Virtual no longer

Look! Can you guess who is smiling beside me? Did you guess yet?

Yes, it's the one and only nyc/caribbean ragazza. I've been reading her blog for about a year now, and I suggest you do the same. She is in Rome for a week and decided to head down to Napoli to see what all of the fuss is about. Ms. Arlene was able fit a pizza into her carefully plotted sightseeing schedule, but I mercilessly commandeered her remaining 5 hours in the city.

While we ate our pizze, the restaurant turned over at least 3 times. We were there so long, in fact, that the waitress brought the bill to us, unsolicited. (If any of you have ever been to Italy, you know that you must harangue the servers for the bill because it is considered rude to bring it to the table without the customer's request. )

After being pried out of our very warm seats, we went for a walk. Arlene and I were so busy yapping that we ended up walking to Sicily without even realizing it. Yes, I'm exaggerating a bit, but it is fair to say that we both earned our pizza calories.

Don't we look happy in that picture? The island in the background is Capri, for your information. We suffered a long photo shoot attempting to satisfy our ferocious vanities. All of her shots were good, but I think the flash was overkill. Even our images needed sunglasses to protect us from my mid-winter luminescence.

Despite my aching retinas, I had a great time. I would have been happy walking about while speaking English with any old female, but nyc went beyond the call of duty and was just so darn cute, smart, and accomplished that meeting her made my day.

Hope to see you again, Arlene!