Italian Roots and Genealogy
This podcast is dedicated to Italian Genealogy, finding your Italian Roots and how to navigate through Italian records. Your host has over 12 years of experience and we will have excellent guests that will discuss a variety of genealogy topics. Please subscribe!
Italian Roots and Genealogy
Embracing Roots: The LoRusso Family's Italian Adventure
Lorraine LoRusso never imagined her sister's volunteer work would lead to an extraordinary reunion with long-lost family in Italy. Join us as Lorraine shares her heartfelt story of tracing her roots back to the charming town of Vallesaccarda. These discoveries, sparked by ship records and naturalization papers, not only rekindled family ties but also brought to life the enduring legacy of her grandfather, who bravely set sail for America in 1914.
We also explore the broader narrative of Italian immigrants in America, highlighting the resilience and sacrifice amidst challenges like language barriers and prejudice. Through Lorraine's personal anecdotes and our engaging discussion, you'll gain insight into the efforts to preserve family heritage and the pivotal role DNA testing plays in connecting the past and present. Listen as we reflect on the evolution of these immigrant communities, from bustling city life to settling in the suburbs, and the impact they had on future generations.
Our journey extends into the sensory delights of Italian cuisine and the vibrant culture of Naples and New York City. Experience the authenticity of Italian culinary traditions, where simplicity and fresh ingredients reign supreme. Hear mesmerizing tales of navigating the bustling streets of Naples, where the skillful dance of traffic paints a lively portrait of city life. Celebrate with us the rich tapestry of Italian heritage, unveiling the stories that continue to shape our cultural identity and personal histories.
Turnkey. The only thing you’ll lift are your spirits.
How To Cook Like a Real Italianhttps://amzn.to/3YkNjTB
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Hi everyone, this is Bob Sorrentino from Italian Roots and Genealogy. Be sure to check out our blog, our YouTube channel and our newsletter and our great sponsors, italy Rooting Phil Italy and Abiativa Casa. And today I have a great guest, lorraine LaRusso. So welcome, lorraine. Thanks for being here.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you very much for inviting me. I'm looking forward to our talk today.
Speaker 2:That's great. That's great and I know you have some great stories, so you know what got you started researching the family.
Speaker 1:Well, it was about 10, probably 15 years ago now that my oldest sister was interested in finding out where our family was from, because we had an idea but we didn't know exactly where my grandparents had passed away and there was really nobody to ask. So she started researching, she volunteered at the National Records Archive in Belmont, massachusetts, and she was able to dig up a lot of information ship records and she was able to dig up a lot of information ship records, naturalization papers. So it started there. And then she had gathered a lot of information and put it aside and when she became ill I kind of took over. I was looking for her papers and found the information and I took over from there. So about 10 years I've been working on it.
Speaker 1:We found out where our grandparents were from each of the communes in Italy and we also found out that we had some family there. So I knew there was some. But with the aging of the people on my side of the family we lost contact. I knew there was somebody my grandfather used to write to, but you know, as teenagers and young adults we didn't really have much interest in it, like many people. And so, yeah, we contacted a company that is based in Italy and they helped us find our family. So, yeah, it was really. It was an amazing time, exciting, and we really enjoyed finding our cousins.
Speaker 2:Yeah, isn't that exciting to find the cousins there.
Speaker 1:The first attempt I made was with one company and I just went there blindly once we knew the town and I drove around with him as my interpreter and we came upon some people who could have been relatives, but we weren't really sure and I didn't have a lot of time, I was only there one day, didn't have a lot of time, I was only there one day. And then about two or three years later I contracted another company, set up an appointment with them, gave them all the information that I had at that point. I accumulated quite a bit and then they went off and went to the town. They asked a lot of questions of people. They found one woman at the gas station who said I know the family you're talking about. They live at such and such a place. He went there, confirmed it was them and then he contacted me to let me know he had found the my cousins wow, that's super, that's fantastic.
Speaker 2:So what? What towns are they from?
Speaker 1:they're from a town we originally thought they were from, a hilltop town called travico, and that's in southern italy, in the province of avalino. But come to find out, uh, travicoico, kind of they split it off and another town evolved in the valley called Valesacarda, and it's halfway between Naples and Foggia, so inland. And they found I found all kinds of records, birth records, marriage records for each of the parents, grandparents, and we found all kinds of information going forward.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's really neat. So now, the cousins that you found, did they know that they had family in Italy, or was it a surprise to them?
