Napoli - il giorno un **Naples - day one**

Too excited to sleep, I woke up bright and early on Thursday morning at 5 a.m. (despite sleeping close to 12 midnight the night before) to do some last minute packing. I went through my list that I had prepared the day earlier to make sure I didn't leave any important stuff out. Penny woke up a while later and joined me in the packing after washing herself up. We were all set to go when Velouria woke up, insisting that she go to the airport with us.

So off we went! Praise the Lord a cabbie was just moving off as we reached the carpark, saving me the trouble of running out to the main road to hail one. We reached the airport slightly behind schedule, but still managed to get the seats we wanted at the check in counter. The flight wasn't full so we had the luxury of switching seats later. A quick breakfast, a short prayer with Velouria and several hugs and kisses later, we made our way into the departure area eager to get onto the plane. It was going to be a 13 hour flight, with a 2 hour transit in Munich before hopping onto another 2 hour flight to Naples. We couldn't wait to shut our eyes as we didn't get much sleep the night before - we wanted to be fully rejuvenated to take on Naples!

The plane took off as scheduled. As soon as the plane levelled, the snacks and drinks came out. We finished it quickly and proceeded to find some empty seats around us to get some shut eye. It wasn't long before lunch was served. Penny was too tired to eat so I gobbled down my beef and potatoes and went back to sleep. I awoke a while later with the first in flight movie, The Nanny Diaries, already screening. Penny was already up watching the movie so I got my headset connected and joined her.

With nothing much left to do after the movie ended, we both went back to sleep. I awoke again a few hours later with the second in-flight movie, Get Smart, already screening. I jumped back into my seat to put my headset on. Towards the end, Penny woke up and joined me as well. We were both hungry by the time the movie ended, so we headed towards the back of the plane where there was a mini buffet going on. Nothing fancy, but wonder of wonders, they had Nissin Cup Noodles! We cooked a cup each, grabbed a couple of sandwiches and some juice, and headed back to our seats to wolf everything down.

It was back to snoozeland after our little snack. But we couldn't sleep much and we awoke a while later as dinner came. We didn't have much space in our stomach left so se just nibbled a bit here and there. The last in flight movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, filled up the time between our dinner and the end of the flight.

Before we knew it, we touched down in Munich! After we got off the plane, we gave a quick call home (it was 10:25 p.m. Singapore time) just to hear Velouria's voice and proceeded to mill around the airport. The airport was structured in such a way that we had to go past immigration to catch our connecting flight to Naples at the departure hall one floor down, so we thought we might as well go out and breathe some German air. And boy was it cold! It sort of caught us unprepared so we made it snappy, retreating into the building again before we froze our fingers off! We headed into the departure hall again to do some shopping (we found, to our greatest delight, Vel's frog stuff toy that she'd lost - Penny bought it from Frankfurt a couple of years back and we suspect our maid Estella packed it with her when she left for home). We also had some time to stop by a food court for some juice, a cup of yoghurt and a sausage - costing us a frigging €13!

After what seemed like eternity, our flight to Naples was ready for boarding. The crew served us a little snack of a sandwich and chocolate - we couldn't stomach the sandwich as the bread was rock hard and the ham too salty for our palates, but decided to keep the chocolate for later consumption. We landed slightly ahead of time and - praise the Lord - didn't wait long for our baggage. There was no immigration to clear, so it was straight to the arrival hall to look out for a guy holding a sign with my name on it. He found us in a jiffy (we must have stuck out like sore thumbs) and whisked us away into his vehicle.

As the limo made its way into the city, the reality started to sink in - we were in Italy! The streets were pretty dead for that time of the night (about 9pm) though we did see a few pizzerias still open and countless Vespas zipping by. We reached the hotel within 15 minutes and checked into our room. We emptied our toiletries from our bag, proceeded to take our shower and prepare for bed.

Needless to say, we were dead beat after being on the move for almost 20 hours. But we couldn't wait to hit the streets in the morning after having our breakfast bright and early at 7:30 a.m.

