our routine we realize that it was a silly idea. We are fortunate enough to have a series of visitors from September to November. With loved ones coming to us, we know that we need to take full advantage of our time left in Europe. Now thinking of returning to the US I panic, thinking, what are we going to do with ourselves without travelling? How crazy is that? I guess you could say that I am a bit in frantic mode, trying to squeeze every ounce of travel and adventure in before we depart in March. I was caught of guard when a potential job that Ben may be taking talked to him about the possibility of moving in October. I panicked saying, “No way! We are not ready yet!.”

I know that when we move back to the US, whether it be Norfolk, Virginia or San Diego, California, we will be thrilled to be there. We will relish the fact that our families are so much closer and that we can make up for lost time with them. We can join them for holidays and focus on only three hours of a time difference instead of nine. We can spend more time going back and forth visiting family at a much cheaper cost and Camille can get to know her cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents better. So for now we will look forward to planning our final Europeans trips and entertaining our visitors, showing them all that we have loved experiencing here. We will spend more time travelling throughout this country and seeing more and more beautiful regions in Italy and appreciating Italian life.

We have an Italian babysitter and have instructed her to speak primarily to Camille in Italian. We want to be able to somewhat immerse Camille in this culture and though she won’t be able to fully appreciate it at least she will have a story to tell. When children go around the room to talk about where they were born most will undoubtedly list a city in America but our little Camille can proudly say, “Naples, Italy.” ;)

 Camille loves bread- a true Italiana!

 Spending a family day downtown, Castel Nuovo

 Camille and her beloved Italian babysitter, Anna. After two months of being away this summer Camille went right into her arms!