Hey Friends and Family!
What do you call people from Naples?….. Nipples….. 🙂
In all seriousness, I spend way too much time in Naples. Now that all but one of my friends has left Miami to pursue shit elsewhere, I find myself visiting my fam in Naples more than I should (I am an independent, self-sufficient, young woman after all). I try not to go every weekend, but since my siblings are visiting for the next couple of weeks, I’m probably gonna be in Naples a lot. Like, right now for instance… as I write this… oh geez.
Normally, I visit all by my lonesome, but that doesn’t make for a good blog post, so let’s go back in time, shall we? Not last weekend, but the weekend before, I brought my friend, Julian, with me. He isn’t the first friend I’ve brought to Naples; I went with Leigh, Jesse, Ryan, and Sarah, the first weekend my mom and step-dad moved in. Anyway, per usual, we left after work on Friday: Me, Julian, Carter (my baby), and of course, Buzz (my car, duh). Naples is about a two-hour drive from Miami, which gives me plenty of time to belt out my favorite musical soundtracks… Wicked and Les Mis, anyone?
Naples is home to my mom, my step-dad, Adrian, and my step-brother, Andrew. Naples is also home to my puppies: Chase, and the real star, Smelly-Nellie-With-A-Big-Fat-Belly, aka. Nellie. She’s adorable, but she’s also a betch (literally and figuratively). In addition to not wanting to drive two hours (thus requiring a chauffeur), I invited Julian along to hang out with Andrew because they actually get along really well, and for some reason, my family absolutely adores Julian. Maybe cause he is the same person as Andrew and Adrian?
My mom and Adrian love activities, and honestly, it’s quite annoying. On Saturday, my mom, Adrian, Julian, Nellie and I went paddleboarding (or as my mom likes to call it, paddle-aking, because she sits on the paddleboard like a kayak instead of standing). Now get this… while paddle-aking, we saw dolphins!!! Like, twenty feet away from our paddleboard! It was my first time seeing dolphins so close in the wild (not to mention the weird dolphin orgy that seemed to be going down).
We also went swimming, visited the house my mom and step-dad are building (well, having built, haha, like they could build a house), and snuck onto the golf course after hours to hit some balls. Although I absolutely despise golf, I’m freakin’ good at it and completely blew the boys out of the water (unless we were aiming for the water, in which case, Andrew and Julian totally won). We also watched the World Cup at a dive bar for old people, ate a lot, slept a lot, and helped Andrew get hit on at the local bar – just the usual Naples weekend.
Don’t worry, I brought an underwater camera to document the entire weekend (a selection of which are below). However, the dolphin pics are on Julian’s phone, so bug him about that.
Let me just put this out there… Naples is for old people. Retired people. People who go to bed at 8 p.m. every night. People who think that going to happy hour once a month is a successful social life. Naples is not for a 22-year-old girl, a 23-year-old boy, and an 18-year-old boy. Regardless, we made it work. Turns out getting drunk in Naples is just as fun as getting drunk anywhere else, especially when your step-dad is paying for the drinks and the night involves pool and karaoke.
The best part of the weekend: Andrew getting so drunk that he RAN all the way home from the bar, and then Julian, becoming increasingly concerned about Andrew’s whereabouts, hopping on a bike to find him. Oh, and Andrew making out with Nellie as the night came to a close. Poor Nellie.
I guess there is always fun to be had, even in Naples.
P.S. I love disposable cameras. I think they take the best photos and I love how old-school they look. I took about 25 photos and it was so hard for me to choose, but these are some of my faves from that weekend…