Speaker 1:They knew that they had family in Italy, or was it a surprise to them? They knew that they had cousins.
Speaker 2:I should have said America In the States.
Speaker 1:They knew they had cousins in the States but where my grandfather was writing to them once he stopped because he had passed away. He stopped writing. They lost contact so they weren't sure who was left here. When I went to see them, amazingly, I mentioned my grandfather. I showed him pictures, one of the gentlemen who was in the room. He said I'll be right back. He ran home the room. He said I'll be right back. He ran home. He came back. He had on this little piece of paper my grandfather's address when he first arrived in the north end of boston. When that happened it was 1920, so the address was a good 80 years old, 90 years old, and they had kept it in the family wow, almost yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:So how old was he when he, when he, when he got to the north end?
Speaker 1:my grandfather was uh 32 so, oh, so he was.
Speaker 2:He was pretty old when he got, he was older.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he was older, he had. He had just finished um serving in the Italian Army. He had seen enough of the war and he found, with his brother, a way to come to the States in 1914. And it was just the start of World War I. And he came to the States and they worked for about a year and then Italy interestingly enough, italy called back all of its sons and said come back to Italy and help us fight this war. And that was where the family split. My grandfather didn't want anything to do with war. He had seen enough of death and destruction. His brother was younger and missed his family and he went back to Italy at that point. So his brother went back to Italy and my grandfather stayed here to Italy and my grandfather stayed here.
Speaker 1:My grandfather helped build New York City. He was a bricklayer, cement worker and laid a lot of the buildings brick buildings, cement sidewalks in New York City with many other Italian immigrants. And then he made his way to Boston and so they wrote back and forth. The family split at that point and my grandfather found a place to live in Boston on Margaret Street in the North End, and his brother went back to Vallecicarta and he raised a family there and they conversed throughout the years. They wrote letters back and forth.
Speaker 1:My grandfather never went back to Italy. He wanted to leave the past behind. He made an effort to integrate into American society, which didn't always go smoothly. Both my grandparents on my father's side did not speak English. They were not literate in Italian either. They never went to school when they were in Italy, which was common in the south of many families and so they were in farming when they were there, tenant farming. So they lived with a family who owned the land and they worked for him. But when they came here to the United States they settled in Boston, massachusetts, and found a job that he could do. He was a chauffeur, and my grandmother stayed at home. She had four sons. They had all gone to war and one of them did not return. He was killed in action in France.
Speaker 1:My mother's side of the family was from San Sozio, which is about five miles from Balasacarda, and my grandmother that lived there. She came to America when she was 17. She came to America when she was 17. My grandfather who lived there. He came to America in his 30s. He was about 33. He was already married. He married in Italy and he came to America and settled in West Virginia, became a coal miner, didn't like that line of work at all and found some family of relatives that he could live with in Boston. And that's how my grandparents all met up. So all four of them lived in the North End and, interestingly, my eternal grandparents lived at the bottom of Margaret Street, number five, and my maternal grandparents lived at the top of Margaret Street at number 26. When they both moved, all grandparents moved to Boston. They lived on the same street.
Speaker 1:My mother and father were about six months apart in age, my mother being older. She was born in March, my father was born in October. They were lifelong friends, living on the same street, playing in the street together. They went to the same school, the street together. They went to the same school.
Speaker 1:My mother went to vocational school North Bennett Street, vocational School in the North End to learn what we call home economics, how to keep a house, cooking, cleaning, all of those you know how to do clothes. And she got a job at a factory in Boston, right down the street from where she lived, sewing men's army pants for the world war, the world war ii. She used to sew all the pockets into the pants and then it was piecemeal. So she would do pockets all day and she would do hems all day and they pass it on to the next person. The next person would sew the next piece of belt loops.
Speaker 1:Whatever had to be done, my father went on to Boston English High School and graduated high school and then got a job for Firestone. Got a job for Firestone but when the war opened in December 1942, the US was dragged into World War II and my father enlisted. My mother and father were engaged to be married. They married on September 10th 1944, during the war. On one of his leaves, but unbeknownst to them, three days before they got married his brother was killed in action and 20 days after they got married her brother was killed in action. So they have a lot of common things in common, both good and not so good, but they lived the rest of their lives together happily married.
