Catching up with the Pope

04:43am The phone goes off, it’s Al, one of my customers, I miss the call and turn off the iPhone and go back to sleep.
05:30am My sleep patterns have normalised, however, my body is still on Canberra time, up again.
06.15am Time to get up and have a shower so I can go for an early morning St Peter’s tour for the first visit of the morning at 7.00am.
06.50am I get all my gear together and head out the door.
06.55am Get to the corner and look down at my shoes, uh oh, I’m wearing shorts, try to pull my shorts down a little which leaves my undies showing like a bogan, not a good look for a grown man, I decide to go back to the apartment to change into Jeans.
07.00am Arrived back at the apartment, can’t get in. Keith’s key is in the reverse side of the door, it won’t open, tried ringing, he has his phone turned off.
07.05am Stopped at the little shop underneath our apartment, came up with a plan; I’ll get to the entrance of St Peter’s and if they ask any questions about my shorts, I will seek forgiveness rather than ask permission, it should work here of all places, at least the shorts came half way down my knees without showing any undies.

07.07am Head off to St Peter’s, get to the bottom of the subway under the road and oh, oh, where did all these people come from?

07.10am This does not look good, people holding flags, people in fluro green caps, lots of priests and nuns, all for the morning tour? I don’t think so, no one seems to be getting in.
07.15am I duck around the crowd and head down to the entrance directly facing the front of St Peter’s. More people, more tour guides, they all have their tickets to get in. Now, there’s an interesting development, there are Italian Police everywhere, pistolas on their sides, Alfa Romeo, pursuit cars, whatever is going down, it’s going to be big. It looks like I won’t be getting into St Peter’s today, no one else is, maybe it’s a protest against the church, wow, this could be ground breaking story, I better stick around.

07.20am Stood next to an Italian film crew, I thought if they could get some good shots so could I. Be there at the right place and right time and you never know what can happen. Took a few shots of the crowd, more people arrived. The Italian film crew left for another film position.
07.30am A lady comes up to me, she asks whether I can speak English, yes, I said. We started chatting and we started discussing the tour and I mentioned I came down to visit St Peter’s Basilica. She said that wouldn’t be happening as the Pope is having an audience today. So that explained why all the chairs were in St Peters. After I finished speaking to the lady I took some more footage.
07.45am Headed back to the apartment and stopped at the side street where more crowds were gathering. A guy comes up to me, asks a question, do you speak English? Yes, I said, and you’re from Australia. Yes he said; Tony from Cairns, I’m Chris from Canberra. Tony came down yesterday morning at 7.00am and walked in straightaway, that was my plan, however, I hadn’t anticipated the big guy making a show the same morning as my tour, neither had Tony for his second tour. We chatted for a few more minutes and I headed back to the apartment to awaken the troops.

07.55am Everyone awake and it was sit down and plan the day’s activity.
08.45am We headed out for breakfast.
09.45am We head for shopping via Piazza San Pietro (front of St Peters)aka St Peter’s Square, just in case the main act might be on. There were organs playing so Keith thought the support act must be on, could it be stairway to heaven, Led Zeppelin? No, we looked up at the Papal screens and it seems the cameras were focused on, wait, the Pope himself! Can you believe it, we managed to jag our trip with possibly catching up with the Pope.
09.50am It’s now a scramble to get a good photo opportunity. The crowds were huge, I kind of feel like Zaccheaus in the New Testament of the Bible, trying to catch a glimpse of Jesus as he’s walking by. He climbs a tree, however, me being 205cm I’m the tree and I need some more branches to climb and there’s no branches. I then remembered some tips from Graham, my old photographic buddy, stick your arms in the air hold the camera down a bit a point it in the general direction; and I did!

I managed to a get few pictures of the general direction of where the Pope was, however, there a couple of shots where you can see his back. It’s not a Magnum quality shot, but rather a Lumix 14 mega pixel shot done with extended arms.

Note to self! When visiting another country check the local calendar for events that can impact your travel plans, if in Rome the Pope will make an appearance every Wednesday, except for summertime where he will be at his summer residence.

Enjoy!