Still here

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Hi all

I forgot to mention one very important thing that all Margo's correspondents will appreciate: Star Trek lives in Rome!! Yes, indeed it does!! At the convent, no less!! The doors open like the doors in ST:TNG and can surprise a person by their swooshing sound, exactly like the sounds made by the doors on Trek shows. You can imagine how pleased I am to find the ancient city of Rome, thousands of years of history, AND Star Trek in the same city!! Ah, happiness...

We had a bit of an adventure of our own yesterday. The wind was terrible, blowing down the streets from the Vatican, making it difficult even for us to walk. It literally blew a little old lady over right in front of us. Of course we stopped to pick her up and help her. She spoke no English but could mumble at great speed in Italian. We got her to the public washroom and were trying to find out if she needed a doctor or some kind of medical attention but could find nobody...and we do mean nobody..who spoke any English at all. The washroom attendant was very kind and suggested that we take her to the ubiquitous police, but she did not like that idea one bit. Her poor old legs were so swollen, probably always are, that the attendant took pity on her and led her into a small lift, much like the one in Foothills Hospital by the Good Earth. Les and I joined her and I pushed the button to raise the elevator. It crawled up, literally crawled, about half way and then stopped dead. The mumbling in Italian grew louder. I lowered the lift a few inches, stopped it, and tried again. The mumbling grew even louder. By this time, of course, in the midst of the Italian mumbling everyone could hear Canadian laughter as we two began to lose it. One more try and the Italian grew very loud and the cane began waving furiously within the enclosed space. Finally, I gave up...it was easier to go down and walk up the stairs than try to climb over the top of the elevator!! Down we went. The door was opened by the attendant, a roly poly Italian who, by this time, was laughing almost as much as we were. The door opened. The cane began waving as though it had a life of its own and the Italian grew very loud. We may not have understood exactly what she was saying but we all knew she was some ticked off!!! She went up the stairs like a schoolgirl, undoubtedly fueled by the wind generated by the cane waving. When we all finally ended up side by side, we could hear her say, "Uno, due, tre (pointing at us) Boom!" No kidding: one two three Boom...she was still ticked about that elevator! She kept saying "Venite!! Venite" to us. We could not "Venite" because we had another appointment (wait a sec for that) and we did not know what to do. We didn't want to abandon her in case she had received some kind of injury so we started stopping people left right and centre asking if anyone spoke English. One dear priest tried but could make no sense of the situation. Finally a young woman who had seen us in the washroom came over and began talking with the priest and some of the police who haunt Vatican City came over. Thank God they speak English at some level. They talked with us and with her and finally said, "It is okay. Go. Go." Believe me, when a Vatican cop says "Go", you go.

Now for the other appointment...the nuns had given us invitations to attend a special ceremony at the Vatican in honour of the Swiss Guards so we went to this. Turned out just about everyone staying in every convent in the vicinity must have received invitations because the place was crowded and we could see nothing but the plumes on the tops of the guards' heads. There was lots of talking, some horn blowing, a few drums and a bit of yelling in many languages, none of which we understood. However, when we approached a German priest to bless yet more of the holy hardware we had accumulated, he explained that there were 31 new guards being inducted into the force and swearing their obedience to the Pope. It makes sense they were doing most of it in German. He was a very nice priest. We also met some wonderful Spanish nuns who apologized for not being able to speak anything but Spanish. Interestingly enough, we are finding many people here who speak only one language, usually not English, and they always apologize for not being able to speak fluently to us. Very sweet. We have met some of the handsomest bus drivers in the universe, I am sure, and very kind people who have tried to help us whenever we were figuring out where we were going or how to get there.

That is about it for me (Margo)...Andrea, I really want to know how Naylan managed to "eat the delete key" on the keyboard. That has to be a new one...you only managed crayons up the nose, never eating keys from a typewriter!! Kiss all the grandchildren for me.

Margo

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Comments

[anonymous]

Elevator Music!!!
Hello Leslie, I love the stories... especially the Elevator one as I have had a similar experience (but no cane waving! Ha!). Sounds like a great time, and I look forward to reading some more tales! Take care and God Bless! See you in Calgary... Im sure we will be able to swap stories for hours...as usual! BRENT - Brent