Back from Naples into reality

It has been a wonderful trip and it was evident that the Lord was with us the whole time, now it's back to reality. We had great flights (both there and back) that were not painstakingly bad, just bearable, despite the long periods of time being hurled through the air at 900km/h and the lengthy transit times in between. Our days were jammed pack with activities that still somehow turned out right despite our laid back nonchalance or perhaps our minds were too preoccupied with the hustle and bustle of the city.

We stumbled into a train carriage without realising that the seats were actually allocated on the tickets; turned out we were actually in the right carriage, just the wrong seat. Penny and I both made an about turn at the same time after passing by a beggar sitting on some steps in Rome (recalling the scripture about showing kindness to beggars in). Our hotels turned out really great although I had my doubts.

I suppose the only grievance I have is how expensive everything is – we paid €3 for a cup of orange juice at a street kiosk!

I can't say this enough, but God has come through for us despite our lack of trust and demonstrated (yet again) just how faithful He is when you simply put your trust in Him.

Full story and pictures coming up.

Napoli que vaniamo!! - the prelude (part 2)

One more day to go before we fly off. Received more info today - now we know that the concert will be held outdoors at the famous Piazza del Plebiscito. Wow!

Still waiting for the Universal Music people to call me. Apparently, I have to sign some indemnity form to sell my life away for this trip. Heh heh.

With what little time I have, I did some research online to find out what to do in Naples, how to get around, etc. While looking for a city map to print out and bring along, I realise that nobody seems to do a plain old skool printable map anymore. Now all the maps are interactive showing you the exact spot of certain locations with satelite imagery and all that techno jazz. Turns out the Piazza del Plebiscito amphitheatre is not very far away from where we're putting up, about a ten minute walk.

Getting excited now. Stomach is churning. Can't think. Could be the footlong Subway Club I had for lunch though. Praise the Lord for this wonderfeul, wonderful blessing.

Napoli qui veniamo!! - the prelude

I am of the opinion that every Singaporean likes to be aptly prepared for any circumstance that they can anticipate ahead of time. Exams, interviews, weddings, arrival of a new baby – we will do anything and everything to source for pertinent information regarding the subject at hand. Somehow, perhaps embedded deep within our Singaporean DNA, we don’t feel at ease taking on something at the spur of the moment. That, suppose, is a polite way of implying that we are all kiasu.

Me, I relish surprises. However, excited as I may be, I wasn’t particularly thrilled about leaving for Naples without having much time to do my research. Our flight details had just been confirmed by Universal Music this morning (the organisers and sponsors of this trip), the Andrea Bocelli concert is on Friday evening and the major bummer is that we have to leave on Tuesday morning (the return leg takes almost a day due to the long transit time and different time zones - we will only arrive in Singapore on Wednesday morning). That’s about all we know at the moment. A quick check online (God bless the advent of technology!) has revealed that there are tons of things to do in Naples – museums, art galleries, monasteries, a volcano (Mt Vesuvius, the only active volcano in Europe), the ruins of the unfortunate cities Pompei and Herculanean that were buried (and simultaneously preserved) by volcanic ash from the aforementioned volcano, island hopping, shopping, et al. With satellite technology, I could even see the hotels that we were going to put up at!

The task at hand now is to learn (very quickly) some conversational Italian enough to get us by – the usual pleasantries (hello, goodbye, thank you, do you speak English, numbers) and some other unpleasantries (should the need for cussing arise).

I suppose we’ll figure out the rest when we get there. Two more days to go! Woo hoo!!

This trip has been blessed by an Almighty God. So I trust that He will plan and lay everything out for us.

Napoli qui veniamo!! -- *Naples here we come!!*

'Someone once said if God had a voice, He would sound like Andrea Bocelli. And I REALLY need to hear God's voice at this point in my life!!'

