Kyle does a great job of telling me how wonderful I am (boy do I milk that!), we enjoy time, food and wine, and long walks in beautiful settings while we remember all the adventures and highlights of our time together to date, while planning more to come. Long may it last.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
9 Years!!!
[Maryanne]So it came to pass that Kyle and I share another anniversary together. We typically take a weekend get away to reflect and share time together away from day to day life and concerns - and this year Kyle planned an escape to do just that at a wonderful Boutique hotel in quiet Hawley, Pennsylvania.
Time for reflection - 9 years of marriage
Monday, March 12, 2012
Getting to Know NYC with Friends and Family
[Maryanne]Oh Boy, it’s been a while since we posted and I
finally find time to catch up a little.
Kyle and I have both been busy, what with work, searching
for our next boat and general day-to-day chores. Indeed it was some time before Kyle and I
even had matching days off to spend any time together; quite a tough start to
the year. Luckily we’ve had all that
broken up with visits from friends and Family, and even a couple of weekends
with just the two of us sightseeing and exploring more and more of NY.
Kyle starts a Gurning Contest with another Dummy! While exploring around Times Square
My sister (Sarah) is a schoolteacher and head of science at
a secondary school in the UK. Teachers
get 2 weeks off around the Easter break as schools close, and Sarah spent some
of that time to bring our Father over to NY to visit and explore. They came for a week, and I took a day off
work so we spent a good 3 days together before I went back to work and left
them to explore alone. And we crammed SO
MUCH into those 3 days. We’d all
purchased NY City Passes and were determined to milk them!
·
A sunset
boat cruise to view the skyline and the statue of Liberty.
·
The ferry to view the Statue of Liberty up-close,
and also soak up the facts and exhibits at the amazing museum on Ellis Island
·
Madame
Tussaud’s: that I was not looking forward to – but it was much more fun that I
recall from visiting decades ago.
Now-a-days all the exhibits are touchable and you can pose with them –
no longer behind barriers or ropes.
·
Grand
Central station with audio tour (fantastic);
·
Radio
City music hall stage door tour (fantastic, complete with real Rockette to chat
to and pose with!);
·
Rockerfeller
center tour. Kyle and I both love
hanging out at the Rockerfeller center.
The ice rink was still there until the 22nd April, but the
flowers and ‘channel’ area were all beautifully set for Easter (bunnies, eggs,
etc.). and we were in the area again for the Easter Day parade where NY finest
and all, parade around for the day in fancy (expensive, or crazy) hats and
costumes.
·
Bodies
Exhibit (loved it – again, great for Kyle to see it, a bit ghoulish for
some).
·
A Right to the top of both the Empire State Building and the Rockerfeller Tower (top of the Rock), and so much more...
Out and About in NY City
Aside from our time
in NY City itself, we took our guests to a famous local restaurant (called Valenca) just a few
blocks from our house. It is famous for its “steak on a stone” (you cook it
yourself at the table), and people come from NY just for this restaurant and
dish, we love the Sangria they have there.
With the remaining
week my father and sister visited yet more of NY and have some amazing
memories.
Later we had our good
friends Kate and Mark from VA visit, and we revisited a few of our favorite
places, and also found time to go to the theatre to see Channeling Kevin Spacy
– a really well done play that has Kyle still chuckling now. Unfortunately for the actors it wasn’t so
busy, maybe only 20 people in the audience, and that really makes no sense as
it was great entertainment. We also
found a nice Italian restaurant in the home of the old and original Improv
(comedy club) where so many famous comedians once performed. We took a tour of my new workplace, and relaxed about in the parks and rested up with a trip to the very grand Campbell Apartment (now a bar) in Grand Central Station to sample a drink or two
A leisurely day in NY City with friends. Thanks to Kate for the pictures at the NY Times.
Later Still Kyle and
I found we had an unscheduled weekend where we’d both be home (not working) and
we made the most of it with Kyle meeting me after work on a Friday evening for
a nice meal, a walk in Central Park (full of flowers, and so much beauty),
before spending the evening at The Comic Strip Live on upper East side; a very
late night for us, but quite wonderful.
On the Sunday we took a trip to Brooklyn with no real plan in mind, and
fell in love with the neighborhood, with its brownstone streets, beautiful
parks and of course, the famous Bridge.
More local to home
we’ve discovered an amazing family run bakery that specializes in delicious and
calorie-laden treats! Mostly Portuguese
pastries, all made fresh on the premises, and with hours from 3am – 9pm, pretty
much always open (at least any time of day I’d care about!). I’d avoided it for a while but couldn’t help
to notice the long lines (queues) that seem to be constantly out the door –
that stuff is GOOD and the locals know it!
They sell coffees and even have outdoor seating so you don’t have to
wait to get home to eat up and enjoy.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
All change again. The last few months...
[Kyle] Maryanne and I are finally settled into some semblance of a “normal” life. Since arriving from Italy, we have been bouncing around, dividing our time between the guest rooms of friends and family and an apartment in Elizabeth, NJ shared with our friends Angie and Mauricio.
