Sunset in Pozzuoli

This is a picture out the living room balcony.  I tried to capture the sunset to get the red-gold colors, but it just doesn't come out right, and I had to over-expose a full stop to ever make the picture viewable.

Who says Italian freeways are always crowded?

We drove from Tortoreto Lido back to Pozzuoli today.
Very light traffic all day.
The picture is a snap taken on the A1 from Rome to Napoli.

Tortoreto Lido vs Columbus

Here are two pictures, one yesterday from Columbus, Ohio, the other today from Tortoreto Lido.  Columbus was all snowy, 3"+ of snow, Tortoreto Lido is about 60 degrees F and partly sunny. Where would you rather be?

Cena della Vigilia di Natale

(Christmas Eve Dinner)

Traditionally based on fish.
This year we had smoked salmon, seafood salad (insalata di mare), and spaghetti ai frutti di mare.

There was more, but by Christmas Eve I was pretty sick with a cold and didn't feel like taking more pictures.

I am only just now beginning to get better and am starting to catch up on my posts.

Merry Christmas to all.

School Recital

The good old school recital.  Or in this case group singing exhibition.  It's a rite of passage in Italy too.

Tonight I had the occasion to go see my cousin's 8 year old son, Riccardo, sing in a city wide school organized song event where many 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders (and some older too, I'm sure) sang for the audience to raise money to help poor children in Africa.  Here's a snapshot of the entry ticket:

  Massive crowd, the organizers said that there were about 1000 children involved, and maybe 3 or 4 times as many relatives to watch.  It looked like a lot, but I sure didn't try to count them.  The event was held in a large public auditorium normally used for sporting events.  Here's an overview photo.

I could not spot Riccardo in the crowd.  I later found out he was towards the middle but in the third row.  I took lots of pictures to make sure I'd get something, and afterwards we did find Riccardo in one of the pictures.  Here he is cropped and blown up:

So good show to everyone who participated, everyone enjoyed themselves.

It's Happening!

Travel day today. Well, today and tomorrow.  It's going to be about 22 hours before I get to my destination.

 

Here's an update after I finally arrived:

I ran into a big delay in passport control at the Paris CDG airport.

My flight from the US got to Paris a few minutes early, but I only had a connection time of a little over an hour, and as luck would have it on that Saturday morning the French Police officers who operate the passport checking station (necessary to pass through when entering into Europe from the outside) were understaffed.  About 1000 people queued up and only 3 officers on duty.  Of course everything ran late and I missed my connection.

  

I was supposed to get to Napoli at 12noon, but I didn't get there until 7pm.

I had originally planned to take a bus downtown, the metro train out to Pozzuoli, and get a taxi in Pozzuoli for the short ride to my relative's house.  At noon this was a good scenario.  Arriving at 7pm it would have been a bad idea because by the time I would have gotten to Pozzuoli metro station (maybe even 9pm) there probably would be no taxis around (it's a quiet end of the road train station, just metro trains, and not much need for taxis there that time of night.)  So I ended up taking a taxi straight from the Napoli airport out to Pozzuoli, which has the expected disadvantage of price (Pozzuoli is outside the Napoli city limits so the metered fare is doubled).

I finally got to my destination about 8:15pm CET.

I had left my house 10:15am EST the day before, so that's only 28 hours door to door travel!

I was very tired when I arrived, as you can well imagine.