Friday April 11, 1997
We are back to our morning departures. At 9am, we were having breakfast at the hotel, and shortly thereafter taxied it over to the Vatican. First stop on the tour was the Sistine Chapel. There is a big sign outside that says “Please be silent and do not take pictures to preserve the holiness of the room”. Inside the Chapel, there were several hundred people talking and taking pictures and crowding around. Despite the crowd and noise, the Chapel was awe-inspiring – too bad I paid attention to the sign, a Gorn/Sistine Chapel picture would have been great. Oh well. The best part of the early tour was the Hall of Maps that showed all of the Christian areas of the world in the 1300’s. (One of which is emblazoned on a T-shirt I now posses). I picked up Roger a postcard and mailed it so it was postmarked “Vatican”.
From there, we hoofed it back to St. Peter’s Basilica-Square-Pope Motel. I was a bit overwhelmed by the whole experience. When you walk inside, it is like you can feel a presence. The prayer room off the main part of the Basilica felt like it was a T-1 connection to God. I said a few words and asked God to look out for Granny as she recovers, and posed for a picture in front of St. Peter’s statue which everyone was rubbing for good luck. I also was given a big frown by one of the guards after snapping a shot of the Gorn in a beam of sunlight that shone through the top of the Basilica.
We headed back to the hotel and picked up our bags and headed to the train station. From Rome we were off to Florence. Luckily we paid another trip to – you guessed it McDonald’s – the train was simple and had no amenities. The train ride was about 3.5 hours and relatively uneventful. We took a taxi ride to our hotel and discovered that it was strategically placed no where near anything. Oh well. There was no message from Nathan yet, and I was wondering if he was going to make it at all.
I gave up on Nathan after a great dinner, and headed out on my own around 10pm. Inside the disco, I ran into a couple of American couples. One of them was from Denver and was going to San Francisco soon. I gave them a few of my Club passes that I happened to have in my jacket. We all had the same travel guide which failed to mention that that night at the club was “Ladies Night”. Nathan and his friend showed up around 11ish, and confirmed that he called our hotel a few times, but they said we were not staying there. (Apparently he called before we arrived.) We danced and hung out together because Nathan’s friend couldn’t get into this other club we wanted to go to. I finally called it a night at about 3am, but not until the DJ played Jarre’s Oxygene 8 (I believe it was the Sunday Club mix – but not sure). Found a cab with Nathan’s help and agreed to meet again tomorrow.