When we first lost Footprint and came back to the U.S. to start putting our lives back together, our loss gave us the opportunity to make a fresh start almost anywhere of our choosing. Several of our wonderful friends and family made a case for us coming to their neck of the woods to live while we figured out what we would do next. We heard many good arguments, but eventually decided the best solution was to live in Elizabeth. Our friend Angie, who lived at the same marina with us in Portsmouth, VA, and her new husband Mauricio were late into the process of buying a three-unit house as rental property in Elizabeth. One unit was already occupied. They offered us a choice between the other two. Having little in the way of needs and even less in the way of possessions, we chose the smaller, cheaper unit. They would occupy the larger, whose current occupants were planning on leaving at the completion of the sale.
I have to admit that initially, this offer made me groan a bit. Elizabeth was not high on my list of places to live or visit, but it is the location of the Newark Airport, where I am based and it is convenient to Manhattan, which is a good source of unusually high paying jobs for Maryanne.
Maryanne’s arrival in the U.S. followed mine by a couple of weeks. We stayed in hotels near the airport for a few days while we waited for the closing date on the house. Once the date was set, Angie and Mauricio, knowing we needed a place to stay as soon as possible, got permission from the current owner to move into the vacant unit until then in exchange for paying her closing costs. This unit was the one that was to be ours once the transfer was complete. Angie and Mauricio would be staying with us for a couple of days until the sale was finished and the bigger unit became available for them.
Angie and Mauricio, having more stuff, moved into the big room of the apartment. They bought us a bed and set it up in the other room for us. Maryanne and I spent a long day searching in vain for hand-me-down furniture with Mauricio’s truck before we finally gave up and bought a few basics at IKEA. By the end of the day, we at least had a kitchen table with four chairs, a couple of more comfy chairs for lounging, a coffee table and a lamp.
The apartment itself was in a real state. The previous occupant (the second floor guy) hadn’t cleaned it before he left, or likely for several months prior. The electricity and water were on, but the gas was not. We had no heat, cooking gas or hot water. Mauricio disappeared into the basement with a tool bag and we soon had heat and hot water. The gas company told us it would be three weeks for them to come out and begin service. We bought an electric kettle, a toaster oven, and ate out a lot.
The entire building is also in need of major structural and electrical repairs, which Angie and Mauricio plan to begin the minute the building is theirs. This means that absolutely nothing in the place is plumb or square, giving it a certain funhouse feel. The floors at the center of the building are about six inches lower than at the edges. The Toaster oven makes all of the lights go dim.
Our room had no door or blinds. Mauricio tried to install a door he found in the basement, but it didn’t fit, so as an alternative, he installed a plastic accordion partition across the gap. It wasn’t quite as high as the doorway, so we ended up with about four inches between the bottom of the divider and the floor. We now had about as much privacy as an American bathroom stall. No worries, we were resilient and it was only for a couple of days. Then we would move into the big room and the little room would be for our salvaged stuff, still on a ship somewhere between Italy and us.
Kyle enjoys a happy Christmas Traveller at work, while our bedroom door is clearly not up to the task of privacy!
The closing did not go as planned. Three and a half hours before the appointment, the realtor called and said there was a “problem” that had to be dealt with before closing. There would be no closing that day. Once that was cleared up, something else would crop up to slow down the process, putting the closing off for another day and then another day. It seems that buying a house in New Jersey comes with an endless list of “problems”. The current owner got upset that we were living in her building more than the agreed “couple of days” before the closing and started demanding rent in return for not going to the cops and charging us with trespassing.
It has now been almost three months of this and there has still been no sale. When we first moved in, Angie and Mauricio, in anticipation of their impending move to the big apartment downstairs, quickly filled the big room with too much stuff for them to be able to switch rooms with us so that we could have most of “our” apartment. The extra days turned into weeks, and then months. We had just lost our boat, our beloved way of life, our plans for at least the next year and nearly everything we owned and we still didn’t have a private place to call our own.
At the same time, Maryanne’s mother was becoming progressively ill from a chronic lung disease, and was eventually rushed to hospital with breathing difficulties due to a chest infection that added to her struggle. Maryanne visited her mother and family in the UK for a few days, and returned worried. Within the week her mother was out of hospital and being transported home in an ambulance, but inexplicably passed away on that ride home. The whole family was stunned and devastated, and Maryanne spent most of December, including Christmas, back in the UK, relieved that she hadn’t yet started a job, and happy to spend that time with her family.
As the delivery date for our shipment of recovered possessions from Italy approached, we realized there wasn’t enough space left in the apartment to accommodate our salvaged belongings. Angie offered us space in the basement of a friend’s building a few blocks away. I didn’t like the idea. That stuff had made the cut to get aboard the limited space in Footprint to begin with. When she was wrecked, we carried it out, dripping, on our backs on the long walk between the wreck site and our temporary apartment in Agropoli. We then washed and dried it and after I left, Maryanne packed it up for the long ship voyage to America. In the meantime, we have been making do on the carry on bag of clothes each we brought over with us initially. I was really looking forward to a change in outfits. It was our stuff and I wasn’t about to have a separate address from it.
As time went on it became increasingly apparent that nothing was going to be happening soon with the building sale. I started looking for other apartments in the area. I eventually found a nice place a few blocks away. It was bigger, cheaper, had new floors and paint and, best of all, no building sale drama. Angie and Mauricio would be able to spread out properly. The big unit will bring more rent for them once they finally do get the building.
We spent last weekend moving into our new apartment. A couple of days after we had finished bringing our stuff over from Angie and Mauricio’s, our shipment from Italy arrived. We finally had our own place with all of our own possessions in it. It’s the first time that’s happened since we were anchored off the beach in Agropoli three and a half months ago.
