16 Weeks

Last Thursday I left Patrick to fend for himself for four days (leaving him with food, of course) while I went to Rome and Naples to spend some time with a girlfriend.  I met Jess while in Jacksonville, and recently her husband was stationed up in Naples.  I knew that I wanted to go visit her, and I figured that I should get there before the baby is born.  Little did I know (or remember might be the better word) that this is one of the busiest weekends for Italians.  One of their most important holidays falls on the 15 of August (ferragosto), making traveling a pain in the rear, but making the cities enjoyable (most Italians flee to the beach).

I flew into Rome Thursday morning, and Jess picked me up at the airport.  We drove into trastevere (a hip neighborhood in downtown Rome) and had some lunch.  After picking up some gelato and strolling a bit Jess drove the almost three hour drive back down to Naples.  That afternoon we relaxed, Jess and Peter (her husband) made a great dinner.  It's always so wonderful to be able to catch up in person.

The next day Jess and I travelled into downtown Naples.  The base where most people work in Naples is  attached to the airport, making it very easy to park your car and hop on a bus into downtown.  Once we made our way there I had some breakfast pizza, Jess had a cornetto (breakfast pastry), and we set off on an adventure to find a market.  Naples is located on a hill so they have three finiculares that go up the hill.  Like I mentioned before the cities were so quite, the city was so clean (amazing for Naples!) and there wasn't a lot of hustle and bustle.  After a short detour we found the market and enjoyed walking through.

Jess and Peter are still working on their living arrangements, despite having arrived a couple months ago and finding their home right away.  Sometimes it can be a bit difficult for Americans here who are used to having matters taken care of in a timely and efficient manner.  Italians run on time similar to 'island time'.  Especially in August when most people take the entire month off for vacation.  On Friday afternoon they had a meeting they had to go to for their home.  I was excited to have some time to peruse the NEX (kind of like a small department store) and commissary (grocery store).  It's always kind of fun to compare the ones you've been to (both of these in Naples is much larger than ours).  And to top it all off I got to have Taco Bell for lunch!  (Don't judge me, it's so hard to find variety of food in Italy, even Taco Bell makes a person happy, a pregnant person, at that.)

On Saturday Jess and I took a girls trip to the island of Ischia.  It's a small island off the coast, known for it's thermal spas.  Now considering what I mentioned earlier about most Italians going to the beach on this holiday weekend, perhaps it wasn't the best time to go.  But aside from nearly getting trampled by rude people trying to take a bus from the port, it went fairly smooth, especially after we decided to take a taxi.  The thermal spas were wonderful.  The 'resort' is located on a beautiful little cove, and there are quite a few thermal spas surrounding the area.  I didn't go in any that were too hot, of course, but the cool ones felt like magic!

Leaving from Pozzuoli we had to walk by many fishing boats
selling their early morning wares.

Because there are so few beaches in Italy this is what you'll find
in most cases.  There are a few public beaches where there is no
such thing as personal space, and then there are lidis.  You pay
anywhere between 8-20 Euro for a chair, umbrella, and a little
space to call your own.

This is the mushroom rock.  It's a small outcrop of
rock made by hot lava hundreds of years before.

On Sunday Jess, Peter, and I had a delicious breakfast and drove up to Rome.  We figured that it would likely be quiet, and it was (aside from tourists).  We found a place to park right downtown and went on a quick mini tour of downtown Rome.  I was truly a dork, but I was so excited to get some fun belly shots around Rome.  I'm  going to post them, but I have to warn you I was swollen.  With the airplane ride, the heat, walking, and likely not enough water I got a bit swollen.  I'm hoping that our trip to Norway will be a bit better as it won't be nearly as hot.  I also plan on asking my doctor if there is anything else I can do to help prevent swelling.

Here's a pre-travel not so swollen 16 week photo.
I swear I don't think that my belly is changing that much
but hopefully I can look at the picture in a few weeks
and compare.

Pantheon 

Trevi fountain

Colosseum

I'm glad that I got the opportunity to visit my friends, and I thank them so much for their hospitality!  After having visited the Naples base and the surrounding areas I was glad to come home.  Sigonella might be in the middle of nowhere, but it is clean (Naples does really have a trash problem, with people throwing the trash on the streets and highways usually leading to trash fires), and it's really beautiful around here.  There are more trees and flowers around, the produce is beautiful, the people are relatively friendly.  We may not be as accessible to the rest of Italy, but we're only a flight away!