Ci vediamo, Napoli

On Tuesday, I'm moving back to America for good.  Since the O'Brien family landed in Venice in June of 2002, Italy has been my home.  We spent a good four years on the Army base in Vicenza.  My sister went to the same elementary school that my grandmother taught at when my dad was growing up, we lived only 45 minutes away from Venice by train and I met people that I still consider to be some of my best friends to this day.  Unfortunately all pictures of me during this time period have mysteriously disappeared because it was during my awkward stage.

I'm a frequent visitor to the Spanish Steps.

Although we lived in base housing, my parents still dragged me around everywhere... usually against my will.  We did Paris, Vienna, Budapest, Florence, Athens, Rome, London and more.  We went skiing in the Alps and ate Asiago cheese in Asiago.  We saw the live chess match in Marostica... twice! Usually when people asked me where I was from, I would say Tampa because that's where my family was prior to Vicenza but now if someone asked me where I was from, I would say Naples.

When we lived in Vicenza, we shared a duplex with the Coburns.  They had a daughter my age who was also in my sixth grade class, Dana.  She's still one of my best friends and I consider myself an honorary Coburn.  When we moved to Naples after my freshman year of high school... guess who we lived down the street from.  The Coburns! Yay! Already knowing someone in Naples made the move 100 times better even if I am painfully socially awkward at times.

Dana and I probably talking some shit in the thermal spa in Ischia

My home for the past five years... I jumped

Shelby, Twiggy and I went to a dog show, which was in the top 5 weekends of my life

My parents continued to drag my sister and I around against our wills, but we went some pretty cool places.  At the time, I kind of wanted to be a kid whose family never takes them anywhere and got to sleep in on long weekends but now I'm glad that I wasn't.  There were kids in my graduating class that left base two or three times in their three years in Naples.  Why are you going to live somewhere that has such a rich culture and is so vibrant and stay on Support Site the whole time?

Me: "What did you do over spring break?"
Lame person: "Nothing."
Me: "Oh, well I rode a camel in Egypt and I saw the Sphynx and the Pyramids of Giza.  Be jealous."

That little girl leading my camel was evil.

My usual partner in crime/BFF Mandy

Erika, Roberta and I!

My DoDDS (Department of Defense Dependent School) high school was a breeze and I left for college in Washington DC 100% sure that I was going to rule the world some day.  Long story short, about two and a half years later I ended up returning to Naples.  Now about two years after that (almost exactly) I'm on my way back to America.  As a dependent of a government employee, my visa and sojourner's permit expire when I turn 23.  I guess it's the government's way of pushing me out of the nest.  It's needed though and I'll be okay.

I'm going to miss this place so much.  My parents will still be living here but it can never officially be my home again.  95% of the people that made my time here so enjoyable are now living elsewhere but Naples will always be a special place for me.  As a military brat, I moved frequently.  The fact that we were in Vicenza for four years is uncommon and the only reason that we've been in Naples for so long is because my dad retired and became a civilian contractor.  It's kind of amazing because it's like living in a small town, but only 10% of the people that live there have been there for more than two or three years.  It's definitely a unique experience.  I've never felt an emotional connection to a place other than Naples.  Maybe that's because I've been here for so long, I'm not sure.

Vanessa, Kassi and I on Vanessa's last trip downtown!

My fave girl and I at her 1 year birthday party

Pozzuoli nights!

Living out here has been a little tough at times.  Some people grow up around their family and are best friends with their cousins.  I see my cousins maybe once every three or four years while most of them grew up seeing each other regularly.  With the passing of my grandma today, this really upsets me.

Tasha only knew Naples for a few months

I always find the somberos when I go to Druids.

Sara, Eva and I on my 22nd birthday!

I didn't have a plethora of extracurricular activities to choose from and sometimes living in Naples is just ridiculously inconvenient.  Your house will probably have mold in it.  I just happen to be allergic to mold.  You can't drink the water, the "safety" of the fresh produce is questionable and a lot of stuff is closed for the entire month of August because of a holiday.  Some parts are a little rough on the eyes and if you're sensitive to stray animals- stay away!  I've been without water and internet in my house for days at a time.  I've been petitioning our commissary (on base grocery store) to stock fake meat/keep it in stock for MONTHS.  Guess when it's finally on the shelves? Yes, that's right, the week before I leave.

Amsterdam for Model United Nations... eventful trip

My dress was too short to go into the Vatican so we had to improvise

Throwing coins into the trevi fountain.  We'll be back! 

I can reconcile with most of that stuff because of all of the happiness I've known here: overnight trips to Rome where you just sleep on the way back, running into the ocean after a night out, fireworks at ALL HOURS/365 days a year, living in the shadow of a volcano, watching the sun set over the Med from my rooftop.  I went on school trips to the Olympics, Germany, Paris and The International Court of Justice in The Hague.  I have been to the Vatican and Pompeii at least seven times each.  I've had friends come and visit me and I get to show them my world.

