Finalimente...ok last installment on the museum

OK, so they are not all naked. Sorry, I tricked you.

The first photo are my favorite people!

While we have not yet gone to Milan to see the Da Vinci Last Supper (that's May 13th) here is one from our local museum. This was a very interesting because - I hope you can see it in the small photo - the artist painted himself into the scene! Look to the far left corner - see the Renaissance man? Also interesting is that at some point the painting was cut and the artist was cut out and then repaired, putting him back in.

The next two are the much appreciated naked people. Lenny made me take those photos! They are actually porcelain painted vases and not paintings. There was one entire room of porcelain in the museum but was unfortunately not well lit and we were not allowed to take flash photographs, so I cannot share it. Naples is well known as a region famous for porcelain works and there was once the very famous Capodimonte Porcelain Factory right near the Royal Palace.

Finally, I really enjoyed this painting of Mary. Years ago I worked at the Chrysler Museum back home in Norfolk and they have a great tour of the Madonna and Child art there. During that time I learned of the changes made to the Madonna's appearance through the years. It would be hard to take seriously any paintings of a lovely European blond Mary. However beautiful the paintings may be, Mary would have had to have been Middle Eastern and there are not too many blonds there from what I've heard!

For me, this painting is made even more interesting because of the look on the face of John the Baptist in the background. Does he not look to you like he's saying "really?" or perhaps "Cousin Shmuzin, I was here first!" Regardless of the non-biblical assessment of familial jealousy, I have earnestly begun my own artistic analysis.

I hope you've enjoyed this little bit of Neapolitan Art. Since I've now been on the computer for four hours, I'd better stand up soon or I fear the blood may never reach my feet again.

Museo Capodimonte ... part two

Now that I know how to do this, you will be sorry! We bought a $700 camera so you will have to endure our getting our money's worth out of the thing!

I loved the painting where the man is begging the women doing the laundry to loan him something to wear. Really? From the look on these ladies faces I'm sure they too are tired of getting the dirty clothes out of the bidet. Good luck Charlie.

The other painting is titled "Arguing the Immaculate Conception". Very interesting work of art because - and I am now being serious - that I did not know that there was a Renaissance movement to disprove the theory among the religious class. I need to research that more, but either way, it stuck me as interesting.

By the way, I realized after I uploaded the first blog that I forgot to spell check. I hate when I do that because I often let on to friends and family that I am in fact, not as smart as I prefer to appear. Please don't write to tell me of my errors, I already have issues of sensitivity in that area. (Of course, if I managed to type three paragraphs and not make any errors, feel free to provide me with praise at will.)

Next up, the photos of naked women. (I knew I'd get your attention!)

Museo Capodimonte or how to waste a morning uploading photos...

OK, after spending the entire morning trying to figure out how to upload pictures to this blog, I now share with you a few from our tour last Sunday at the Museo Capodimonte.

This museum is former royal palace of the Bourbons.

The artistic treasures exhibited here comprise the greater part of the celebrated Farnese collection which was transferred to Naples from Parma, Piacenza and Rome in the middle of the 18th century. (I copied that from the website - can you tell?!)

I can only post a few pictures at a time, so there will be a couple of seperated blog posts here for me to share photos with you from this museum.

Featured above is the lovely Alessandra (who shall from now on be known as Alessandra the Minor di Napoli). She looks like she fits right into a royal palace doesn't she?

The other artwork is a photo I took with Lenny in mind and have captioned: "See, I told you bellies were in style." Lush, lovely and voluptuous women are so much more intersting than skinny bitches - even several hundred years ago! (OK to my skinny bitch followers, sorry but really you are already skinny so you will just have to put up with my insulting you.)

Continue to the next blog for more of my artistic criticism of major Renaissance works...

Setting Up House

To anyone who is turning in with the possibility of a move overseas be warned - don't rely on your pre-deployed husband to tell you what you need to bring! Let's start with the closet.

