Antibiotics

Tuesday morning we were going to take Wes and Alyssa to the catacombs nearby. However, she had been unable to sleep, apparently for the second night in a row, because she had a bunch of bug bites all over her legs and feet. They were itching, painful, and red. It was too bad that she didn't say something earlier, but she was trying to be a trooper. My wife immediately called Sorella Knies, who had just gone through something similar and had a prescription antibiotic to recommend. Fortunately, Dee was able to walk down to a local pharmacy and get some without a prescription for Alyssa. The pharmacists here have much more latitude than in the US. Dee also got some anti-itch cream. Both seemed to help quite a bit, but Alyssa was still pretty wiped out, so she slept some and they took it easy most of the day. Being ill while traveling is the pits.

Anziani Balzotti e Knies both need new computer monitors, and they called me for advice. It was Amazon Prime Day here, so they had Dee's 27" monitor on sale for a great price: only 120€. I offered to buy one on our Prime account (limit one per customer), since they apparently do not have an account. Unfortunately, my mission credit card got rejected for payment, as did that of Anziano Knies. Very odd. So I put it on my personal credit card and will get reimbursed. I asked him to look into why Amazon and HSBC don't like each other, because this has happened before. He got an answer via email, too late for this order, explaining that we need to set the card up with the church billing address in Salt Lake, not the mission office. Sometime soon I hope to verify that works.

We had a big Taco Tuesday event, with Gabriele as the guest of honor because he is leaving on a mission for England on Wednesday. Unfortunately, my photos from that day are very low resolution. It won't happen again, but I'm sorry to not have a good photo. Ugo noticed the problem when I sent out the photo to the WhatsApp group, and I was grateful to discover it fairly quickly.

We closed the Institute at 4pm so we could leave for Napoli on the train with Wes and Alyssa. It is the first time we have done that on a big day like Tuesday, but it's summer so it is not a big deal. Wes and Alyssa came in late, just in time for us to leave, so she was feeling a little better by then.

The train to Napoli was on time, but the AC was barely working. There were Italians wearing sweaters and sweatshirts (one guy had both). I think they must be a different species when it comes to heat and cold!

We arrived at the hotel -- ibis Styles -- only a few blocks from the train station, by about 6:30pm. It was very nice and modern, in a great location for us. After unpacking and relaxing for a while, we headed out for pizza at a local joint the missionaries love. It was about a 15-minute walk, and Dee handled that just fine, with her walking stick that she really likes. It actually speeds her up quite a bit! She is really getting around great now.

On the way, as we were passing the station, we ran into Peter and Maxwell from our Institute class. After hugs all around, we invited them to join us, but Maxwell doesn't like pizza, and they probably had something else scheduled anyway. Too bad -- it would have been a lively evening with them. The pizza was very good and very filling. We had a few appetizers first, including fried zucchini flowers (one of my wife's favorites). Fortunately we saw the size of the pizzas and decided to get one for each couple and share. Thanks goodness -- by the end were were all stuffed!

It had cooled down somewhat by the time we walked home. The hotel had nice AC, and the rooms were fairly spacious by Italian standards. I gave Alyssa a few of my benadryl tablets, which also help you get to sleep. Hopefully that will be useful for her after some tough days.