It feels strange being here. Although I have stayed in lots of hotels and guest rooms between being at home on the boat, I haven’t been the primary resident of anywhere ashore for over a decade. It’s hard to get used to the idea that this place is ours. I would never think of arbitrarily rearranging the furniture at Mom’s or at Kate and Mark’s to see how it looks a different way, but I can totally do that here. Elizabeth’s still not my favorite place, but I must say, it’s really nice being so close to work. Last night I was home less than an hour after I set the brake on my last flight. That process has taken me up to a day and a half in the past, longer when the weather is bad.
Settling into our new home in Elizabeth, NJ
Maryanne got a job as a contractor for the New York Times at their main office near Times Square. I’m still not really sure what she does there. She can’t explain it to me in less than twenty minutes. It seems to be heavily jargon based. The important thing is that they think they need her and they’re paying her for it. She loves being in the middle of the Big Apple and feels like a tourist as she wanders around during her lunch breaks.
I’ve been occupying most of my free time searching for the next Footprint. We went with Kate and Mark to see a boat near them. It was in okay condition, but I really didn’t like the layout. I made another trip on a different weekend to see a different boat in the same area. It had a beautiful layout, but had clearly been neglected for several years by the most recent owners. We decided the cost of bringing it back into condition would put it out of our budget. I’ve got a couple of other candidates on my short list, but they are a long way away and are going to require a whole weekend to see.
The New York area got its first real snow last night. The neighborhood outside is busy shovelling walks and digging out cars. Maryanne and I are enjoying our first quiet weekend in our own place watching movies while eating delicious bowls of hot soup. We are still dreaming of tropical evenings aboard. I’m sure we’ll get back there as soon as we can. For now, it’s good to have a cosy weekend together, and a place to call home.
When we first lost Footprint and came back to the U.S. to start putting our lives back together, our loss gave us the opportunity to make a fresh start almost anywhere of our choosing. Several of our wonderful friends and family made a case for us coming to their neck of the woods to live while we figured out what we would do next. We heard many good arguments, but eventually decided the best solution was to live in Elizabeth. Our friend Angie, who lived at the same marina with us in Portsmouth, VA, and her new husband Mauricio were late into the process of buying a three-unit house as rental property in Elizabeth. One unit was already occupied. They offered us a choice between the other two. Having little in the way of needs and even less in the way of possessions, we chose the smaller, cheaper unit. They would occupy the larger, whose current occupants were planning on leaving at the completion of the sale.
I have to admit that initially, this offer made me groan a bit. Elizabeth was not high on my list of places to live or visit, but it is the location of the Newark Airport, where I am based and it is convenient to Manhattan, which is a good source of unusually high paying jobs for Maryanne.
Maryanne’s arrival in the U.S. followed mine by a couple of weeks. We stayed in hotels near the airport for a few days while we waited for the closing date on the house. Once the date was set, Angie and Mauricio, knowing we needed a place to stay as soon as possible, got permission from the current owner to move into the vacant unit until then in exchange for paying her closing costs. This unit was the one that was to be ours once the transfer was complete. Angie and Mauricio would be staying with us for a couple of days until the sale was finished and the bigger unit became available for them.
Angie and Mauricio, having more stuff, moved into the big room of the apartment. They bought us a bed and set it up in the other room for us. Maryanne and I spent a long day searching in vain for hand-me-down furniture with Mauricio’s truck before we finally gave up and bought a few basics at IKEA. By the end of the day, we at least had a kitchen table with four chairs, a couple of more comfy chairs for lounging, a coffee table and a lamp.
The apartment itself was in a real state. The previous occupant (the second floor guy) hadn’t cleaned it before he left, or likely for several months prior. The electricity and water were on, but the gas was not. We had no heat, cooking gas or hot water. Mauricio disappeared into the basement with a tool bag and we soon had heat and hot water. The gas company told us it would be three weeks for them to come out and begin service. We bought an electric kettle, a toaster oven, and ate out a lot.
The entire building is also in need of major structural and electrical repairs, which Angie and Mauricio plan to begin the minute the building is theirs. This means that absolutely nothing in the place is plumb or square, giving it a certain funhouse feel. The floors at the center of the building are about six inches lower than at the edges. The Toaster oven makes all of the lights go dim.
Our room had no door or blinds. Mauricio tried to install a door he found in the basement, but it didn’t fit, so as an alternative, he installed a plastic accordion partition across the gap. It wasn’t quite as high as the doorway, so we ended up with about four inches between the bottom of the divider and the floor. We now had about as much privacy as an American bathroom stall. No worries, we were resilient and it was only for a couple of days. Then we would move into the big room and the little room would be for our salvaged stuff, still on a ship somewhere between Italy and us.
Kyle enjoys a happy Christmas Traveller at work, while our bedroom door is clearly not up to the task of privacy!
The closing did not go as planned. Three and a half hours before the appointment, the realtor called and said there was a “problem” that had to be dealt with before closing. There would be no closing that day. Once that was cleared up, something else would crop up to slow down the process, putting the closing off for another day and then another day. It seems that buying a house in New Jersey comes with an endless list of “problems”. The current owner got upset that we were living in her building more than the agreed “couple of days” before the closing and started demanding rent in return for not going to the cops and charging us with trespassing.
