HOLY POPE!!!
We sat, or folded you might say, into our Trenitalia seats, incomplete with only a lumbar and headrest that bent the upper half of your back into an uncomfortable C with your chin resting on your chest. No amount of squirming could make the seats bearable for our overnight from Venice to Rome. Not until the man and the woman who was “chewing her boyfriend’s tongue,” as Bryan so well put it, left were we able to catch a wink by contorting ourselves into oblong fetus shapes accordianed across two seats or dangling over the aisle like a clothes line.
We arrived into Rome, disembarking at the wrong terminal where I reserved a seat to Bari for the wrong day before we headed to Roma Termini only to find out that not a single bed was empty in this city today. After an hour of unsuccesful wandering, we gave up and headed for the Sistine Chapel. The line wrapped around to St. Peter’s Square. Parades of smiling people with signs in Italian and groups of boys playing guitars while girls danced in circles around them stretched through the streets and into St. Peter’s Square. A nice young man with a yellow vest told us that the Pope would be speaking today, so we figured we’d stick around to see. 5:30pm, the boy said, so we headed off.
At about 1:30, we returned. We stood in a sweaty crowed, scarfing down our gelatos and joking until the sun grew too intense. Firenzians gave us hats because they were concerned for our skin’s well being under the Italian UV rays. At 2 they were scheduled to begin allowing people into the Square, but we soon became aware of a bountiful number of blue tickets in the hands of our fellow crowdmates. When the gates opened at 2:15, the little old German women standing nearby rushed the gates, and I was swept up in a current of Catholic excitement. I was carried through the gate before they shut it on Kara and Bryan and the rest of the crowd behind me. I’d made it in without a ticket. Another rush and Kara was through. But in the third rush, Bryan, the only Catholic in the three of us was caught.
Kara and I gave up the wonderful opportunity of being stuck in a squirming mush of little old Catholic ladies chattering in German and Italian to check out the Parthenon with Bryan. But I let my stubborness take over. I was determined to see that man with the funny white hat appear at St. Peter’s Square. No amount of antireligious protest from Kara was going to stop me (a chica raised by scientists) from seeing the Pope. At 5:30, my stubborness paid off. We found ourselves a place among the masses and readied our cameras. Late as usual, the papal music began, such as pop songs in English about the radio, etc. The Pope’s caravan crept along the street in front of St. Peter’s Basilica. As he drew closer, the crowd went wild, shouting, waving banners, raising their cameras high over their heads, trying to catch a glimpse or a touch of the Pope. I began to wonder where the moshpits would be forming.
The Pope was dressed in red for the event, his white hair gleeming above the crowd in a stylish bihawk. As Bryan observed, and I agree, “He’s so cute!”
It wasn’t until much later that we discovered the reason for the fuss… Pentecoste!
NOTE: if you’re going to Rome, check whether or not it’s a Catholic holiday, and if it is, book well in advance.
Tags: 4. Europe, 4C. Italy, Pope
Drea
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