I received a call from MediaCorp TV on Friday evening. The lady, Sandra, introduced herself and said 'I guess God has heard you'. Obviously, I was lost for a moment as I tried to recall all the dealings I've had with MediaCorp the past few weeks. The only thing that came to mind was a job application with the Promotions Department.

When Sandra said 'We're sending you to Naples to watch Andrea Bocelli', the only words I managed were 'Shit. No way.'

MediaCorp TV had been running an SMS contest over the past week to promote Andrea Bocelli's new album Incanto and were giving away a trip to Naples to watch him live. Penny was lamenting about how nice it would be if we could win a free trip so she egged me on to send in an entry.

The words at the beginning of this post were in my SMS. And I remember praying to God, 'Father, sorry to use Your name in vain, but if it's in Your will please let it happen because only You know how much we need a break from all the craziness swirling around us'.

It all happened so quickly, I'm still trembling from the shock. We leave on Thursday morning for Naples. Everything else is still sketchy as we haven't received a lot of other information as of now.

Praise the Lord. We're going to have wood fired pizza for every meal and gelato for dessert every single day.

Lunchtime in CBD = WAR!!!

One thing I've always detested was to have lunch in the CBD area during weekdays. In fact, I still do! So for the past few days when I had to lunch alone, I would pack my lunch to have in the pantry in order not to return drenched in my own perspiration and I also need not have to worry about getting into catfights over tables with corporate beyotches.

Case in point - I was queueing up for my Heng Kee curry chicken noodles (my first of many to come I reckon *drool*) at Hong Lim, there was an empty table in proximity to where I was. A young lady came and stood next to the table, but didn't sit down as she realised she'd lost her friends in the confusion. You could see that she was looking around for her friends and it wouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that she already wanted the table. As she was fishing for her mobile, presumably to call her lost colleagues, a middle-aged auntie just came and knocked her aside and immediately placed her umbrella horizontally across two chairs. It didn't matter that the umbrella kept falling off as it was OBVIOUSLY TOO SHORT, the auntie just beckoned her friends to occupy the seats and started to discuss what they intended to eat, all the while ignoring the poor girl. Bewildered and shocked, with the mobile still in her hand, the lady stood there dazed for a good five seconds (I kid you NOT, I actually counted) before she realised what had just transpired. Evidently outnumbered, she just walked away sheepishly with her tail between her legs.

Auntie - 1, Office lady - 0

I had half the mind to slap the auntie on the back of her head and scream in her face her 'What the f**k's wrong with you?? Very hungry is it??'.

The monster called the Fugly Singaporean rears its head again.

Ashamed by my faithlessness

Take delight in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Psalm 37:4

God has once again put me to shame by revealing his faithfulness to me. The words of my prayer in the past few weeks have been more of a complaint than anything else, whining about how I never seemed to get any of the jobs that I had interviewed for, how I was getting worried, blah, blah.

Then, just last week, I saw a job posting on an online portal which I had applied to before (that post had been open for a couple of months now, although being advertised by different agencies and even the company itself). I never got a reply and I knew this was for that same opening since the JD was the same. Somehow, I just had this urge to be thick-skinned and try again. The recruitment agency responsible for the ad called me back and for some reason I never mentioned to them that I had applied for this job before but never got selected.

A day later, as I'm going for another interview, I get a call from my ex-colleague. She asked me, 'Hey, you looking for a job huh? I know the Marketing Manager that you're reporting to lah!'. Apparently, the agency had given my CV to the respective Manager I was supposed to report to so she called up my ex-colleague to do a reference check since they knew each other for quite some time now.

On the day of the interview, they only asked me 3 questions - why I quit without a job, what kind of job am I looking for and when could I start work. I was stunned.

Strangely, I had applied for this same position a year ago after the hoopla at Silver Bird but I didn't get it, ending up with that post in YHS. After one whole year and a series of seemingly coincidental events, I end up here again.

Although I'm on a 2 month contract for now, I truly believe and have faith that if it's God's will for me to stay here, it will happen. All in his perfect timing, not mine.

Just like the song.