It has now been almost three months of this and there has still been no sale. When we first moved in, Angie and Mauricio, in anticipation of their impending move to the big apartment downstairs, quickly filled the big room with too much stuff for them to be able to switch rooms with us so that we could have most of “our” apartment. The extra days turned into weeks, and then months. We had just lost our boat, our beloved way of life, our plans for at least the next year and nearly everything we owned and we still didn’t have a private place to call our own.
At the same time, Maryanne’s mother was becoming progressively ill from a chronic lung disease, and was eventually rushed to hospital with breathing difficulties due to a chest infection that added to her struggle. Maryanne visited her mother and family in the UK for a few days, and returned worried. Within the week her mother was out of hospital and being transported home in an ambulance, but inexplicably passed away on that ride home. The whole family was stunned and devastated, and Maryanne spent most of December, including Christmas, back in the UK, relieved that she hadn’t yet started a job, and happy to spend that time with her family.
As the delivery date for our shipment of recovered possessions from Italy approached, we realized there wasn’t enough space left in the apartment to accommodate our salvaged belongings. Angie offered us space in the basement of a friend’s building a few blocks away. I didn’t like the idea. That stuff had made the cut to get aboard the limited space in Footprint to begin with. When she was wrecked, we carried it out, dripping, on our backs on the long walk between the wreck site and our temporary apartment in Agropoli. We then washed and dried it and after I left, Maryanne packed it up for the long ship voyage to America. In the meantime, we have been making do on the carry on bag of clothes each we brought over with us initially. I was really looking forward to a change in outfits. It was our stuff and I wasn’t about to have a separate address from it.
As time went on it became increasingly apparent that nothing was going to be happening soon with the building sale. I started looking for other apartments in the area. I eventually found a nice place a few blocks away. It was bigger, cheaper, had new floors and paint and, best of all, no building sale drama. Angie and Mauricio would be able to spread out properly. The big unit will bring more rent for them once they finally do get the building.
We spent last weekend moving into our new apartment. A couple of days after we had finished bringing our stuff over from Angie and Mauricio’s, our shipment from Italy arrived. We finally had our own place with all of our own possessions in it. It’s the first time that’s happened since we were anchored off the beach in Agropoli three and a half months ago.
It feels strange being here. Although I have stayed in lots of hotels and guest rooms between being at home on the boat, I haven’t been the primary resident of anywhere ashore for over a decade. It’s hard to get used to the idea that this place is ours. I would never think of arbitrarily rearranging the furniture at Mom’s or at Kate and Mark’s to see how it looks a different way, but I can totally do that here. Elizabeth’s still not my favorite place, but I must say, it’s really nice being so close to work. Last night I was home less than an hour after I set the brake on my last flight. That process has taken me up to a day and a half in the past, longer when the weather is bad.
Settling into our new home in Elizabeth, NJ
Maryanne got a job as a contractor for the New York Times at their main office near Times Square. I’m still not really sure what she does there. She can’t explain it to me in less than twenty minutes. It seems to be heavily jargon based. The important thing is that they think they need her and they’re paying her for it. She loves being in the middle of the Big Apple and feels like a tourist as she wanders around during her lunch breaks.
I’ve been occupying most of my free time searching for the next Footprint. We went with Kate and Mark to see a boat near them. It was in okay condition, but I really didn’t like the layout. I made another trip on a different weekend to see a different boat in the same area. It had a beautiful layout, but had clearly been neglected for several years by the most recent owners. We decided the cost of bringing it back into condition would put it out of our budget. I’ve got a couple of other candidates on my short list, but they are a long way away and are going to require a whole weekend to see.
The New York area got its first real snow last night. The neighborhood outside is busy shovelling walks and digging out cars. Maryanne and I are enjoying our first quiet weekend in our own place watching movies while eating delicious bowls of hot soup. We are still dreaming of tropical evenings aboard. I’m sure we’ll get back there as soon as we can. For now, it’s good to have a cosy weekend together, and a place to call home.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Moving on..
[Maryanne]Hi Folks, I've had a number of requests for more blog entries! While Kyle and I have been busy since we lost Footprint, very little we've done has been Footprint related. I've decided to start a new blog Sailors Ashore where we will continue to update friends and family until we can sail again!
Update, we soon gave up on that other blog, and now all those blog posts are part of this blog - hopefully that doesn't confuse anyone too much!
I also have yet another blog Cooking on my travels that I might work on now I have time. The name says it all really...
What's Going on?
[Maryanne]Anyone that has followed our blog for the last few years will know that we have been travelling around the Atlantic and Mediterranean for some time. At least that was until our boat Footprint was wrecked on the shores of Italy after dragging anchor in a storm.
We WILL eventually get another boat, we had great insurance that paid out fully (thankfully) and because of that we will heartily recommend both IMIS (the insurance agency) and Jackline (the insurance policy).
We'd been planning to return to the States even before the accident, this just got us 'home' a little quicker than we expected.
Rather than rush into our next boat, and a cruising life again, we've agreed to return to a So Called 'Normal' life and settle back down in the USA. For now we've decided on New Jersey to give Kyle an easy commute. This will be great for him as the last few years has seen some hairy commutes and too many times when he has been unable to come home (to the boat) at all.
I'm looking for work in NJ or Manhatten, and hoping to return to the world of IT.