People in Pompeii were short. 

Brighid was a three time resident of Hotel O'Brien

Synna and I in Amalfi after I drove the most treacherous road ever

There are a few things that I really really really wanted to do but never did.  I started crying because I've never been to Auschwitz, which is something that I have always wanted to experience.  I kept thinking that I had time to do it.  I've never been to the homeland aka Ireland and that really depresses me.  I have the rest of my life ahead of me to see them, but it would have been very convenient if I just did it while I was here.  But I don't want to be disappointed about what I didn't do, I want to feel grateful for what I have done.  

Check out my unfortunate hair color

We have like no pictures together

My favorite 1/2 American 1/2 Italian couple @ their Promessa

I've made so many friends here that I'll never forget- American and Italian, even some Brits.  I'm not going to list them all because a) I probably couldn't and b) I would forget someone and they would be offended.  There are people that are most certainly my friends but either we don't have any pics together or I don't look good in any of the ones that we have :). Most of my former coworkers at the NEX are some of the most interesting and entertaining that I've ever encountered and I loved working with them, even if it was at the NEX.  I met Peter here, which is something I'm so thankful for.  I'm going to Pensacola with an open mind and I'm genuinely excited.  Talking to my mom earlier she told me she didn't want me to go and I said, "Mom, I should have moved out like five years ago... let's be honest" and she said, "No no, you just needed some extra time."  It's true, I did.  I needed that time to develop productive habits and become the person that I am today.  

A pic with our idol

Stoop kids

I remember this night went from 0-60 in like 30 mins

Naples taught me so many things: how to drive defensively AND offensively, how to be a coffee, pizza and wine snob all in one, a basic level of Italian, Neapolitan curse words and hand gestures, how to not get frustrated when something goes horribly horribly wrong, basic responsibility and probably a lot more that I haven't even realized yet.

When I leave on Tuesday I know I'm going to cry.  Not only because I cry on average about once a day but because I'm leaving my home.  I'm leaving knowing that I have new and exciting things waiting for me though.  Naples will always hold a special place in my heart but I know that there's more room for other special places.

Goodbye Naples, I'll miss you.

x- Katelyn

Weekend in Ischia

So I haven't blogged in a while.  This is because 1) I haven't done anything too interesting since I got back from Budapest, 2) I haven't had a lot of free time and 3) I wrote an entire blog and it didn't save and I was so frustrated by the whole thing that I just couldn't go on.  It took a lot of self control to not throw my laptop across the room.

Anyways, Peter and I spent a week at Tasha and Jason's watching their dogs while they took an anniversary trip to London and Paris.  I took advantage of the free house and kitchen and I made soooo much food.  I was really on a roll.  The only thing is that I didn't really take any good pictures of the food.  I do that every time.  One night I made the Seitan Mushroom stroganoff in the Isa Does It book and then I made tacos.  I taco-seasoned Light Life veggie crumbles and I made guacmole, salsa and the vegan sour cream from the Oh She Glows cookbook and oh my gosh it was so amazing.  I made too much so I ate tacos for breakfast for the next three days.  THEN I made a stir fry with veggies and tofu and udon noodles and it was so good.  I used a wok(!). I need a wok, I can't believe I don't have one.  The pictures don't make anything look appetizing, but I promise you everything was great!

The vegan sour cream was so great.  Just 1 cup of cashews, 1/2 cup of water, two tablespoons of lemon juice, one tablespoon of ACV, one teaspoon of salt and blend.  So good and light and refreshing.  The first time I made it I used orange juice because I had no lemons and it was still pretty good!  At one point I was just using it as dip for tortilla chips.

Now for the best part of the post! This weekend Peter took me to Ischia, and island by Capri on the coast of Naples.  It was supposed to be a surprise but I'm a really good detective and I hate not knowing things so I found out.  Soooooooo romantic.

Saturday morning we took the ferry from Naples where it was RAINING!  It continued to rain off and on until we got to our hotel around 11:30.  We stayed at the Park Hotel and Terme Romantica in Sant'Angelo which is the southernmost part of the island.  Link here. 

It's a hotel with a spa and thermal pools.  I didn't utilize any of the spa facilities because the cheapest thing was a massage for 40 euro.  But our room was really cute.  It was set off from the other rooms.  I called it our "little square".  I'm pretty sure it was the only room standing by itself.  We were pretty tired when we got there so we took what was supposed to be a two hour nap, but when we woke up five hours later, it wasn't raining anymore and it was beautiful.

Prosecco waiting for us in our room!

