Calamities I

So apparently, yesterday a building partially exploded just down the street from us. We were told that there was a gas leak or something along those lines and it combusted which ultimately resulted in the calamity you see in the pictures below.

 

 We were informed by some people that there were multiple fatalities and others said that there weren't any at all. All of Riviera di Chiaia was shut down for the clean up of the building rubbish and instead, Via Partenope was opened up.

The next  two catastrophes I don't have pictures for.

The other day the Citta della Scienza burnt down, I'm not certain the cause of this but I assume it was accidental. Luckily, before it burnt down we were able to visit it and "steal" some hujangus basilco leaves.
This last incident isn't quite so disastrous as the previous, it's more just something we happened upon on the way home today. A man was sitting on the sidewalk and not 50cm in front of him there was a puddle of the brightest blood I've ever seen. I think what happened was his foot was run over or something similar.
Just another week living here in Napoli.

Valemememtimes

Time for some slightly more in depth retailing of the Vamlemtimes party at the Bracken estate.

Showed up early because that's how we roll, brought our party supplies to the top floor of the beach-view monolith and then everyone that was present, including ourselves, went to ye olde beach for some good old fashioned sand arting. After several masterpieces were created the other 2/3 of the purple brigade rolled, but unfortunately one of them was not in the proper attire, needless to say, he was temporarily shunned. A few more sand drawrings were completed the whole party shifted back to the Bracken residence for some crafts and on the way up Ryan and Austin had to race the elevator up six floors, it was brutal but we won.

Everyone instinctively congregated in the kitchen for some eats, at which point the candy quantity guessing game begun. I lost every time, end of story. Below you can see the product of the party's craft time, moustache creation.

Ryan with his sammichstache being used for eyewear. We were all supposed to make moustaches for our partners, but I was too proud of mine to let it go and you can see why in the picture directly  beneath Austin Thornberry.

 After moustaches were completed and candy guessed the party shifted once more, to the living room, where we exchanged valentines and wiled away our remaining time with musical duets and Ben Harper.

This is the less awesome version of our farewell picture, you can take it up with Alyssa if you want to see the raw, uncut version.

Last Week's Happ'nings Recap

Right off the bat, Vamlemtimes day party, parkouring around some rocks to get onto the beach, made some sand drawrings, the other member of my purple brigade arrived at the party. Went upstairs, ate some eats, guessed some candy amounts (lost erry-one), made some killer moustache kookies and then ate said kookies. Moved that partay to the living room, busted out the ol' Ovation, jammed out some classic rock, received valentines from all, didn't bring any valentines, like a bwaoss. End Thursday.


Went to Ryan's, lykuhbawsz, played some PS3 for acres, ate some killer sausage soup crafted by Mrs. Faulkner and then hit up the church in Bacoli for some prime ride finding. Rode with Stefano to the bowling alley which happened to be right next to our home, inefficient as (your four letter word of choice here), bowled an 82 or some impossibly high score like that, stood in the weakest hurricane of all time, bought some candy bars and soda. Drove to a kebapp eatery, had some slammin' kebab, drove to Ryan's, almost watched a movie, fell asleep. End Saturday.



Here are some penguins, because penguins kick the pillars in!

Emergenza

The Emergenza concert in Napoli was a great experience, I'm not usually a concert kind of person but it was awesome seeing people I knew up on stage. The other bands were a little bit on the loud side, especially the metal band, but it was all around pretty good music. Not to sound biased at all, but I think that Oak & Willow (Gruppo di Marco e Vincenzo) were the most unique and easy to listen to of the three bands I heard play.

 

The reason why there is a very small portion of a drumset in front of them is because Marco played, sang and did the kick while Vincenzo played bass, did backing vocals and played the cymbal.

 Both of them did magnificently, Marco's singing was wonderful and coupled with clean acoustic sound of both their instruments was a terrific combonation.

All of their music, as far as I know, was written and

composed by the two of them. Although Vincenzo was playing extraordinarily, I don't believe it fully showcases his talent as a bassist. That just my honest opinion and I'm sure others might disagree, but that's how I feel. All in all it was a great time had by all and I would love to see them play again sometime before we leave.

The Cirkus I

Better late thane never, but here is the tale of my first ever experience at a circus of any sort.