All this will give us some breathing space to put extra funds in the bank, and take a good long look at what boat we will need/want next, and time to look, purchase, upgrade, and play with our next boat before we set off on our next major adventures in life. We are pretty sure we won't get a Gemini next, and reasonably happy it might be a Catamaran (but maybe not). We have a lot of research to do.
For now we return to a more 'normal' life, with a box in the dirt for a home.
Returning to the USA has given us the chance to visit friends and family, some of which we'd not seen for a couple of years. We've frisby-golfed, ice skated, watched Christmas Parades, gone shopping (for well needed new clothes and prescription glasses), had wonderful meals and time with friends, and so much more already, but we've still to catch up with everyone that we long to see again.
Our first month back in the USA hasn't all been fun. Although it wasn't my fault, I managed to write off a friends car they had kindly loaned me (Sorry Liz). Kyle managed to reverse into a wall (lightly tapping it) and (unbeknown to us at the time) cause quite a bit of damage to yet another friends car (Sorry Angie). I've found out I'm allergic to Christmas trees after I helped friends erect theirs (and had to take a quick trip to the Emergency centre for medication). Oh, and we still don't technically have a home in NJ, although we do have a roof over our heads, it's still not really ours right now (think of us as squatters, but not quite so anarchic). Some good news is that our 14 boxes we shipped from Italy are currently making their way to New York, and are expected to dock on the 13th December. With any luck they'll be processed and out of customs, delivered to our apartment in time for Christmas.
For now, we're back in the real world :-(
If any of our sailing friends wish to have us discuss any topic regarding sailing and living aboard - feel free to request it and we may just get around to penning (blogging?) our knowledge for you to use, laugh at, disagree with, or ignore at will.
Thanks everyone for following along with our travels, we've always been so surprised at the number of people that make time to watch over us, and it feels good to know you are out there.
And thanks too to all our friends and family that continue to provide us with food and shelter along with great company (and who continue to lend us vehicles from time to time). We are VERY LUCKY to have you all and we know it.
We WILL eventually get another boat, we had great insurance that paid out fully (thankfully) and because of that we will heartily recommend both IMIS (the insurance agency) and Jackline (the insurance policy).
We'd been planning to return to the States even before the accident, this just got us 'home' a little quicker than we expected.
Rather than rush into our next boat, and a cruising life again, we've agreed to return to a So Called 'Normal' life and settle back down in the USA. For now we've decided on New Jersey to give Kyle an easy commute. This will be great for him as the last few years has seen some hairy commutes and too many times when he has been unable to come home (to the boat) at all.
I'm looking for work in NJ or Manhatten, and hoping to return to the world of IT.
All this will give us some breathing space to put extra funds in the bank, and take a good long look at what boat we will need/want next, and time to look, purchase, upgrade, and play with our next boat before we set off on our next major adventures in life. We are pretty sure we won't get a Gemini next, and reasonably happy it might be a Catamaran (but maybe not). We have a lot of research to do.
For now we return to a more 'normal' life, with a box in the dirt for a home.
Returning to the USA has given us the chance to visit friends and family, some of which we'd not seen for a couple of years. We've frisby-golfed, ice skated, watched Christmas Parades, gone shopping (for well needed new clothes and prescription glasses), had wonderful meals and time with friends, and so much more already, but we've still to catch up with everyone that we long to see again.
Our first month back in the USA hasn't all been fun. Although it wasn't my fault, I managed to write off a friends car they had kindly loaned me (Sorry Liz). Kyle managed to reverse into a wall (lightly tapping it) and (unbeknown to us at the time) cause quite a bit of damage to yet another friends car (Sorry Angie). I've found out I'm allergic to Christmas trees after I helped friends erect theirs (and had to take a quick trip to the Emergency centre for medication). Oh, and we still don't technically have a home in NJ, although we do have a roof over our heads, it's still not really ours right now (think of us as squatters, but not quite so anarchic). Some good news is that our 14 boxes we shipped from Italy are currently making their way to New York, and are expected to dock on the 13th December. With any luck they'll be processed and out of customs, delivered to our apartment in time for Christmas.
For now, we're back in the real world :-(
If any of our sailing friends wish to have us discuss any topic regarding sailing and living aboard - feel free to request it and we may just get around to penning (blogging?) our knowledge for you to use, laugh at, disagree with, or ignore at will.
Thanks everyone for following along with our travels, we've always been so surprised at the number of people that make time to watch over us, and it feels good to know you are out there.
And thanks too to all our friends and family that continue to provide us with food and shelter along with great company (and who continue to lend us vehicles from time to time). We are VERY LUCKY to have you all and we know it.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
New Friends and New Horizons
[Maryanne]So, Footprint is lost and Kyle and I set off on another chapter in our lives. It’s been a shock, and obviously a sudden, and unexpected change, but it’s also given us some opportunities and found us some new and wonderful friends.
Farewell to Footprint, hello to new friends
First of all, Enzo and Pasquale have been fantastic. Enzo has been an enormous help with so many things, but most practically translations (right up to the last hours of my stay); Pasquale brightens up any day with his smile, and his passion for life and food. My last night was spent in a local restaurant, with our two new friends and heros, watching a football (soccer) match with the local team Napoli winning 2-0. A happy evening, but a sad farewell.
I cleared out the apartment today, all food given away, boxes collected by the shipping company – done. I wonder when I might again see our possessions; the understanding so far is vague, but hopefully before Christmas?