Our room even had its own little gate

We made reservations for dinner at La Casereccia in Forio.  Their Tripadvisor page is here.  We had to take a bus from our hotel and then walk almost a mile, but we got there eventually.  I was freaking out because our reservations were for eight and we were about fifteen minutes late, but there were maybe two families there.  However, thirty minutes after we got there it was a packed house.

We started with appetizers... like most meals do.  We got bruschetta (obviously) for the first of probably five times this weekend.  The tomatoes were huge and ripe and the portions were pretty large.  Then we got an Antipasti plate which is basically just mixed appetizers.  There were grilled eggplants and zucchini, both of which an employee was grilling all night.  Various pickled vegetables, a fried zucchini flower stuffed with cheese (that was AMAZING...sorry) and potato croquette and more.

I'm a bruschetta snob now

Antipasti before

Antipasti after

On TripAdvisor, this restaurant is advertised as vegetarian.  It's definitely not vegetarian but it has a plethora of vegetarian options.  Not too many vegan options, but enough to fill up on.  I got gnocchi and Peter got this really amazing pasta in a white sauce.  Every dish was obviously homemade and fresh.  The owner of the restaurant, who was this cute little old man, made his way around the restaurant asking everyone if their food was okay.  Overall I would recommend La Casereccia.  It was adorbs and the food was amazing.  It was worth the .8 mile up-hill walk.

Also, their decor was really cute.  It was rustic/typical Italian, but they had real tomatoes and garlic hanging on the walls and around the tables, I may or may not have made a vampire joke.

They also had this super trendy sign

 After dinner we walked into the town of Forio, which was also where we took the boat into and looked at some shops.  I spent the entire weekend looking for a sun hat.  I never got one because I didn't find one that really spoke to me.  I am very picky about hats.

Then we took the bus back up to our hotel and passed out.  We spoke to our concierge about renting a scooter (eeeeeeeeeeeeep) for the next two days.  My family has a scooter, but it scares the crap out of me-- the way that they weave in and out of traffic and come out of nowhere.  Peter knows how to drive one though.  I was still scared.

When we woke up the next day, we were going to go to the Mortella gardens, but it wasn't super high on my list of priorities and I'd rather just go to the beach.  I've been to Ischia several times before to go to the thermal spas.  I always go to Negombo.  It's a really nice place with thermal pools terraced up the side of the island and they have their own private beach.  I've heard really great things about Poseidon so I thought that this would be a good time to try it out.  They both have their pros and cons, the main con being price but I would say that visiting either Negombo or Poseidon is a must-do for anyone visiting Ischia.  Nothing really beats going back and forth between the extremely hot pool and the ice cold pool.  Apparently it's supposed to improve circulation.  

Oh and did I mention that we went to Poseidon on the scooter?  It was a little traumatic at first but I got used to it.  After we tried out all of the thermal pools (we had to wear swim caps) and finished up at the beach, we headed back to the hotel.  We decided to get dinner near Ischia porto so we could look at shops after.  My phone took us to the highest point of the island on the way.  What is technically a 3 mile journey ended up being 10 miles because of all of the twists in the road.  I didn't get any pictures because taking pictures on a scooter is not a good idea but I wish I did because the views were breathtaking.  Ischia is such a beautiful island.  The water is so blue and the skies were so clear.

We walked around for a bit and ended up eating at La Luna Rossa.  When we walked in, every employee said "Buona sera" to us and it was really sweet.  But after they took our orders everything went to hell.  The tables next to us, even the people that got there twenty minutes after we did got their food and we didn't even get bread! It was really frustrating.  Once I asked for bread I think the waiter realized that he dropped the ball and after that everything was great.  

My phone died so we had no GPS on the way back.  We were both sure that we knew the way but we didn't.  We eventually stopped and asked some Italians who gave us the best directions ever.  He just wrote down which signs to follow.  It was a completely different way from the way that we came but it was a lot easier and it was a huge relief getting back.  Side note: has anyone else noticed that all Italians have exactly the same handwriting?

Pretty sure this beach is Sant'Angelo

When we woke up the next day, we had to check out, so we had to do something that we could bring all of our stuff to.  I personally did not feel like I got enough sun so we decided to hit up the beach at Sant'Angelo.  We ended up using the beach that our hotel had a discounted rate at-- Michaels and for twelve euro we got two chairs, and umbrella and the use of a paddle boat.  I finally got my massage because I paid some Asian lady ten euro to massage me.  She poured so much oil on me that I'm pretty sure I'm still oily but it was a quality massage and I'm glad I didn't drop 50 euro at our hotel for one.  She even got my calves and my feet.  Ooooo boy.

