"You Eat-a Da Spaghetti!"

My Trip to Naples Pt 1


There are times when you don't realise you're in a dangerous situation until after the fact. My trip to Naples this past weekend was one of those times. My friend B and I made a last minute decision to take the overnight ferry to Bari, Italy and then drive for a couple of hours across the boot to Naples where we could stay overnight at the US Naval Base, push a few shopping carts around and then return back to Albania on Sunday night. However, the old saying about the best laid plans of men... is true once again.

We arrived on Friday night in Durres with plenty of time to embark at a leisurely pace, find our cabin on the upper deck (the 9th), eat a nice dinner and tuck into our bunks. Things started to go wrong right at dinner when we looked over the menu and made our choices.

"We'll have the Caprese salad & the Ravioli with Pesto please".
"Aha! You wanta Spaghetti, with da fresha tomatoes!"
"Well no, we'd like the ravioli".
"So we hava da spaghetti. Eeese very gooda. You eat da spaghetti!"
"Umm... okay. We'll have the spaghetti."

So we had a mixed salad and a plate of spaghetti with a small bottle of very musty red wine. The spaghetti was actually quite good. We looked around and noticed that the other 4 diners were also all eating the spaghetti.

"May we have our bill please?"

B handed her Mastercard to the waiter and he retracted his hand. "Ehhh no, we no take-a dee credit cards!" So we pulled out our Albanian LEK. "Ohhh no, no, no. We only take-a dee Euro".

We had a problem. We looked at each other and wondered who would wash and who would dry the dishes. Then I remembered I had a few Euro's stashed in a secret place in my wallet. The bill was 34.20 E and I had exactly 35.00 E. How fortunate for us, but not for our waiter who, much to his credit, did try to give me back the 80 cents. I blushed and said sorry, and hoped he got the message that 80 cents was all he was going to get for his tip that night.

We quickly gathered up our purses and ran back to our cabin, full bellies but empty wallets.