Enzo and Pasquale volunteered their help and pretty much adopted us into their circle of family and friends. There are other names that merit mention in the town, most particularly the wonderful Nina, the elderly lady that acts as Mom to all in the apartment building. It was Nina that found us an empty apartment to stay in (when Enzo’s leads ran out) and gave us a wonderfully spacious base while we sorted out the boat and shipping of our items. She would readily chat to me at 100mph in Italian. I’ve no idea what she was saying but she exuded love and compassion, a wonderful lady. When I was trying to tell her my age, I may have mistakenly given her the impression I had 45 children, I could see the shock and confusion on her face but found no way to correct the situation.
At one point, struggling to find shipping company information I reached out to a (relatively) local ExPat (via Couchsurfing) and befriended the wonderful Liz, here in Italy with her husband at the US Navy base north of Naples. She threw herself into ensuring all my needs were met, pointed me to useful sources and even drove 1.5 hours each way to deliver me some boxes and help with shipping some more essential items I had no hope of managing by hand.
Liz assists with one last box, and just ONE of the courses of my last meal with 'the Agropoli guys'
So, my boxes are on their journey, and I too have started the journey ‘home’. Of course we have no real sense of home right now, but we’ll soon have one. I’ve started applying for jobs and amazingly had my first phone interview (which I’m told I passed) while still in Italy. This bodes well for finding work sooner rather than later.
So it’s all good news. I can’t stop the feeling of relief at how smoothly everything has gone, how wonderful everyone has been to us, and how lucky we are that we only lost a boat. Despite the relief, I feel quite disjointed right now, homeless, a little isolated, and un-rooted. I’m looking forward to seeing friends and family the first chance we get, and of course looking forward to seeing Kyle again just as soon as flights allow (hopefully by Saturday evening).
Thank you to everyone who has helped, or reached out with kind words. The world is indeed a wonderful place with many wonderful people; I’ve no doubt about it. And we are two very lucky people.
Here are a few photos of Footprint in various wonderful places she has allowed us to visit.. Farewell.
Farewell to Footprint, hello to new friends
First of all, Enzo and Pasquale have been fantastic. Enzo has been an enormous help with so many things, but most practically translations (right up to the last hours of my stay); Pasquale brightens up any day with his smile, and his passion for life and food. My last night was spent in a local restaurant, with our two new friends and heros, watching a football (soccer) match with the local team Napoli winning 2-0. A happy evening, but a sad farewell.
I cleared out the apartment today, all food given away, boxes collected by the shipping company – done. I wonder when I might again see our possessions; the understanding so far is vague, but hopefully before Christmas?
Enzo and Pasquale volunteered their help and pretty much adopted us into their circle of family and friends. There are other names that merit mention in the town, most particularly the wonderful Nina, the elderly lady that acts as Mom to all in the apartment building. It was Nina that found us an empty apartment to stay in (when Enzo’s leads ran out) and gave us a wonderfully spacious base while we sorted out the boat and shipping of our items. She would readily chat to me at 100mph in Italian. I’ve no idea what she was saying but she exuded love and compassion, a wonderful lady. When I was trying to tell her my age, I may have mistakenly given her the impression I had 45 children, I could see the shock and confusion on her face but found no way to correct the situation.
At one point, struggling to find shipping company information I reached out to a (relatively) local ExPat (via Couchsurfing) and befriended the wonderful Liz, here in Italy with her husband at the US Navy base north of Naples. She threw herself into ensuring all my needs were met, pointed me to useful sources and even drove 1.5 hours each way to deliver me some boxes and help with shipping some more essential items I had no hope of managing by hand.
Liz assists with one last box, and just ONE of the courses of my last meal with 'the Agropoli guys'
So, my boxes are on their journey, and I too have started the journey ‘home’. Of course we have no real sense of home right now, but we’ll soon have one. I’ve started applying for jobs and amazingly had my first phone interview (which I’m told I passed) while still in Italy. This bodes well for finding work sooner rather than later.
So it’s all good news. I can’t stop the feeling of relief at how smoothly everything has gone, how wonderful everyone has been to us, and how lucky we are that we only lost a boat. Despite the relief, I feel quite disjointed right now, homeless, a little isolated, and un-rooted. I’m looking forward to seeing friends and family the first chance we get, and of course looking forward to seeing Kyle again just as soon as flights allow (hopefully by Saturday evening).
Thank you to everyone who has helped, or reached out with kind words. The world is indeed a wonderful place with many wonderful people; I’ve no doubt about it. And we are two very lucky people.
Here are a few photos of Footprint in various wonderful places she has allowed us to visit.. Farewell.
Day trip to Napoli
[Maryanne]I’m all packed and nothing to do but wait for the shipping company. With the loss of Footprint, we also lost the chance to visit many of the places we had planned over the last few weeks (and beyond); most immediately this was to have been Salerno, Pompeii, and Naples. There was no way I could now do them all, but I was determined to try and do something. The decision was made easily when I realized I had to get a document notarized at the American Consulate in Naples. I took the early train determined to cram in as much sightseeing as I could. Understanding that many tourist sights are closed on Mondays, I deliberately scheduled my consulate appointment for Tuesday; ha, am I clever or what?
The highlight of Naples according to the guidebooks and the travel guru Rick Steve, is the museum, in particular the top floor which houses all the great mosaics and artifacts discovered in Pompeii, and promptly carted off. This was my #1 priority and I’d see what else I could squeeze in once I got there.