Speaker 1:My father was so devoted and they raised four of us. So I've always felt this obligation to find out where are my cousins, what happened to that family? And that drove me to ask more questions and try to find some answers. And I did. I was really pleased in 2016, I got my Italian citizenship, so I was very pleased with that, that I finally kind of recognized my grandfather for his effort, coming to America, starting a new life, and I felt like, sorry, I'm a little emotional. I felt like I was paying him back or recognizing what he did for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's fantastic. That's that's great. And, don't worry, I understand the whole emotional thing. When I was over there I was crying all the time. My wife says you got to stop crying.
Speaker 2:But you know it's interesting that you mentioned you know the, that you know they were sewing right down the street and everything, cause I grew up, you know, in New York city and you know the, that you know they were sewing right down the street and everything, cause I grew up, you know, in New York city and you know, up until I guess the eighties or something like that, they were still making clothes there and everything like that. It's so sad that all of these things are gone now, um, but I'm, I'm, I'm interested in when did your um grandparents grandparents pass away? Because the reason I ask is I was close with um anthony riccio, um who who interviewed a lot of people in the north end, you know, in the in the early 70s, and it's just the stuff that he did is just a great testimony to the people that came over you know, it's nice to have those records.
Speaker 1:Uh, I, I've been finding more and more information online too about, you know, different um prejudices against the italians when they came to this country and, um, I, I don't think it was very easy for them because they didn't speak english, but my, you know, when my parents went to school, they they obviously were English-speaking and came home and we did try to teach them a little bit. My grandparents passed away. My grandfather actually passed away in tomorrow would make well 1967. Would make um well 1967. So, uh, 20, 50 years ago, 50, almost 50, 60, almost 60 now, yeah, 60 years ago, and my grandmother was in the 1970s um, they were not in good health. They never had access to any kind of health care that was of any quality uh, but your, but your grandmother.
Speaker 1:She still lived in the north end at that one, at that time, or she had no when my, when my cousin, when my uncle uh, their son uh, was killed in action in france, anthony uh, larusso, he he has a plaque on Margaret Street at the bottom of the hill and Anthony Carlito has a plaque at the top of the hill on Margaret Street. When he died he was buried in France and it took them four years of letter writing to the US Army and to the people in France to retrieve his body the US Army and to the people in France to retrieve his body and they were able to exhume his body and ship it back here to the US and he's now buried peacefully at Forest Hills Cemetery in Roslindale. But once that happened, the Army pays a death benefit and my parents had all been working. So they pooled their money and they bought a house in Somerville, massachusetts, about 1948. And they lived out their lives there.
Speaker 1:So they were frequently. I mean, it was only a five miles to Boston they were frequently in the North End. They went to church there, they shopped at Hay Market. They did all their business there. The bank was there. So they were there very frequently and then once the grandchildren came, they were more staying at home taking care of the kids. They watched us grow. There was an elementary school right across the street from where we grew up and they used to watch us out the window to make sure we crossed the street and come home safely. In those days there was no worries. So yeah, they lived their lives out in Somerville.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's nice. That started happening, people started going to the suburbs and all of that. Have you done DNA at all?
Speaker 1:I did. Yeah, ancestry, I did my DNA, but I can't get anybody in my family to do it.
Speaker 2:I know I have some cousins who did it. My brother and sister wouldn't do it. I wish I had asked my mother to do it and the two trips to Italy not the first one because I didn't think about it, but the second one. I said I should bring some test kits there and see if I could get some people to do it, because they don't do dna over there.
Speaker 2:they're not oh, that's a good idea yeah, yeah, I wish I, I wish I had done it. I still have it at the back of my head to do it that's a good.
Speaker 1:That's right. So you would get a kit and bring it with you to italy.
Speaker 2:Yeah bring a kit, let bring it with you. And then, uh, and then I think, um, I think you have enough time to probably ship it. I know there's some sort of limitation on it, because what they say, the more people that do it. I actually did it with Living DNA also when they started up, because they're based in Europe and I figured, well, maybe I'll get more hits, but no, they don't do it. That's a good idea.
Speaker 1:That's a good idea. I like that I.
Speaker 2:I might do that next time I go yeah, yeah, because, again, like I said, they say, the more that, the more samples that you have, the the better it works. Um, I mean, I found. I mean I found a few distant ones through a living DNA, but not that many. And my wife, on the other hand, she's her father's from Puerto Rico and she's got tens of thousands of cousins from Puerto Rico. I mean I think every Puerto Rican person in the United States has done a DNA test. Oh, really, oh, she's got so many, it's like, and even with living DNA, she has a lot more than me, that's for sure. And so now, when doing the research, was there anything that you found that was, like you know, surprising or amazing?
