Day Eight - In Rome

It was an EARLY get up (by comparison to all of this past week – LOL) and we all dressed up with the full intention of being “up on stage” near the Pope for the “Papal Audience”. Sadly, the grime of Rome ended up on the girls shoes for the 2^nd time in a week and while sitting on the bus, it wound up ALL OVER the girls formerly-white tights. Argh. How does this happen?! We get OFF the bus and realize that we’re going to be there with over 25,000 of our nearest & dearest neighbors… and based on the color of the tickets, we are NOT going to be up on stage with ANYbody (We thank God for small favors, there were tv cameras and who needs the girls’ dirty tights flashed before the world?)

The obvious problem is that the seating is on a “First Come First Serve” basis… and we were no where NEAR “first”. There ARE advantages to having a MIL that grew up playing “Dodge Car” … and knows how to “negotiate” what she wants… so we began pushing forward through THOUSANDS of people under the assumption that the Swiss Guard will see the kids and think, “OH, why YES of COURSE, we’ve been waiting for cute kids like this, please come up on stage”. DH is getting more embarrassed by the moment, FIL is getting ready to turn back… I’m hoping people don’t realize who I’m with… and then suddenly, a Swiss Guard says, “No, there are no more seats in here” turns to the side, and then waves us in to the front section. EGAD!! This Italian “pushy-ness” WORKS!!!

We head forward in the front section to look for seats (not the “on stage” front section, lest anybody think we were as successful as the widow in Scripture). There were at LEAST a thousand people just in THIS part of the “front section” and people from all around the world are very enthusiastic with flag waving & scarf waving and even crutch waving with flags AND scarves (LOL) and we’re inching forward with my MIL asking if there are available seats. We get an answer, “yes, there’s ONE seat”, so we decide that MIL will sit there with one of the kids… then another answer of a 2^nd seat (FIL will sit there with Sweetie)… DH & I announce that we’ll just stand in the back with the remaining two kids… when another person announces they have a seat (for Doodlebug & I)… and finally a nice man from Minnesota announces that they have 2 more seats available, perfect for DH & DS1. We’re not “together”, but we’re within earshot of each other … and now we have only 45 minutes or so before it begins.

MANY different countries were represented & I realized how much Spanish I remembered when the Spanish nuns next to me began asking about the kids, and pulling out little wrapped candies, & cookies to be handed out to the children (why didn’t I think of that myself??? All we’d brought was lunch… and it was only 9:30 in the morning?) They were VERY excited b/c there was a Spanish nun from the mid-19^th century that was canonized earlier this week (along with 4 other men from elsewhere) and all the crowd seemed to have their favorite.

The Pope finally arrived … in the Pope-Mobile, of course, and he traveled all around the St. Peter’s Square waving to everyone and when he arrived back at the front, Rachel announced “They’re PUSHING him up on STAGE?!” and sure enough, the Pope-Mobile was driving UP the ramp to the stage where he exited and waved some more.

What next ensued proved how multi-national the ceremony was to be. Nearly everything was done, and then re-done in 6 languages (German, French, English, Spanish, Russian & Italian)… so 90 minutes later, all we could say we’d understood entirely was the reading of Psalms & the “sermon”. We then all “sang” the “Our Father” in Latin (Boo-Boo REALLY liked that part, he’d been studying it for an hour) and then it was over.

Given the crowds, we opted to hand out lunch to the kids and just stay in our seats… and half an hour later much of the crowd was still there and even the Pope was waving his final farewell. We rounded Sweetie & Boo Boo up from feeding their bread crusts to the pigeons and decided the girls deserved a restroom break since they’d asked to go at least 90 minutes before.

This is where Universal Truths are proven. Even in a place like Vatican City, there is NO LINE for the men’s room, and LITERALLY 85 people in line for the ladies room. 85 people (yep, we counted)… and we waited anyway. The girls had been patient, and were continuing to be patient… so we waited. The men went in, the men exited… they waited for us… they waited some more… they came over and told us they’d get in line for us for St. Peter’s… they came back saying how much the line had shrunk since they’d gone over… MIL said she was going to go over TO the men’s room & run it over (not uncommon here – in fact it happened while we were at the Palantine Hill Museum – the girls couldn’t stop giggling) … and we were informed that the men’s room attendant was prepared for such an assault (it was attempted twice while the boys were in there) and could easily take us on- LOL!


Restroom visit completed (nicest public facility we’d seen in the last week) and we ventured into St. Peter’s… LOVELY as always (the kids were QUITE impressed with the Michelangelo’s Pieta) and then off souvenir shopping. Each child chose a trinket or two & we came home to begin packing.

Off to the cruise tomorrowJ.