the first couple days...

So I arrived in Naples after 22 hours of traveling Sunday and Monday. I got to the airport around 6:30 Monday evening and got my luggage!! I was soo worried I wouldn't receive my big suitcase on time. The only trouble I had with my flights was in Amsterdam when the flight attendant decided to check my carry-on bag. When I got to Rome, I had to go out of the airport to baggage claim, wait for my bag to show, then go through security again. Also, I had to go to an Italian airline counter to get my boarding pass. It was interesting to say the least. :) Even though I had to do all that in a little over an hour, I made it with the help of Kelsey, one of the girls that I met up with in Amsterdam that ended up being one of my roommates.

My apartment is brand new and soo awesome! It's very very modern. They actually weren't done with it the first night, so yesterday and today they are finishing the details while we are at orientation. We are on the fourth floor with 3 girls living in the apartment with 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a large living area, a fully furnished kitchen (stove, oven, microwave, fridge, plates, cups, cooking utensils, nice table, and 6 chairs), and the best part is we have THREE balconies!! Since we're so far up, we have beautiful views of the mountains and city. We are incredibly lucky to have such a fantastic place to live.

The Navy has three bases in Naples that are all connected. CAPO is where most of the sailors work, but we will only go there to pick kids up to bring them to the Support Site base, which is where we're working. Our apartment is right next to the base so to get to work we just walk about a half mile around to the gate to get in. It takes about 20-25 minutes, which isn't bad at all. The Support Site base has all the services (ex. hospital, commissary, movie theater, youth/teen center, high school, post office, etc.) which we have access to most of, which again we are very fortunate of.

Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday of every week we'll be at the youth center and every Wednesday and Friday we'll go to Carney Park which is located on an extinct volcano crater. In the past years the camp has been at Carney Park every day, but they had to house the counselors in three different locations which was tough, so this year they changed the program. Everything is very new and will get some taking used to for the center as well as the staff that is helping the Camp A staff.

My staff is a lot of fun so far. There are 8 ladies, 2 guys, plus our Project Coordinator/Director, Krystina and our Project Director, Alex. Our two main supervisors are Camp A veterans, which is rare, but very nice because they know all about our program.

I don't get internet in my apartment, but there is free wifi in the youth/teen center, so we've been bringing our laptops to work everyday and getting on after work. Naples is 7 hours ahead of Iowa.

Tomorrow we are going out to Carney Park to get to know the park before we take kids there and Friday we are going on a tour around Naples. We aren't allowed to do any overnight trips yet this weekend, but we're looking into doing a day trip to Pompey or the coast or something. :)

I will write more when something interesting happens!! Hope everything is great at home. :)

<3 Alli (There's another Allison here, so I'm going by Alli all summer!)