Roman Roads

Last night, we turned out the lights at midnight in the lovely Bewley's Hotel near the Dublin Airport.  And the alarm went of at 3:00 so we could get to the airport on time for our early flight to Rome.  Needless to say, we're exhausted.  Steph has had trouble getting her phone to connect to wifi today, so is typing this after finally successfully logging onto the computer at the monastery guest house we're staying at.  This means no pictures today, even though we had some very good ones.

After landing in Rome and getting a shuttle bus up into the city and finding a bite to eat, Steph experienced the worst bathroom so far on the trip and sent Ellen across to the train station for a significantly better experience (at the cost of 1 euro to enter it).  We then set off toward Vatican City to pick up our tickets for mass with the pope tomorrow.  We took our time and navigated the Metro underground system just fine, then had to walk at least 6 blocks to St. Peter's--with our suitcases in tow, over cobblestones and through the tourist crowds. 

It was a near miss: the lady at the information booth assured us that the Bronze Doors had already closed for the day, which was where we were to pick up our free tickets for entrance into St. Peter's Square for mass tomorrow.  But Ellen persevered: she went right up to a security guard and asked if there was any way she could go see for herself if it was still possible to pick up the tickets.  After all, she had faxed the Vatican to get these tickets and this will likely be the highlight of her trip.  Sure enough, they let her bypass the security lines for folks who were entering the square today for what seems like part of the canonization process of someone.  We're a little lost about exactly what is/was going on. A few minutes later she came back waving the fuscia tickets!  We're in!  Now we just have to get to St. Peter's Square to go through security before the place fills up tomorrow morning.

After that, we slowly, slowly hauled our suitcases around to the othe side of SPS and perhaps another 6 blocks south to the monastey guest house where we're staying.  But much of the trek was uphill.  And we were both absolutely dragging by the time we found the right street.  Then ascended another, steeper hill to the gate!  When we finally got to our room, we both just lay on the bed for a while, whiped out. 

We've just come in from eating dinner on the sidewalk of a trattoria.  We didn't exactly need the half-litre of the house red wine to help knock us over, but we ordered it anyway.  We decided that the sugar in gelato would help to counteract the effect of the wine.  We are already behind on Steph's expected quota of two gelati per day, but the first was fabulous: melon flavor for Steph, mint with chocolate for Ellen.

Now off to get some deeply restorative sleep before being surrounded by thousands of people during mass with "il papa" tomorrow.