#7 La Napoletana goes home (English)

The best part about living abroad is coming home, and coming home for Christmas is definitely the most special thing. Chris Rea has been singing it so aptly since 1986 already: ‘Driving home for Christmas, I can’t wait to see those faces’. In my case that would be flying home for Christmas, but the feeling is exactly the same. Despite the fact that Italy feels like home in every single way, home forever stays home. Does that still make sense to you?  

In a Neapolitan nativity scene, Maria and Joseph can easily be accompanied by Messi, football player of the year, Frank Sinatra or Maradona and even Donald Trump might pay a visit

If you have lived in different places in your life, you surely recognise that sentiment of being home in different places in this world, which means you can also come home in more than one place. In these past years, I’ve lived in seven different places in four different countries and all seven places have shaped me into the person I am today, keeping a piece of my heart forever. In some places I only lived a couple of months, in others a year to several years. The city that completely swept me away in just a short period of time – two months – was Naples. In July and August of this year I called myself a Neapolitan citizen and I couldn’t wait to go back last week. The fact that Naples is the Christmas city of Italy – actually the city famous for its nativity scenes – only made me the more excited to return. All year round you simply don’t know where to look in the Via San Gregorio Armeno, a little street in Napoli’s centro storico filled with small shops in which craftsmen construct and paint the nativity scenes – all by hand. Typical Neapolitan is the fact you can buy a little statue of whoever dominates the headlines – whether positive or negative – and of people who have been important in Neapolitan history. So, in a Neapolitan nativity scene, Maria and Joseph can easily be accompanied by Messi, football player of the year, Frank Sinatra or Maradona and even Donald Trump might pay a visit (whether the innocent child Jesus would still sleep so peacefully in his little crib then I’d highly doubt but enough said about politics). From the very first moment I got off the train, that special energy of Naples hit me again. Narrow streets in which five families live on top of each other and where noisy, rattling scooters barely hit you when they pass at high speed, the loud voices speaking in Neapolitan dialect filling bars and trattoria, and the never ending incessant small talk and advices you get from literally everyone (let’s say Neapolitan people don’t take it as strictly with your personal space). It’s a city that gets under your skin from the very first second you arrive. Last summer, I considered the blistering heat as one of the main reasons of the intensity of Naples, but now I realised I was wrong: it was as intense as ever. The night of Saturday 14 December was la notte bianca, a typical Italian phenomenon. There’s live music on every street corner and piazza and little stalls with sweets are lined up through the ancient streets. However, ‘the white night’ owns its name mainly to the fact that everybody seems to stay up all night, even the youngest ones in the prams. Contrary to last summer, when most people deliberately left the city, Naples was overflowed with tourists this December weekend. Mostly Italian tourists, who combined their Christmas shopping with the joys of Neapolitan music and culture, which by the way is considered a true experience by most Italians themselves. 

But then I walked back to the train station on Monday after having worked all afternoon in ‘my’ bar and an Italian family pretty hysterically stopped me

That’s why at one point, I started to doubt if this was still ‘my’ Naples, the city I got to know last summer and I truly considered home (isn’t it crazy how you already feel like that in only two months?). But then I walked back to the train station on Monday after having worked all afternoon in ‘my’ bar – a lovely spot with peace and wifi somewhere hidden in the small alleys around Piazza Dante – and an Italian family pretty hysterically stopped me to ask for directions. Without the slightest hesitation, I directed them through the labyrinth that Naples is when I suddenly noticed a hint of Neapolitan resonating through my words: I had definitely pronounced that typical sh-sound that Neapolitans use instead of the classic Italian S in certain words. I’m sure that had everything to do with the many Neapolitan men – of all ages – who observe you intensively when you walk by. Right at the moment you’re kind of pleasantly surprised that at least the intense stare is not followed by some kind of comment, that oh so familiar sound starts to swell and reaches your ears: “Sshhpettacolare”, the Neapolitan equivalent of ciao bella. However, it might also be possible that I master that particular sound pretty well because the dialect we speak in Limburg – the southern region in the Netherlands my family comes from – is full of it, contrary to the Dutch language. And there might be even more similarities between Naples and Limburg… I guess it’s just this thing with ‘the south’ of any country.  

Despite the fact we keep each other updated about every little detail of our lives (when I’ve burned my soup or when they’ve bought new socks) thanks to modern technology, I couldn’t wait to see them again

Last Friday, I flew home for Christmas. It was a truly special day because my cousin (exchanged the Netherlands 3,5 years ago for a new life in the UK), best friend number 1 (teaches Dutch children in Vietnam) and best friend number 2 (an abstract artist in London) were boarding their planes exactly the same day. All with the same destination: home. On average we see each other once or twice a year, and despite the fact we keep each other updated about every detail of our lives thanks to modern day technology (when I’ve burned my soup or when they’ve bought new socks), I couldn’t wait to see them again. The one thing I’m looking forward to the most this coming week is definitely the big, extravaganza British-Italian Christmas party my cousin and me are throwing for the whole family. So while I was carrying a one-kilogram panetone (a typical Italian Christmas cake served as dessert in every single Italian household), limoncello and a ‘typical Neapolitan tombola game which is played nowhere but in Naples (in fact it’s super similar to a typical Dutch game) in my backpack, my cousin was super bored during her flight since she couldn’t take a book with her for the very first time in her life as there simply was no space left in her luggage: 40 (!) minced pies filled it all up. I guess our Extravaganza Christmas party can only turn out to be a big hit. Last but not least, I wish you a very merry Christmas. Let is be a Christmas you spent in a place and with people you consider home, wherever and with whoever this might be. Buon Natale a tutti!