Peter got viciously attacked by the paddle boat when we jumped in and I immediately got back into the boat because no matter how clear the water is.... something could be down there.  

this is my helmet

After a few hours in the sun, we had to head back to Naples (sad) so we rode the scooter down to the port in Forio.  Our hotel had arranged something with the scooter company where we were supposed to drop the scooter off at a bar called La Cambusa.  We had no other details.  We were like, "So we just walk into this bar and find someone to hand the keys for this scooter to?"  The answer was yes.  I literally just said, "Scooter?" and some guy said "Yes." and took the keys from me.  As far as I know, it was the right scooter man.

Getting on that boat back to Naples was kind of sad because I had so much fun in Ischia.  Just me and Peter and an island and absolutely no one and nothing to talk to or do or anything.  Living an hour away from an island paradise is something that I'm going to miss when I go back to the states.

Ciao ciao!
x - Katelyn

A Very Vegan Day in Sorrento!

On Thursday, Peter, my new friend and coworker, Tasha and I went to Sorrento for the day.  It was amazing.  I just planned on doing the usual down there, see the views, try the free limoncello in every single shop, pet some puppies, but Tasha found this wonderful store/restaurant conveniently located by the train station near the center of Sorrento! So we had to go.  I'm going to take you through our day.

We got a late start in the morning so we decided to drive.  My car has seen better days, so let's just say after the windy, twisted roads on the about 1.5 hour drive to Sorrento, I needed a big old glass of wine. 

When we started our walk, we ended up near this giant lemon grove in the middle of a city block.  It was a pretty long walk through the grove, and it ended at a limoncello tasting-station.  Unfortunately, around then, the weather started to get bad so we were running from raindrops for a bit.

Tasha took this in the lemon grove

Then we get to Mondo Bio (click here for more info), which is the sixth ranked restaurant in Sorrento, to find that it's also a store and that the restaurant doesn't open up for a few more hours so we decided to walk around and see the shops and the views.  When I go to Sorrento I like to do this thing where I get a free sample of limoncello at every shop that I go to.  You usually end up hitting about 5 shops.  Worth it. 

There were a bunch of old men zesting the lemons to make limoncello, it was pretty cool.  

Soooo muchhhh limoncello and meloncello.

We all made some purchases and went on our way.  We decided that we were too hungry to wait for Mondo Bio Cafe to open and that we would be totally fine with eating a second time in like an hour and found a cafe to sit at.  We asked for the Vegetarian menu, and ordered a LOT of bruschetta, some grilled vegetables, french fries and a bottle of wine.

Yummm bruschetta

 We still had a little bit of time so we decided to go out and see the view of the coast.  Even though it was a little rainy, we were not disappointed!

The church courtyard right before the view of the coast

A pic I took before the weather started to get bad

Finally it was time to go to Mondo Bio and purchase tons of vegan items!!! I was super duper excited.  So was Tasha.  I think we both spent like 45 euro, which is basically like 65 dollars.  We got there at around eight, and the store closes at eight and the restaurant closes at like 8:30 so we had to make it quick.  It had everything I wanted!!! TEMPEH, SEITAN, NUTRITIONAL YEAST, all sorts of vegan lunch meats, some vegan cheeses.  It also had a very large selection of organic produce for sale.  Safe to say it is one of my favorite places in the Naples area now.

About half of their refrigerator selection after Tasha and I cleaned them out

A few of the items I picked up! Check out the basil tofu and rice milk mozz.

Then after we finished up with our shopping, we sat down to have a nice meal, even though we had eaten about an hour previously, but whatevs.  Tasha and I both got gnocchetti alla sorrentina with vegan mozzarella and Peter got an organic egg omelet.  The gnochetti were pretty great!! The tomato sauce was obviously fresh and I can't wait to go back and try their seitan-stuffed ravioli!  They also had an extensive selection of vegan wines to choose from but I had to drive back in a few, so I abstained.  

 I already started to make tempeh bacon and I have a feeling that I'm going to be making a few more trips there in the future!! Also, on the way back, my data was used up on my phone so we had no GPS and all of the streets that we needed to take us home were closed because of a Holy Thursday procession, so we had a pretty rough time getting home, but we made it eventually! 

Here are some pics from Tasha's camera!

Sometimes we are just awkward

To any vegans/vegetarians living in the Naples area, I HIGHLY recommend checking out Mondo Bio Cafe! The address is Via Degli Aranci, 108-110, 80067, Sorrento, Naples.  There's parking up the street that isn't too expensive.  Maybe a 10 minute walk.

Overall, it was a great day.  I love showing people around the Naples area and I am SO glad that Tasha looked up this restaurant/store.  I will probably return as soon as I use up all of my tempeh and once the weather gets perfect it'll be an even better day trip!!

ciao ciao! xo - Katelyn