Speaker 1:um, well, um, in doing the research for I, I think the best story was when you know how the family split. That really solved a lot of the issues I had with. Well, if they both came to the us, why did he go back? You know, that was a major question in my head, and once I found that out, I also was able to ask the family in Italy a lot of questions about the history, because when I went there, you must know Italian, know Italian.
Speaker 1:When the house falls down because of an earthquake or is destroyed somehow, they don't take that house and rebuild it like we would in the US. They just build beside it, at least in this town that I was in. And so they still have my grandfather's house, although it had been demolished with earthquakes. It was still there, part of the walls were there, it was all stone, and so my cousin, my first cousin he told me that what they used to do was live in this hillside and all of the farmland was in the valley, so they would walk down the hill to the farms, do their farming for the day, and then they would find a stone in the farm and carry it up the hill to where they wanted to build a house. So over time, every time you go down, do your farming, bring a stone back. You know there'd be 5, 10, 15 people bringing stones back and they put them in a pile and then they would start building the house. So over time, all of these stones would make its way back up the hill where they wanted to build a house. And and so he said, that's the way they built my grandfather's house with his family, my grandfather, his brother, parents. They were all farmers and they had this little patch of land that the owner had and they allowed them to build a house in this clearing and it was just a very simple stone house. It hadn't. You couldn't even imagine how simple it was, but it was. It was a house they lived in. So we uncovered little stories like that, the fact that they had kept even though my grandfather was long gone, they kept his address. You know that attachment to somebody in the US they didn't know was. You know this address that they had.
Speaker 1:I also found out that they were good repair mechanics. They knew cars inside and out. They wanted to know what kind of car I drove. They all drove Mercedes. They thought that was the best car in the world so they could take an engine apart, put it back together. They they had farms, but not as big as in the past.
Speaker 1:They had a vegetable patch, they had some fruit trees and the amazing thing about that is they eat in season. So whatever they have either stored or was available in the vegetable patch is what we had for dinner, which I found amazing Because after about a week there, four or five days that I spent with them, I felt totally different, not eating all that processed food. It was so I said you know it's subtle, but I really feel a difference. All their food was fresh. All the women were in the kitchen making handmade pasta for us to eat at lunch and dinner. Their pizzas were handmade, they made. They had rabbits, chickens which they would make these kind of fillets, chicken fillets or rabbit fillets for meat and any vegetables he had. When I went last March he had onions already in the ground and apricots were coming out. He had a huge bundle of hazelnuts that they would eat, but everything, everything handmade, everything from the you know, from the ground very little. They would go in the morning to get their coffee at the local cafe.
Speaker 2:They call it a bar, yeah.
Speaker 1:But everything else was made in the house.
Speaker 2:I know that's the thing that I found amazing and there's so matter of fact about it. Like, doesn't everybody do this? You know when we went to the town and everything was homemade, you know the ham and the cheese and all that kind of stuff, and yeah, it is different. And you know, even when they make, when they make pastas and stuff like that, they make it very simple. There's only a few ingredients that they put in there. It's not like here with the whole 15, 20 different things.
Speaker 1:No, no, and that's the thing. Their pastas were flour, water and an egg and that's what we'd eat. They'd make different shapes, uh, different you know, uh, textures, but it was. It was very simple as nothing you know. Contrast that to the north, where it's a lot. You might get raviolis, you might get a stuffed um, although they did do a stuffed like a pierogi, uh, pierogi, they used to stuff like a ravioli, but they didn't call it a ravioli and I don't recall the name of it. But they did have one stuffed one that they did when I was there. They were getting ready for Easter, so they were doing a little bit fancier.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this year, this year I mean, we don't have a lot of space for a big giant garden, but this year I I planted some, you know, san Marzano tomatoes, and plum tomatoes, and the and the eggplant, and uh, you know, I I peeled them and then, you know, uh, put them in the blender and then and froze them, but it tastes different. You know, it tastes different, it doesn't taste like it came out of a can, that's for sure. It's just fresh. You know it's got a fresh taste to it.
Speaker 1:And you know it's funny. You say it because, yes, it does taste different and we think it should taste like what we bought in the can. But no, it should be. The gold standard is the fresh and everything should try to imitate that. But we try hard to, you know. Oh, we had that terrific pasta dish at, you know, olive Garden. I want to make it at home. No, no, no, no, that's not the gold standard. The gold standard is home cooking.
