Angelus

Some days go a little differently than planned.  Anticipating a crowd, we intended to get up early to attend the papal angelus in St. Peter's Square at noon. (Why is it a square, anyway?  It's round!)  The original plan was to leave by 8.  That didn't work, and we arrived about 10:30.  The square was pretty much deserted, so it was just as well.  We grabbed a seat near the fountains, which turned out to be a good idea, since the water provided a little relief as the sun continued to beat down on the pavement.  Most of the rest of the crowd--what there was--was gathered ahead of us in the shadow the obelisk.  The big crowd--the one we were trying to avoid, based on our last experience attending a papal audience--didn't materialize until around 11:30. The difference between a papal audience and an angelus is that during an audience the pope rides around the square and greets the crowd.  For the angelus, he simply appears at a window and greets the people.  Laura and Scott attended both with John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis, but this was, obviously, a first with the girls.  Based on past experience, we had warned them to expect a short message, repeated in several languages.  Instead, we got about 10 minutes of Italian and a wave.  As Cecily succinctly put it, "THAT'S IT?"  It took some explaining to convince her that a pope in the window is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.  Frankly, I still don't think she is convinced!  We walked home afterwards with the intention of eating a bite then heading out to the Jewish Quarter for the afternoon, but Laura seemed strangely lethargic and Olivia fell asleep upon return, so plans didn't materialize.  We wandered out to grocery shop, only to find everything closed from 12-4.  (The entire area seems to be suffering from Festa della Noati hangover.)  Because we were not out and about, we got a chance email from Carol, our rental agent, asking about dinner plans and inviting us to dinner at her house.  We accepted for 8.  Meanwhile, Cecily and Meredith seemed to be going a little stir crazy, so Dad and the younger girls checked out the San Casimato playground--in the 100 degree heat and the 90% humidity.  That soon sapped the extra energy that had been manifesting itself in roughhousing through the apartment!  We came home, wandered to the grocery store and got ready for our dinner out.  We navigated the short distance to Carol's lovely apartment, and had a homecooked Italian meal.  Afterwards, Carol offered the girls a real treat--a Netflix movie, obtained through means known only to locals.  (We had previously discovered that Netflix, Amazon and Hulu don't work here, so this was an amazing treat.)  The girls decided to watch "The Secret of Roan Inish".  We had just settled in, when Laura started having "interesting" gastric symptoms, that quickly grew urgent.  It was decided that Scott needed to walk Laura home before things got worse (which they did on the way home), leaving the girls to finish the movie.  Scott tucked Laura and her bucket into bed, retrieved the girls, made apologies and headed home, only to find Olivia in the same boat as Laura within a few hours.  As I write this, it looks to be a long night....