What a day! We woke up to find Kyle with an eye infection. I had to call my friend/translator so we could get to the Dr asap, which we did. He had picked up conjunctivitis somehow (ugh!). He hadn't even been around anyone for 3 days prior. Anyway I was all worried because we were scheduled to celebrate the 4th with a group of families at Carney Park (the US Naval recreation site in Naples). I couldn't imagine going with pink eye but told Brian that was probably the way it was going to be. However, the Dr gave us some powerful drops to put in Kyle's eyes and said once he had the first dose he would no longer be contagious. So we raced home from the Dr. administered the drops and headed out to a sporting goods store that I've been trying to get to for a week. They're having a huge sale and I SHOPPED! (Won't give anymore details - boring and long! lol But the Italian sale season has begun!) Then we managed to get a second does of the eye drops in (I was SO paranoid about sharing those germs despite what the doctor had said.) and packed our gear - sun shelter, umbrella, food drinks, sunscreen etc etc. Oh - and antibacterial wipes and 2 containers of antibacterial hand gel. Half and hour late we headed out the door. We got to the park at about 3:45. I was so surprised it wasn't at all busy. It was an old fashioned 4th celebration - think small town county fair - hot dog eating, a few rides, food booths, bands, etc. We met our friends and spread our blankets on the grassy fields and proceeded to have a fantastic time! The kids were all great! Vika particularly enjoyed crawling and walking (still assisted) on the grass - not easy to find in Naples! Kyle absolutely ran himself silly playing with all his friends - no fewer than 9 or 10 were there. Four families all took our kids on the rides together and it was great! Except that the safety inspectors kept shutting down the rides. Mostly they were doing this to ensure age/height restriction were enforced. Kyle was devastated when he was already loaded on the bumper cars with Brian and they had everyone get off and closed the ride for a while. Kyle was too short to go on it. Of course we all enjoyed typical fair food - and even with an international flare; lumpia, Hawaiian sweet and sour steak and of course, funnel cakes (who'd have thought they be in Italy! lol) There were fireworks at 9:45. (I didn't take pictures even though I had my tripod because I knew that it being so late I needed to put my energy into the kids. But I wanted to take pics!) Then the nightmare began. We knew, because it was very busy by this time, that there was no rush going to the car. Kyle was happy playing with his friends and Vika was asleep in her stroller. We headed to the car at 11 pm. And then we sat. We didn't even get into the car until almost midnight. And we sat. Carney Park is a super facility but it is the middle of a volcanic crater and there is only one road in and out. Apparently (but heard this may have been a rumour) there was an accident on that one road. So we sat some more. Thank God, and I truly was thanking God, by this time both kids were asleep in the car. Neapolitans are not known for driving savvy or being at all courteous behind the wheel. Thus Brian had to fight to keep our spot in line even though no one was going anywhere, there was less than a paint job between cars as we inched - or rather "millimetered" forward - even though in over an hour we had not even moved a full car length. And we sat some more. We felt horrible for the Italian security officer who was directing traffic. Several carloads of Italian were yelling at her telling her to move the cars in front of them. Just to give you a little more insight - there were thousands of people in the parking lot with us - many with health conditions (diabetes, bad backs etc) and all the pregnant women and of course the kids that just couldn't deal with anything any more. And the weather report for midnight (which it was now well past) was 25.5 degrees Celsius (that's about 79 F) and the humidity was at 86% and the breeze that had made the heat of the day bearable was now nonexistent. We were sweating standing still - and the option was to start the car and have AC and add more exhaust fumes to the still, heavy air in the crater. So we sat - and sweat - until we put the AC on. At 1:10am traffic finally started to move...slowly. We live only a 15 minute drive so once we crawled through the first kilometer it was a breeze to get home and we were there by 1:35. We were exhausted - and then had to wake Kyle for more eye drops!
After hearing from our friends this morning obviously no one was happy with the situation. One family was taking the shuttle back to the Naval Support Site where they live - about a 20-25 minute drive. They got in line for the shuttle - with they're 3 yr old son- at 10:15. They finally reached the Support Site at 2 am. I'm not sure how much of that was waiting in line for a shuttle to get to them.
Although the end of the night was very trying, overall we had a fantastic Fourth of July. If you're American, or celebrate the Fourth of July we hope you did too!
Carney Park (Zoom in on the blue "A")
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