As If It Matters

Arrived in Rome this morning. The immigration officer looked at my passport, “Nicholas Angelo Mele”, and asked me if I spoke Italian. When I said no, he shook his head and muttered. Then he looked at me and said “That’s terrible!” as if I had done something horrifically wrong.

First things first: per Aunt Linda’s directions, we stopped at the airport cafe and had a cappucino. Matt Keller was waiting, and he treated. From there, a miraculous ride to the hotel. Matt had no idea where he was going, so we just drove along and somehow stumbled onto the exact side street where the hotel was.

The hotel is just a couple blocks from the Vatican. 9 am on the last Monday in November and the place was empty. We walked right in, no waiting in line, and headed for the Basilica. Photos coming as soon as I find wifi. Right now it’s just an internet cafe.

A morning of Catholicity, including a miserable climb up the steps to the cuppola (Massey, I’m feeling the WOW in my calves…), incredible weather and an incredible view, and with just a couple hours sleep on the plane I’m ready for a nap.

On the plane I managed to crank out some blog posts on (surpise surprise) poetry, jazz, and LoBV, but they’ll have to wait until I find wifi. That might be the post-nap afternoon activity…

This entry was posted on November 29, 2004 at 8:37 am and is filed under Travels. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.