Speaker 2:My wife asked. She asked for cheese on the seafood pasta and the guy flipped out. I said she said I just wanted to see what he would do. I thought we were going to get thrown out of the restaurant.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and Italians don't apologize for that, you don't get it, sorry. Like exactly, yeah, no, no, no. Cheese Salad dressing, cheese salad dressing, salad dressing that you get oil and vinegar. You don't get russian ranch blue cheese and they don't care. It's like you get olive oil and vinegar.
Speaker 2:You can, you know, put a little salt and pepper and, if you like, and that's it so and we were, we were, uh, when we were in Bali, we, we, we got this, uh, the antipasta, you know, like the ham and cheese and all that, and it tastes nothing like the crap we have here.
Speaker 1:I mean, so good, it's just so good, very, very fresh, very fresh and um no preservatives. Um, it's just really different.
Speaker 2:And then, and they don't need, like you, one guy he explained to me. He said you see the the, you know the fruit stand, and I said yeah, and he said he doesn't. He doesn't need a refrigerator, he gets everything that morning, he sells it. The next day he goes and gets more yeah, yeah, it's really.
Speaker 1:Uh, it's very different and you know it was probably like that here at one point. And then you know food industry took over and now we end up with processed, highly processed food with lots of preservatives well you know, even when we were growing up, you couldn't get everything all year round no, no, that's true, that's true the thing that flips us out is is the milk.
Speaker 2:Remember. Milk used to last two, three days. Right now it lasts forever. It tastes awful. Who knows what it's doing to our insides.
Speaker 1:I guess for us it doesn't matter that much anymore, but my father was a milkman for a little while and, um, he used to be one of those guys who would go door to door and deliver the milk and he'd bring home at only at Christmas time they allowed him to bring home an extra gallon of milk and an extra gallon of eggnog, but it was processed, it wasn't fresh. But there it's just so different with, you know, everybody going to the market that morning, buying what you need to make dinner and taking care of it, and it's not like you have to travel 10 miles. I mean the villages all have shops right there. You know it's not a long distance to travel. To travel, I mean when we lived in Somerville my mother did all her food shopping at Haymarket Square in Boston in the North End, and she would go take me with her.
Speaker 1:We'd go and do all of our shopping. She'd finish with all of her friends, visiting her friends that were still living there. We'd have lunch with one of her friends who owned a sub shop, so she'd make us subs for lunch. And then we'd go home and we'd carry three or four of those leather shopping bags full of fruits and vegetables and sometimes meats and we'd carry them home on the train back to our place. But, um, she did this every saturday. You know it's every. It wasn't once a month. Now you know you don't have the big deep freezer chest that you could freeze stuff. We'd go every week and take the train in and take the train back.
Speaker 1:It was just something you did it's not you know anything, uh unusual now remember that the old refrigerators, the freezer was like this.
Speaker 2:It was small. What did you have in there? Orange juice maybe, and the refrigerators in?
Speaker 1:Italy are still small. You won't find a 20 or 30 square cubic foot refrigerator. They're very small. They're like probably equivalent to our. I would say seven, five to seven, maybe ten, uh, cubic feet, and that's it. It's very small, but it's all they need.
Speaker 2:That's all they need yeah, no, because it's like you were saying that you know everything. Everything is, uh, fresh, um, and and even you know the other thing that we found um different. Like we, we have an italian bakery. We could walk there. It's we're lucky, um. But you know even the pastries over there, they're much more subtle, they're not as sweet, um, um, you know they're, they're more flaky. So even you know, even the stuff that you used to over here, when you get it over there, it's a, it's a different taste, because they don't they don't put tons and tons of sugar in everything no, no, they don't.
Speaker 1:It. It's yeah, it's totally, totally different I'm getting hungry now I am too, and, and, and, even the espresso um oh, naples has the best espresso.
Speaker 2:I don't care what anybody says, they have the best coffee.
Speaker 1:You know, here if I get an espresso I am high as a kite with the caffeine I'm like jittery jumping around there. When I have one it's just a nice lift, it doesn't get me like overstimulated. So again another difference. You know, I don't know what the coffee beans are that they use, but that even their espresso is is much nicer yeah, maybe it's just a yeah.
Speaker 2:Maybe it's the way they, the way they um do the beans, or something like that, the way they roast them, or something like that yeah um, yeah, we, we, um, we did a couple of trips to the south the last couple of years and then next year we, we're going to go to the north because we've never been to florence or venice or any of those places. So, uh, you know, as much as we love the south, because that's where we're basically from we kind of feel we have. I was to Milan a couple of times for work, but that's like being in New York, milan.