Unfortunately, on reading my guidebook on the train journey there, I discovered the Museum was closed just one day a week, the day I was travelling (so the answer to the question in first paragraph is clearly “what”).
I also discovered that I needed information I didn’t have to complete my document before I could notarize it, AND that it didn’t need completing after all until my shipped items reached the USA. Doh! I needed to research those other Naples sights rapidly, thankfully I had an hour and a half on the train and I made a rough loop of an itinerary, despite the distractions of the stunning mountain and coastal scenery that I was being whisked through.
Napoli Cathedral
It turns out those guidebooks do Naples a disservice, there is plenty to do, and much of it impressively good (or maybe the museum would have truly outshone all of what I did see in the day). It is however all set amid kamikaze traffic, and often crowded by ugly modern needs thoughtlessly installed to ruin the views.
Shops in Napoli's historic district
Just wondering the streets of Naples bombards the senses, especially in the old part of the city where, in narrow cobbled streets, cars amazingly vie for space with pedestrian locals going about their shopping or chatting and gesticulating with friends. Tiny fronted, crammed and exquisitely presented food shops, all specializing in something, were irresistibly picturesque to me.
One area of the historic center in particular is clearly the place to purchase your beautiful hand made nativity scenes (Cribs). Of course they don’t just make nativity scenes any longer, but many 3D scenes of numerous themes: artisans at work, housewives gossiping or doing their laundry, farm animals, and more (anything you can think of no doubt, although generally they seem to be styled in the 1700’s and 1800’s). These are no tacky memento but amazing works of art, beautifully built and stunning to me to view. Way beyond dolls houses! They are also large, centerpieces for a table perhaps, but way to large for a mantelpiece. Naples is the first area to have created the scale down, but realistic, models of the nativity scene (Until then all figures were built life size. I’m not 100% sure, but something to do with the technology that allowed for articulated models at such a scale, providing realistic looking figures; Plus the genius of a Napoli artist of course). As an aside, the first of such scenes I’ve ever seen was one built by our friend Pasquale. A beautiful nativity scene rotates 180 degrees to reveal a 17th century rural village scene – stunning and what talent.
Cribs for sale in this area of Napoli's historic district, and one of many displays of walnut shell scenes
A quirky item I saw a lot of in Naples was miniature scenes set within walnut shells. These included individual saints, or whole villages it seemed, whatever the whim of the artist. I’ve no idea how they worked with so many tiny and intricate pieces.
Yet another oddity was the battered small orange car I found chained to a post, for protection against theft I assume? It was small, but I doubt anyone would really just carry it off, hilarious.
I went to a number of churches (and the cathedral/Duomo), including one (Santa Maria delle Anime del Purgatorio ad Arco) dedicated to those souls in purgatory where the followers pray to old skulls in creepy, darkened, cobweb filled crypts (the pope officially disapproves, but that doesn’t stop anyone; Neapolitans are feisty). The skull of Lucia is a particular favorite of new brides it seems.
The cult of dead at Santa Maria
I went to monasteries and walked beautiful cloisters. I partook in the underground Naples tour, where ancient tuft mining has left large caverns which over the years (from the Greeks, on) have been used as water cisterns for the city, rubbish dumps, bomb shelters, wine stores, and plant growth experiments (among so many other uses).
The subterranean tour includes a walk over about a mile of the cisterns (a small fraction of the network), 40m or more underground, linked by narrow (very, very narrow) passageways, and in some areas the tour uses candle light to proceed. Also under the modern city experts have recently located a giant Roman amphitheater. This has been mostly built within and on top of over the centuries, and now has many of the archways in use as cellars, workshops, B&Bs and more, and until recently without the current owners having any idea that they were using part of such a huge amphitheater. The tour took us to the stage area and some of the seating areas, each a block or so, and a rapid walk through busy town streets, from each other.
Roman city beneath modern Naples and San Lorenzo church
Of course the tourist oriented subterranean tour isn’t the only show on the road with cool stuff underground. The San Lorenzo Maggiore church has an extensive Roman shopping precinct beneath it – all available to amble around and imagine yourself buying your fish and fresh bread from the appropriate stores.
Scenes from atop the hill at San Martino
I took one of the town funiculars up a hill for the views and found myself at the St Elmo Castle (also closed on Tuesdays) and yet another church/monastery (San Martino). Readying myself happily for another church tour, I was stunned to find an impressively grand residence (and views) but also an amazing museum. The rooms of the museum included original royal carriages, a giant royal barge, and a extended display of exquisitely detailed ‘Nativity scenes’ – including one that was large enough to have filled a standard stage and must have included 100’s, if not 1000’s of figures in stunning scenery settings.
Terribly dark photos but I hope you get an idea of the scale and magnificence of these 'cribs' - here are two different areas of the same giant scene
Eventually I walked and bussed back to the train station, exhausted, but in time for dinner with Enzo and Pasquale. Tantalizingly the train passed by both Pompeii and Herculaneum – two different sites overcome by the Pompeii eruption, and since excavated. Oh to have the time to see it all - just two more reasons to add to the many to return to Italy I guess.
And of course you can’t go to Naples, the home of pizza, without sampling the food. At lunchtime I did my duty, I approve!
