Today’s post is about taking small risks to make life interesting. We tend to get into comfort zones in life. Whenever we go out to eat, we choose the same meal, often at the same restaurants. The idea of the unknown scares us just enough to keep from trying it. I’m here to tell you, that some of the most exciting things in life come when you break through that barrier into the unknown. Tonight, Barry, Ida, and I broke through. Unfortunately, since Mike left with the good camera there are no pictures to show.

We drove through downtown Naples (here spelled and pronounced Napoli). Imagine a typical two lane street in Grand Rapids. Here that would be 4 lanes. Now with the 4 lanes of traffic bumper to bumper and moving fast throw in hundreds of people on mopeds and motorcycles weaving in and out of traffic. Back to those 4 lanes, they are not parallel with cars in the same lane going the same direction, no…no…no, people just go where they want (think of those video games where you are driving a car and other cars are coming at you!) Traffic laws are non-existent. The polizia are right out there in the middle doing the same thing and stopping nobody! Absolutely the craziest thing you have ever seen. Naples is a very dirty city, garbage everywhere, nothing is neat, clean, and kept up.

But I digress, back to taking risks. It was time for us to eat (8:00 PM). We parked the car and went walking along the sea looking for a place to eat. After about 10 minutes, we came across a ristorante’. We looked inside and only saw workers. We tried to open the door and it was locked. We buzzed and the owner opened the door. We asked if he was already closed? He didn’t speak any English, but motioned to us to come inside. It was a beautiful restaurant. It was for real, what Olive Garden does in faux.

Pretty soon the dishwashing boy, wearing his work outfit, came to our table with the owner. The boy (~ 20) was the only one who spoke English. Well not really, he knew a few English words. He said lots of things in Italian, Ida answered lots of things in Spanish, there were lots of hands waving and we ordered having no idea what we would get. Whenever we heard a word we recognized we said si, si! This would be out of most people’s comfort zone. The food that came was fantastic! We knew some of the stuff like bruschetta and caprese salad and other stuff just looked and tasted weird. Lots of fish stuff, some good biscuits, and plenty of calamari (squid) both raw and deep fried. Soon we had a table full of food and had not ordered entrée’s. We tried to say stop and eventually they got it, but not before talking us into tira-misu. The taste was beyond description – creamy and smooth – I’m afraid I’m ruined for ever getting it in the US. Next they talked us into limon cello – an alcoholic drink (30%!!!) made with lemons here in Italy. Strong but good. Of course, we had no clue what this was going to cost. There were no menus and we weren’t ever told. We had a little side bet going – Barry guessed less than 60 euros ($1.37 per Euro), I guessed 60-80, and Ida was over 80. When our friend brought the bill (a piece of paper with a number on it – no itemization here!) it was 65 Euros or $89. We had a blast we had a meal without knowing what we were getting and without understanding the people who were preparing it for us. What an experience.

TBL – Take small risks when the opportunities arise and the rewards will last a lifetime.

P.S. When we were leaving, we tried to ask why we were the only one’s in the whole restaurant? The answer – the crowd won’t becoming until after 10 PM. We were the early birds and we left at 9!

Oh yeah. I’ve still got yesterday’s lost post somewhere in my head.

The pics that follow are from yesterday in Sorrento and on the Amalfi coast. This was a quaint little city with a ton of people and a beautiful landscape.