Buena Sera
Another late night for me, I was mesmerized by the TV since I could get English channels and watched 2 movies until I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. I paid for it today as I almost fell asleep eating my egg. After 3 regular strong coffees I was ready. We planned to leave for Rome today around noon giving us time to walk around and be able to get to the North American College to pick up our tickets for tomorrows Papal Audience at 3:00 (I like that place, everyone speaks English).
It had stormed hard this morning as I watched another movie while working on the computer and just before we had to leave it stopped and the sun came out. We drove to another city about 12 miles from here to catch the metro at it’s origination point in Laurentina. We drove in and parked right in front and bought our tickets and were on our way.
The subway here is like anywhere else when you get close to the center of Rome, a lot of pushing and shoving and swearing. We had to change lines and even in all the commotion we looked like pros. Sue was very calm, not like the last time we were here. I figured she thought it was better than the mountains and enjoyed the trip.
Our plan worked perfectly and we arrived at the college at 2:50 and had a nice conversation with another couple waiting for tickets. When we left we started back for the subway and looked for a reasonably priced restaurant. We were not leaving until we had some calamari and pizza.
One restaurant we stopped at was so expensive I just laughed. A ½ bottle of house wine was 15 Euro, almost as much as the whole meal we had at Maria’s 2 days ago, so we opted out and finally found a beautiful little ma and pa place away from the tourist trap of the Trevi Fountain.
Editors note: Our advice is not to eat next to major tourist attractions in Rome….just wander over a couple of streets and you can find better food and much better prices.
Full and content we headed for the metro and got on the train for the ride back which took less than a ½ hour and no aggravation of driving the city and parking. Tomorrow morning we leave our hotel at 5:45 to repeat the process. At 6:30 we will meet Marilyn Olson on the platform at the Termini station where we change lines to get to the Vatican. We were told to get there around 7:00 for the best seats, we had done this before and I swore I would never do it again, but it’s Papa Francesco, and the sofa bed is not all that comfortable.
EWTN does air the Papal Audience, 4:00 am Florida time, and I’m sure you will all be up to watch as they drag Susan away as she tries to jump the barricade to get to the Pope if he doesn’t come over and say hello.
She sent him a couple more Facebook posts and tweets, just so he knows where we are sitting and what we will be wearing. LOL LOL. Whomever reads his mail must be roaring by now with laughter from these messages she has sent. They probably have her photo in the hands of all the security people. If you don’t get a trip report tomorrow just check the 6:00 PM news. I may have to take her for a mountain trip if things don’t work out to get her mind off of it.
The greatest thing about these audiences are the blessing he give when it ends. When he imparts this blessing on us it also imparted onto those we love and pray for and for their special intention as if you where all there with us, also whatever religious objects you have with you are blessed. Pretty neat, so tomorrow all of you will get a papal blessing for yourselves and your intentions and I am sure we will read all the intentions we carry as we wait. After, we will have lunch somewhere that has room since the sisters at the college told us that there were at least 60,000 ticketed people will be there.
It’s time for bed, 5 Am comes early; Wish me luck.
Good night and God Bless,
Susan and Tom
