Posted on 08/14/2005 10:44:22 AM PDT by NYer
I'd like to back track for a moment to discuss the whole process of getting to the Vatican for the audience and some of the unique moments that you don't necessarily read about in books.
As you'll recall, I arrived in Rome late on Tuesday (more on that story later -- I promise it's worth the wait). I didn't sleep well that night, never do when I'm in a strange place for the first time. I booked my "ticket" for the papal audience through Expedia.com when I bought my ticket. Expedia basically acted as a go-between for a day tour company out here called Appian Line. According to my voucher, I was supposed to call them 3 days in advance of the event to confirm my reservation. You all know what happened to me over the past three days, so you'll understand why I never got a chance to call them during their business hours to confirm my reservation. However, I noticed that the hotel also offered "papal audience" tours. So I figured if worse comes to worse, I'll just go with whatever group the hotel arranges. So Wednesday morning I wake up at about 6am, hit the snooze button till 6:30, and just as I'm ready to hop into my hotel room's strange-looking Italian version! of a shower, the phone in my room rings. I was tempted to just ignore it; nobody I know would call me here. But curiosity got the better of me and I answered it. I hear the following words in broken English, "Madam, bus here for you."
A moment of silence on my end. "Ah, what bus?"
"Tour bus. Here in ah fivah minutes, ah ten minutes."
"Um... ah... Okay! Be right there!"
I know I broke some sort of a record that morning. In ten minutes I was stepping onto that bus -- dressed, cleaned and ready to rock 'n roll. Turns out that my hotel is the first pick-up stop for that morning. We then ride around town gathering folks from other hotels. I'm still somewhat impressed that they were able to track me -- especially considering that I was not staying at the hotel I originally booked (as I said, more on that later).
I got a nice little morning tour of Rome just waking up. Beautiful! The gal in charge of leading us appeared about 18 and could speak limited English and no French or German. But she somehow made do with hand gestures.
(On a side note: I think this young woman was a perfect physical embodiment of the Italians interesting and diverse genealogy. At a quick glance you might guess that she's Puerto Rican or Hispanic, but then you notice that she has blue-grey eyes. A very pretty and kind of startling color. Perhaps this is what Virgil meant when he described the "grey-eyed Athena". For all my fellow Tolkien fans, it put me in mind of Tolkien's "grey eyed" and black haired Numenoreans. JRRT never hid the fact that Numenor at it's prime as well as Gondor was meant to be figurative "Holy Roman Empire". When he finally had the opportunity to visit Italy as an old man, he wrote that it "looked just like Numenor"!)
Our grey-eyed guide got us all to the Appian Line office where a fleet of about five or six buses were assembled for day trips to various cities. Today they were booked solid for the Papal Audience "tour" and from what I gathered this is a regular occurance. They had to reassign the buses to accomodate the large papal audience group. They filled up 2 big (BIG) buses and two more shuttle buses.
Once we're on our way, our tour guide passes out little Appian Line stickers for us to wear so that they'll know to give us a ride back. Our guide is an elderly Italian gentleman wearing a wool blazer and a hat in this heat! And he's not sweating! His great talent as a tour guide is that he's fluent in English, French, German, Italian, and Portugese (sp?). He comes up to each of us and asks what language we speak and what hotel we're staying at. As we approach the Tiber, he recites his little speech in the various languages informing us that we're now "crossing the Tiber" into the Vatican.
As we pass by the Columbus Hotel he informs us that this is where the buses will pick us up at 12:30 after we all return from the audience. The implication is, of course, that we will in fact all lose sight of each other at some point.
He also reminds us that if we bring holy articles like rosaries with us, the Pope will bless them when he gives us his blessing. With that in mind, he instructs the driver to stop at the Catholic shop located at Piazza Pio XII right before Piazza San Pietro (alright, alright I know I sound pretentious using the Italian names, but there's truth to the old adage "when in Rome"; it makes the whole experience easier if you can ask for directions using the same place names as the Italians).
Piazza Pio XII appears to be the unofficial crossroad for pilgrims on their way to the Papal Audience. Street vendors are set up to sell water and drinks and sandwiches. A small fleet of single horse drawn carriages await the opportunity to give two Pilgrims a romantic tour around the Vatican (note to Petronski and cyborg--you two totally want to do this!).
We see the free market system at its finest and simplest here. Inside the shop, you have a much wider variety of overpriced rosaries, saints medals, and other religious items of varying quality. Some of it is exquisite, some of it is kitsch. Like, for example, a "peace medal" that looked like it was designed at the Hague. The salespeople keep trying to push them on people--probably because they overstocked on 'em--but no one seemed all that interested.
I knew exactly what I was looking for and didn't waste my time. I asked for rosaries -- lots of them! I have lots of family and Freepers' requests to fill. I asked the price of some rosaries with wooden beads. They weren't flashy; they were simple and natural and good for prayer. A whole bundle of them was twisty-tied together; so when I asked, "how much?" and she said, "30 euro," I naturally asked, "oh, you mean for the whole bunch?" She looked at me as if I had just declared to her my true identity as the Grand Duchess Anastasia. (I've ben getting this look a lot lately.) Ah, no, she informs me, they are 30 euro a piece. Oookay then, let's try something a little more in my price range. We settle on another wooden bead rosary for less. I buy 20 of them. Then all of the sudden a few Irish and German and British pilgrims realize that this Lebanese chick just scored the best deal on decent looking reasonably priced rosaries. As I walked away I heard a British guy saying, "Can I! see the same one that that young lady bought?"