The highlight of Naples according to the guidebooks and the travel guru Rick Steve, is the museum, in particular the top floor which houses all the great mosaics and artifacts discovered in Pompeii, and promptly carted off. This was my #1 priority and I’d see what else I could squeeze in once I got there.
Unfortunately, on reading my guidebook on the train journey there, I discovered the Museum was closed just one day a week, the day I was travelling (so the answer to the question in first paragraph is clearly “what”).
I also discovered that I needed information I didn’t have to complete my document before I could notarize it, AND that it didn’t need completing after all until my shipped items reached the USA. Doh! I needed to research those other Naples sights rapidly, thankfully I had an hour and a half on the train and I made a rough loop of an itinerary, despite the distractions of the stunning mountain and coastal scenery that I was being whisked through.
Napoli Cathedral
It turns out those guidebooks do Naples a disservice, there is plenty to do, and much of it impressively good (or maybe the museum would have truly outshone all of what I did see in the day). It is however all set amid kamikaze traffic, and often crowded by ugly modern needs thoughtlessly installed to ruin the views.
Shops in Napoli's historic district
Just wondering the streets of Naples bombards the senses, especially in the old part of the city where, in narrow cobbled streets, cars amazingly vie for space with pedestrian locals going about their shopping or chatting and gesticulating with friends. Tiny fronted, crammed and exquisitely presented food shops, all specializing in something, were irresistibly picturesque to me.
One area of the historic center in particular is clearly the place to purchase your beautiful hand made nativity scenes (Cribs). Of course they don’t just make nativity scenes any longer, but many 3D scenes of numerous themes: artisans at work, housewives gossiping or doing their laundry, farm animals, and more (anything you can think of no doubt, although generally they seem to be styled in the 1700’s and 1800’s). These are no tacky memento but amazing works of art, beautifully built and stunning to me to view. Way beyond dolls houses! They are also large, centerpieces for a table perhaps, but way to large for a mantelpiece. Naples is the first area to have created the scale down, but realistic, models of the nativity scene (Until then all figures were built life size. I’m not 100% sure, but something to do with the technology that allowed for articulated models at such a scale, providing realistic looking figures; Plus the genius of a Napoli artist of course). As an aside, the first of such scenes I’ve ever seen was one built by our friend Pasquale. A beautiful nativity scene rotates 180 degrees to reveal a 17th century rural village scene – stunning and what talent.
Cribs for sale in this area of Napoli's historic district, and one of many displays of walnut shell scenesA quirky item I saw a lot of in Naples was miniature scenes set within walnut shells. These included individual saints, or whole villages it seemed, whatever the whim of the artist. I’ve no idea how they worked with so many tiny and intricate pieces.
Yet another oddity was the battered small orange car I found chained to a post, for protection against theft I assume? It was small, but I doubt anyone would really just carry it off, hilarious.
I went to a number of churches (and the cathedral/Duomo), including one (Santa Maria delle Anime del Purgatorio ad Arco) dedicated to those souls in purgatory where the followers pray to old skulls in creepy, darkened, cobweb filled crypts (the pope officially disapproves, but that doesn’t stop anyone; Neapolitans are feisty). The skull of Lucia is a particular favorite of new brides it seems.
The cult of dead at Santa Maria
I went to monasteries and walked beautiful cloisters. I partook in the underground Naples tour, where ancient tuft mining has left large caverns which over the years (from the Greeks, on) have been used as water cisterns for the city, rubbish dumps, bomb shelters, wine stores, and plant growth experiments (among so many other uses).
The subterranean tour includes a walk over about a mile of the cisterns (a small fraction of the network), 40m or more underground, linked by narrow (very, very narrow) passageways, and in some areas the tour uses candle light to proceed. Also under the modern city experts have recently located a giant Roman amphitheater. This has been mostly built within and on top of over the centuries, and now has many of the archways in use as cellars, workshops, B&Bs and more, and until recently without the current owners having any idea that they were using part of such a huge amphitheater. The tour took us to the stage area and some of the seating areas, each a block or so, and a rapid walk through busy town streets, from each other.
Roman city beneath modern Naples and San Lorenzo churchOf course the tourist oriented subterranean tour isn’t the only show on the road with cool stuff underground. The San Lorenzo Maggiore church has an extensive Roman shopping precinct beneath it – all available to amble around and imagine yourself buying your fish and fresh bread from the appropriate stores.
Scenes from atop the hill at San Martino
I took one of the town funiculars up a hill for the views and found myself at the St Elmo Castle (also closed on Tuesdays) and yet another church/monastery (San Martino). Readying myself happily for another church tour, I was stunned to find an impressively grand residence (and views) but also an amazing museum. The rooms of the museum included original royal carriages, a giant royal barge, and a extended display of exquisitely detailed ‘Nativity scenes’ – including one that was large enough to have filled a standard stage and must have included 100’s, if not 1000’s of figures in stunning scenery settings.
Terribly dark photos but I hope you get an idea of the scale and magnificence of these 'cribs' - here are two different areas of the same giant scene
Eventually I walked and bussed back to the train station, exhausted, but in time for dinner with Enzo and Pasquale. Tantalizingly the train passed by both Pompeii and Herculaneum – two different sites overcome by the Pompeii eruption, and since excavated. Oh to have the time to see it all - just two more reasons to add to the many to return to Italy I guess.
And of course you can’t go to Naples, the home of pizza, without sampling the food. At lunchtime I did my duty, I approve!
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