Speaker 1:I tried them. The first time I went to Italy was in 2016, when I got my citizenship. I got my passport, I wanted to use it. So I went to Italy for the first time and I took a tour. I did a Parola tour and I they're out of New Jersey. I went, landed in Rome, we went to Naples, sorrento, pompeii, venice and Florence and it was just like a survey of all the big cities. I wanted to see what it was about and then I thought I'll take some notes, mental notes and figure out where I want to go back and see more of. But I never got.
Speaker 1:We were supposed to on a itinerary, we were supposed to go to Pisa and we never made it there. The tour guide canceled it. So I need to go back to Pisa. I tried to go to Milan in March, but that didn't work out.
Speaker 1:I want to go see the Last Supper, the painting, but Florence had a very different feel than Rome. Rome is, I feel it's like, more historic. There's a lot of history, ancient buildings. It was beautiful, absolutely beautiful. Florence was more. You can feel the Renaissance vibe Florence had. You know. The Uffizi Gallery was beautiful. The river was really pretty. There's lots of overlooks, to the Duomo from the other side of the river, and it was really pretty too.
Speaker 1:Venice we were only there for a quick day. We had lunch at a restaurant, we did a gondola ride, and it was a very unique city, very unique, and I liked the way they told us about the history of Venice, with, you know, building the whole city on these ancient pilings, tree trunks and the canals that go through, all of the canals, that go through all of the, from the largest river to the smallest river, to the smallest canal, and how they maintain them. So it was very, very, very unique. Of course, the glass blowing. At Murano, we went to a demonstration and I got these beautiful glass goblets, hand-painted in gold and platinum. They're beautiful, um, I don't, I don't use them, they're just for, uh, I consider them a work of art, and, and so we were, um, exposed to that, uh, and venice had a lot of sites too. You know, uh, was it saint, uh, saint marco saint mark, yeah, saint mark.
Speaker 1:Saint marco, yeah, saint mark's uh church is there the bridge of sighs um? There's a lot of sites to be seen there too oh yeah.
Speaker 2:So yeah, we're gonna do. We're gonna spend like, uh, a few days in milan and they take, you know, trips from there, and then a few days in Bologna and take trips from there.
Speaker 1:And a few days in.
Speaker 2:Florence and take trips, take trips from there. I mean, I have ancestors from Florence and places up there going back like a thousand years. So, you know, I'm going to haven't told my wife yet yet but I'm gonna sneak in some of those castles when we're there. The one I really want to go to is, uh, um the, uh the daste, uh, uh castle, um, because that's supposed to be really really pretty neat.
Speaker 2:Onto is supposed to be a really nice place, but, uh, yeah. So we're interested, you know, because the south is the south, as you know, is drier than the north and and, uh, the food is different. So, uh, it should be interesting to get a different spin on it. Um, our first trip was almost 30 years ago now, but I didn't know anything. So we just went to rome for a couple of days and then we spent. We spent a week in Sorrento, which was, um, really nice and relaxing, except for when you were trying to cross the street, when everybody was going home for siesta, but then it was a little dicey, but other than that, well, that's how Naples strikes me.
Speaker 1:Naples is um, it's fast-paced. We were right downtown by the train station. You really take your life in your own hands to cross the street.
Speaker 2:Well, they kept telling us because we were doing an ancestry thing, we had somebody with us taking us around to some of the places. They were like you just go, they'll stop, they'll stop. I grew up in New York City, I worked in New York City, so you know crazy traffic. It was strangers too. But you lose it, you know. You lose that after a while. You know you get a little, you get a little less bold. Then I said to her we just have to, we have to make believe we're back in New York and just go. But the funny thing in Naples we found was don't try and get out of the way of the Vespas, they'll work around you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what I've heard. Just walk across the street straight ahead and they'll go around you. If you start trying to play dodgeball, somebody's going to get hit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, exactly Exactly that's what we found out. I mean, they're really pretty good drivers. Especially we had a guy who had a big Mercedes van and he could maneuver those little tiny streets. I don't know how he even did it.
Speaker 1:Well, I agree with you they are very good drivers because for all that traffic and congestion and craziness, I never saw one accident.
Speaker 2:So no, no, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right, you're right. Well, lorraine, this has been a lot of fun for sure. Great stories. I appreciate you taking the time well.
Speaker 1:Thank you, I appreciate it too. It was fun to reminisce and talk about my experiences in Italy. I appreciate.
