My first night in Naples.

1/13
My first glimpse of Naples, from the night sky (night? what time is it?), shows me hills and tightly packed flats. I hear someone behind me say “looks crowded down there.” I’m on the lookout for the famous Neapolitan traffic. It is rush hour. I can discern nothing out of the ordinary from the sky. Headlights, brake lights, cars moving, cars slowing.

“Yeah, let’s get something to eat,” I say to Paul, the guy whose job I’ll be taking over in a few weeks. I‘m not hungry in the least. But I am really thirsty, and I guess I can eat. Who can discern the vagaries of his or her own stomach when flying internationally? I mentally shake my fist again at the airplane chicken dinners.

Still no discernable difference in the traffic as we slide out of the base and onto the freeway. Mild backup from lanes merging and disappearing, just like any rush hour in the states. Zoom! I jump as a motorcycle flies by our inching car. Four or five more zip by on both sides as dozens of tiny cars try to cram into the six inches between us and the car ahead. Okay, I admit grudgingly, this is a bit more extreme than a US rush hour.

I’m loving Vomero, Paul’s neighborhood in Naples. Lots of shopping and dining, crowds on food and drivers who actually don’t aim for them. Whole streets are even pedestrian-only.

The waiter at the restaurant (I’m sure it has a name—remind me later to fact check) asks us if we’d get him some American protein shakes. Creatine has been recalled, but whatever. Paul’s on it. They don’t see many Americans in Vomero, he explains. He’s doing this for me and for his friend Katie, an American Fulbright scholar who also lives in Vomero. That guy will remember us, and we’ll be welcome anytime.

“I think in Naples you get a taste of real Italy,” Paul tells me. “That would never happen in Venice, Florence or Rome. They’re too inured to Americans. They cater too heavily to the tourists.”

Katie, who also lived in Florence for a year, agrees. “You can’t say you’ve really been to Italy until you’ve been to Naples. You really get to see Italians.”

“Is this your first time to Italy?” Paul asks me.

“I’ve been to Venice, Florence and Rome,” I reply.