I was certain of what to expect, but I went into it with an open mind and turned out alright. The night started with all of us sitting in the tent for a solid hour or so waiting for the show to start and being in Italy, I wasn't expecting the show to start anywhere near the scheduled time, but to my great surprise it started not 5 minutes after it should've.

The opening acts were all fine and dandy, Moira came out in her little Beetle 1100 or 1300, drove around for a spell and proceeded to retreat back into the bowels of the big top, not to be seen again for the remainder of the night. I don't perfectly recall all of the acts or which order they were in, (pixtures eventually) but the acts that presently stand out in mind I will share in moderate to below average detail.

Act 1≈ A phenomenal juggler took the ring and did some rather incredible feats with spheres, smaller spheres, bowling pins and some weird boomerangs. The spheres were quite entertaining because while he juggled 3 or 4 he had two others that he "juggled" by popping them out of his mouth (tis difficult to explain). The bowling pins had their own set of challenges that seemed very difficult but were made to look easy by this juggling connesieur. Sadly, there were no chainsaws being juggled. The boomerangs were tossed about in very lengthy fashions that I won't explain because it would ruin the magic! Also, I want to fit in more than one act on this blog.

Act 2≈ The giant spinning thing. This object and act cannot even bee described in words, you'll just have to wait for pictures.

Act 3≈ The big cats, everyone's favorite every time. All these tigers start sauntering in the ring and they all slowly take their positions on their respective chairs arranged around the ring. For the most part the trainer just made them do basic stuff, like stand up, run around, things like that, which is a feat in itself, just getting those tigers to get up on the chairs was enough for me. The show continued, the trainer kept getting after the young, white tiger for being a lazy cat and eventually all the tigers were sent back to their cages, save for two of them. The two remaining animals were required to sit upon a modified Moto Guzzi with a sidecar and ride around on it. This took a lot of coaxing on the part of the trainer, he had to keep riding around the ring and stopping to try and get these lumbering beasts to join him on the Guzzi for the final portion of the act. Approximately 5 or so minutes passed of him baiting the tigers before they would sit on the bike so he could end the show. The tigers did eventually ride a couple laps around the ring on the Guzzi so the trainer was able to send them back to their cages with their "friends."

There are still plenty of acts I didn't put on here, but rest assured, I will once I have acquired sufficient pictures.

The Peeps

This was the first get together of the afore mentioned "peeps" here in Napoli.

Massive shoutout to Alyssa Bracken for chronicling our shenanigans throughout the city.

 Above we have what appears to be Ryan and Austin chillin' on the train ride into Napoli.

 

Shortly after leaving Amadeo Station we

 happened upon some stairs which I later discovered were a much faster way to our appartment. These were the best stairs for sliding on.

 We made short work of the trek back to the appartment and hen proceeded to rock out on the ol' Ovation for a while. I played, Austin played some and so did Alyssa. Here at base camp we figured out what exactly we were going to do with the day and once that had been decided we were off.

First stop, the wall along Via Partenope. We cut through the park across the street to get here at breakneck speed.

A lovely shot of the rocky coastline of Via Partenope.

A ground level shot of a rooftop plaza near Castel Dell'Ovo.

 This was about halfway up the Castel where it was windy in much excess and my hair was being quite unruly.

 Here we have Ryan very near the highest point we could attain by legal measures with the beautiful coast in tow.

The tumult of the sea crashing against the Castel walls far below.

This would be all of us studs atop the Castel.

 Fun fact, we were all, with the exception of Alyssa, discussing in great detail, Mario cart and other such nintendo titles.

Lastly we have a very over used bottle of prosecca a the bar we stopped at on our way back to the appartment.

Motociclette II

Second installment in the motor-bike series.

Triumph Scrambler, this a fairly common sight in the warmer months, they are very distinguishable, much like  Moto Guzzis, because of how much louder and more thunderous they are than everything else.

Another Triumph that we see on a

 fairly regular basis, the Speed Triple and yes there are a couple green ones similar to this one that we have seen.

Probably one of the coolest adventure style bikes I've ever seen, a Ducati Multistrada. These are slightly more commonly seen than the Hypermotards.

BMW R1200r, one of the sportier  

bikes we see here in Napoli and it's difficult to see here, but they have a shock in the front and the rear.

Lastly there is the TDM. These come in several engine sizes and are spotted about as often as Multistradas. For a short period we considered purchasing a TDM 750 for our time here, but it was going to be too difficult to get it.