Of course, step right outside the door and you see the street hawkers with the flip down over shoulder box (like those old fashioned cigar & cigarette girls) peddling rosaries and you name it. They have little rosary cases with Papa Ratzi's face on them. From what I overhear, it would seem that for some people JPII is still the pope. I overheard a British lady asking for a papal rosary or medal or something, and when the vendor showed her B16, she said, "no, no. I mean, John Paul II."
There seems to be a greater number of Germans than I would have expected -- considering how small the Church in secularized Germany has become. But never the less I see many Germans. And you better believe they're here to see Big Ben and are more than willing to buy items bearing his name and image. In fact, jumping ahead just a bit, I sat next to a very quiet and polite 50ish German couple in the auditorium. They were the antithesis of the chanting and cheering youth. When Benedict finished his address in his native German to his fellow Germans, I noticed that the woman quietly dabbed a few tears from her eyes and looked at her husband. They both smiled at each other and nodded.
But I'm getting ahead of myself again. After the shopping trip, we headed over to the security check. Piazza San Pietro was blocked off so that the only way into the square was through a security check point off to the left (assuming you're facing the square) between two of the columns.
As you might have guessed from my earlier comments, a crowd was gradually amassing and forming a line to enter the security check point. And this is just amazing, folks. This huge line of people shepherded through the security check-point --exactly the same security procedures that we have at our airports (the bag scanners, the security door-way thingy that you have to walk through) and yet somehow they moved us all along in record breaking time. It took about 10 minutes -- 15 tops. They have the Vatican security running like clockwork. Pun intended.
One more side note concerning the Vatican State. This might start a heated discussion, but I've got to say this to get it off my chest. After seeing Rome and the Vatican, I am now in favor of a full force papal monarchy! I am stunned by the amount of graffiti covering Rome. However, the minute you cross over to the Vatican, the graffiti disappears. It's like you've stepped into Oz. Why is this the case? Simple. If you bring a spray can to the Vatican, the Swiss Guards are going to drop kick your behind so fast you'll be leaving skid marks down the Via Conscillione. They should be guarding every monument in the city.
After we are shuffled past security, we made our way to the auditorium -- as we were silently and solemnly directed by the Swiss Guards. I had been chatting with a young couple from Ireland that I had befriended on the bus, and we marvelled at all the young Italian brides and grooms dressed up in full wedding dress and tuxedoes in order to attend the audience and get a special blessing. We noticed that they were being admitted to any area off to the side of the auditorium for a more private audience. We felt they deserved this just for having the strength to endure the heat in those outfits!
You've aready heard my dispatches from the audience room, so all that I'll add to them is that I made it on the Vati-cam briefly by default because I was sitting right between a group of young people from Denver on one side and the group from the Slovak Republic on the other. When these two groups cheered, the cameras panned to them and I think I made it somewhere in the shot -- probably in the bottom right or left corner. Sorry I couldn't do better, guys. Next time you all will have to come with me. And then the camera will definitely pan to us!
After the audience was over, I again marvelled at the Vatican security officers' ability to politely but firmly (and often silently) shoo us all back out into Piazza San Pietro. They'd reach out their arms like a barricade and just slowly but surely shepherd us out of there -- nonverbal communication at its finest. We read them loud and clear, "okay, folks, show's over everybody out. Go get some lunch, go see the museums, go do something but don't do it here."
So I found myself walking back into Piazza San Pietro and admired the blue sky and near blinding bright sun. Then I made my way to the Columbus Hotel to catch my bus back, but not before grabbing a lemon gelato. I sat and ate it on the steps and just smiled.
GipperGal has arrived in Germany and I will post that thread in litle while. Meanwhile ... Enjoy!
bump with lots of love.
My mother, OldTax-lady, remarked on this phenomenon in Morocco ... except all the locals were wearing leather jackets in 90+ heat, and drinking coffee.
No doubt they were also outfitted with the prerequisite 'fez'. Perhaps the heat collects up there?
:)
"If you bring a spray can to the Vatican, the Swiss Guards are going to drop kick your behind so fast you'll be leaving skid marks down the Via Conscillione. They should be guarding every monument in the city."
Last time I was there I had a chance to see sone of those Swiss guys up close and they were all very Germanic and looked as if they were thinking it had been too long a time since they had any actual practice on live targets. I was careful to do just what they said.
Heh, heh.
Ninenot (a student of Sr. Theophane Hytrek, OSF, by the way) is of the same disposition and ethnic background.
There's ALWAYS a good reason to pull out that Heckler & Koch 9mm. You just have to FIND that reason....
Many did wear fezzes (sp?), but I think it's just acclimation. My late Gran would get up at night and switch the air conditioner off in her house, if some wimpy guest had had the nerve to switch it on after she went to bed!
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