I already know I won’t have much time to write tomorrow as it’s another travel day, so this is another two-in-kind-of-one-day posts to fulfill my NaBloPoMo blogging goal for the month.

Tonight was my last night here in Naples, or Napoli as it is known natively.  This is my second time here; I was here a few months ago for a couple of days but I didn’t have any time to get to see anything.  We were staying on the base and left only once for dinner, and that was it.

This time, even though I didn’t really get to see all that much, it was enough to whet my appetite for a real trip to Italy.  I want to go back to Rome and see the Colosseum and the Parthenon, I want to explore Pompeii, I want to ride through the canals of Venice and eat and drink and relax in Tuscany, I want to shop in Milan and see more art in Florence -  and there is so much more.  I want to go to the Vatican again, this time more leisurely so I can appreciate the art better.  I want to see Naples beyond the limits of the base here.  I want to go the Amalfi coast, to Capri and Sorrento.  I want to eat prosciutto every day, the real prosciutto which is better than anything I’ve ever had made of pork, even, I dare to say, bacon.

I understand the “the grass is greener” concept but I really think I would’ve enjoyed being stationed in Italy a lot more than Spain for the opportunities to sightsee.  I have gotten to see some really wonderful stuff in Spain, but counting up what I’d like to see in both places, Spain doesn’t come close to Italy for me.

However, I have a job in an office that I love, and I don’t know if I would have had that here.   Plus, I am pretty sure that neither I nor B could deal with driving here.  It’s one continuous game of “Chicken“, alternatively as entertaining as Plinko and as terrifying as riding a unicycle while blindfolded through the streets of Pamplona during San Fermín.

I am excited to upload my photos and start editing my pictures to post - I promise I will post them as soon as is practical.  I can’t wait to see them.  When I turned on my camera today to see what was on the card, the first picture I saw was of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and it gave me goosebumps.  It’s hard to believe I was there just yesterday, that I was there at all, that I got to experience something that I never knew I wanted to see so badly until I found myself standing beneath the glory of Michelangelo’s immense talent.