In Italian homes they have not closets therefore you receive lovely wardrobes from the Navy. They are useful and since we have a third bedroom that we don't need, I once again have a walk in closet - full of wardrobes. My poor hubby thought that the "hundreds of hangers" already in one of the wardrobes left behind by the previous tennent was sufficient. Ugh. I left behind hundreds of hangers - you know, ladies, the good ones. NOT what my husband considers useful - old wire hangers from someone's old dry cleaner. Also hundreds turned out to be about 30. Has this man never seen my wardrobe? Sometimes I think he just does not pay attention. So, I've spent about $50 buying hangers at the NEX and my unaccompanied baggage (the stuff I needed in the US until the day I left) has not even arrived yet. P.S. He had to get two more wardrobes too. Really man, pay attention!

Laundry baskets - also something of a premium here. Yes, we have five or six at home - but alas they are still at home. My husband believes that the bidet is a perfect hamper and has thusly filled his with his smelly socks. Really, I'm not kidding. Being unemployed (!!) I am now the offical laundry ho but I absolutely refuse to pick up socks from a bidet. Just aint gonna happen. Now, I'm buying hampers too.

What I miss so far? Drying my clothes in the dryer. Silly, I know but when was the last time you dried off with a towel dried outdoors? A bit scratchy. We have a dryer but it's old, gas and (again, am I complaining too much about my hubby here?) my hubby is cheap. Utilities here are rather on the expensive side so we try not to use it. Unfortunately, I still have the same bad memory I had when I left the states and I leave the laundry out overnight and then it rains, and I start all over again.

I miss my car too and it will not get here until the end of May. Sharing a car with Lenny is not the ideal and we did buy the oldest most beat up Fiat on the planet so he continually harasses me when I get over 80km and hit the potholes. Hey, I'm just seeing if I can get airborne, what's the problem?

So, there it is. Another day in Napoli.

P.S. Where are my fans? Hello? I'm feeling very pathetic here.

Driving in Naples

What I've learned so far is that driving in Naples is much like bumper cars as a kid. Remember when you would laugh so hard you almost peed yourself? O.K. well, maybe that was just me but here the bumper cars are much bigger and obviously a bit more dangerous. I don't mind too much as I have been accused from time to time of being a crazy driver myself. But this is a level beyond my imagination.

The horn and lights on an Italian car are used solely to move other cars out of the way. If I am in the left lane to pass a slow moving truck and a car better than my very used Fiat we bought second hand here comes behind me he will nearly push me past the truck to be ahead of me. It is most important when in a car for the Italians to be ahead of each other. The very obvious fact that they are not going anywhere more important than to the coffee shop to shoot the bull with the other crazy driver makes no difference.

The best part are those that pass on the right to make a left lane exit that is just dead ahead. Maybe they are out done by those on motor scooters who ride between, around and if they can - over cars in their way. Today a most fascinating site was the motorcycle passing a car coming toward me, smoking a cigarette and taking both hands off the handlebars to adjust his helmet - yes, while passing and smoking and in between me and the car he was passing. Somehow, they must survive or I presume someone would change the rules of the road.

Stop signs are suggestions - and what they suggest is that if you stop at them you will be rear-ended. Red lights are simply an opportunity to pass an unassuming tourist like me.

The pedestrians are something else altogether! While in their cars, Neapolitans are in such a rush while they are walking there is no rush at all. They, however, like their cars do not bother to look either way when they cross a street. It is the job of the crazy drivers to watch out for them as they will walk directly into the path of speeding cars.

So survival of the fittest is the name of the driving game here. I am eagerly awaiting my tank - the Mommy-mobile Pacifica that is en-route from the states - then I'll show those Fiats how it's done.

The Arrival in Naples

So here we are. The Adams Family in Italy via the US Navy. I gave up my job, friends, (son - well, I only gave him to his father for a few months!) rented my house and joined my husband here for three years in Naples, Italy with my daughter Alexandra - who after just one week has changed her name to Alessandra.

Our journey here seemed almost to foretell life in Naples. We left Norfolk, VA aboard a government 767 on Tuesday, April 7, 2010. We flew for almost four hours toward our first stop of Lodjes in the Azores. Unfortunately, they were fogged in and 30 minutes prior to landing, we TURNED AROUND - yes all the way around - and landed back in Norfolk. So just over 6 hours of flying and we were back where we started. Put up in a hotel, dogs and all, and then back out the next night. This time, we made it all the way. Tired and bedraggled.

So we are here now. Our home is in a town outside of Naples called Licola. The house is lovely - but cold with the tile floors. But it's home for the next two years and nine months. And so it begins...