Senza bagaglio (Without Baggage!)

I never want to eat again. Seriously. Well, maybe not never again, but at least not for a few more hours and I'm thinking string cheese and crackers. Water on the other hand, I don't think I can get enough of it...funny how I'm already changing over here. But seriously. I think my aversion to water may come from the fact that Monterey was always so cold so I had no motivation to drink water, hot coffee on the other hand...

Getting to work and hanging out in my office are becoming fairly routine. Today when I walked outside to check out the weather and make a phone call to track Jessica down, I saw a friendly face- Mark! I knew he was in town but never figured I'd run into him. Then and there I realized that it's the small things like running into people that have known me for more than 4 days or seeing a sign for a NPS workshop that are motivating me to press on.

It's also a great reminder that all of them were once strangers too (you know, back when I was 23) and only after a little effort and a whole lot of work days and/or late Tuesday trivia nights did I get to know them. It's a good thing that the new group did the dinner last night to get that clock a-ticking.

Oh. I think I got so tied up in the food summary that I forgot to report in on what we laughed the most about. When the dreaded "do you have a boy friend back in the states" question was asked I gave one of my 3 standard responses: "no, I tried rather hard to keep those Army and Navy officers away for 5+ years." (Shush up right now peanut gallery...it's all about picking the correct response for the audience!) They all said I'll find an Italian man in no time, rather he will find me and I won't be able to keep him away. That's when I raised my right hand and assured them that I will be heading home with no baggage. Yep. I told the new people. So basically everyone has heard my statement, the lawyer present at the dinner may have even notarized that on 1 June 2011 I made that statement. And yes, they are going to start an office pool. Seriously though, the only thing that's caught my eye was a tabby kitty around the picnic tables at lunch today.

Oh. So I did end up eating lunch today- but it really did take several hours (6+) to  even think about food. I headed down to the pizza place on the base with 2 coworkers because they said it was really good. It looked authentic enough and it was cooked only after it was ordered. The menu was a little scary- but on the flip side if you feel like you need pizza with hotdogs and fries on it, I know where to go. Check it out for yourself- the crust was yummy but the middle a little (or a lot) gooey. Jarrod, I totally thought of your pizza preferences and I don't know if you can justify them anymore...pizza was kind of invented here!

The apartment hunt continued today with my coworker. Her speculation is the only reason Roberto showed me 2 places yesterday is so that I have to keep going back and spending afternoons with him. Oh how things are different over here. At any rate, after trying to leave the office for over 3 hours we headed to Lago Patria to check out the middle floor apartment in what can only be described as a family compound. I'm finding it normal to have multiple properties within a large plot of land where the landlords live in one of the houses and the other buildings are rented out. This was was not on a vineyard like yesterday but there was a pool, pizza brick oven by the pool, and a paved area where the owner's teenage sons were playing soccer. It was like a park- complete with fruit trees. The apartment  was a 4 bedrooom/2bath, yep, I did just say 4 rooms huge floor plan complete with two balconies. It was much more typical of what you'd see in the states...as in there were closets in 3 of the rooms and in the master room there was a walk in closet! Yeah, I haven't had one of those since college. The owners mainly spoke Spanish, but you know I feel like if I can come back from this tour speaking any language other than English I'm doing good.

Still haven't made up my mind...it was gorgeous but something within me just can't go with living in a 4 bedroom place when it's "just me." Also, I still want to go check out the Monte di Procida area since it comes so highly recommended.

Well, if things sound like they are coming together- I have to agree! My days are beginning to have some predictability and this jet lag is nearly gone (well, so I claim) and that makes the world a much happier place for me and those interacting with me. Tomorrow kicks off a 6 day orientation but even better, I've got plans to hang out with my favorite NSA professor from NPS which will be fabulous. Kinda funny that we only seem to meet up in Europe, but normally I'm watching her cat while she's off on adventures! Yep, we'll have to have a picture because she may earn the title of my first visitor*. Yep, I see that asterisk too :)