Fat pizza, scary heights, wobbly knees and shopping

Monday 7th December
Big day yesterday….raced to look at the museo de Archeology and glad that we id it was great…check out the picture of the statue/bust that looks like Paul Makepeace; so close it stopped us both in our tracks.
We raced from there to catch the bus home and have concluded that Naples was great and fun to visit but you wouldn’t want to live there! As we rushed to catch our bus the families were sitting down at outside cafes surrounded by the garbage that fills the streets and thinking nothing of it…makes you cringe a bit. It must be intolerable in mid summer.
Our bus trip home was uneventful and arrived back at Sulmona about 6pm to about 5 degrees. Russ phoned our taxi driver friend to pick us up as the local buses don’t run on Domini (Sunday) An hour later after much umming and arhing he phoned again and the man said “si, I come now” …..We nearly froze waiting for him and think there may have been something we missed in the rapid fire Italian. It’s a stumbling block we’ve found in getting around. Sometimes the Italians think they understand English better than they actually do….
Today is a nice rest up and do the washing day. Have had a yummy lunch and really should have a walk but a snooze in front of the fire sounds so much nicer.
Did some great shopping in Naples before we left and one of my bargains was some leather boots for 12 euro. Sheepskin lined and will need them soon as snow very close. The locals are praying for snow as it brings in lots of tourists especially skiers.
We have a trip around some more of the area tomorrow and hopefully to Aquila province to see the earthquake devastation. We’ve been told it’s a must see, so bad that the region may never recover from it. Then Brad and Trish head off for 9 days in Spain leaving the Boombah’s to go it alone again!. We’ve still got Florence and the leaning tower of pisa and then Rome and Vatican city, pick up Judy at termini station then home here for Christmas.
Time for Russell’s bit. Funny thing on checking out of Hotels they call Russell , Signor Gook ( in Italian the “ch” is pronounce a hard “k” sound…hilarious)
Lin x

From the desk of Rusilio, now known as, Signor Gook

As I watch the groups of people chasing after some tour guide holding a plastic flower on a stick so all can see her and follow her through the city streets to the next “must see thing” I wonder how much fun are these people having. They will get home and say they just spent 15 days touring 9 countries and will be exhausted.
I will admit though that having a guide for some places is fantastic, like the castle in Napoli.
We found a fantastic castle which also housed a great big museum, older than I can count and as I found out built on the ruins of one even older. We were wandering about doing our own thing when we were offered a tour through the closed section of the towers, without the guide we would not have enjoyed it nearly as much. I did however find some challenges, I am not good with some things, heights are one of them. I was happily going up and down stairs and lifts in the tower then suddenly we were led onto a narrow balcony overlooking some great hall, shit I swear the floor was on a slope and was about to give way at any moment, every one else is leaning over the railing to look and I am trying to spider man myself to the wall!!
. Then we walk to the door of this huge room that as I find out has a GLASS FLOOR , underneath the glass was excavations of the original castle with skeletons and such, well glass floors scare the crap out of me ,I get dizzy and am sure I will fall right through!! Linda walks straight out and calls “come on you big chicken”, By this stage the 3 ladies at the door are looking at me and so out I went trying to only walk where the support steel beams were, unfortunately they were too far apart and I just had to tough it out. I got out fast and in a bath of cold sweat. This place was fantastic but I don’t think I will go back soon.
Am getting into this Italian time. Here there is no rush, you stop at 1300hrs and re-open at 1600 till 2000hrs. After that you go out and eat, so its bed at nearly midnight every day. At home as soon as the suns up Queenslanders are out and about, working ,walking and all that stuff,. if you did that here they would lock you up. People here just stop, if your driving and you see one you know in another car, just stop, every one will go around you or wait. It’s the same in the street, you can hardly move and a group in front will suddenly stop and have a noisy family reunion, as Linda ( the Molee) says, it does no good getting all grumpy, it’s the Italian way, and really we should all do the same thing.

We are planning what to do and where to go next, and we have just realized we don’t have enough time to do half the things we want to do. Brad and Trish have been given a list of must see local places and we have got more of Rome and Florence and so much more to do, I miss my boys and home and friends but it will be sad to leave..
So until next time, “buono guonata” have good day

Signor Gook