Good Friday In Rome

Friday, April 10, 2009 Good Friday in Rome
This morning I am feeling much better…. Think all the oranges that I have been eating are helping my cold to get better. This morning we all three went on the metro to find the apartment that Mary Frances is renting, with her three girlfriends, for the rest of the weekend. She was not quite sure where it was but did know the general location and the address. After we wandered around for awhile she turned on the GPS on her I phone and we were finally able to find the apartment but alas, the owner was not home….. a phone call and a short wait we were soon able to access the apartment and leave her belongings.
Then we caught the metro back to the Main Termini where I decided that after being on the go for the past 4 days I needed some down time….. and they were ready to do a big walk a bout in the city. Said goodbye to them and headed back to my hostel for a nap.
Its now early evening, Martha just called me and said they would be here after they see one more church and then we will decided about going to the Colosseum for Stations of the Cross. It is open to the public with no tickets needed…. So will most probably have a large turnout of people. We had tickets for the 5:30 Mass with the Pope tonight but after the crush of people last night we gave these tickets to other people to use. Right now we still plan to attend the 9 PM Paschal Vigil Papal Mass at St. Peters Saturday night. They have a lot more room in St. Peters than they did in the church Thursday night so we are hoping that the crowd won’t be as bad.

When Martha and Mary Frances returned to the hostel I asked if Kristen, from Australia,
Who was alone could tag along with us to the Colosseum…. This was okay with them so off we went to the Metro. We were surprised when the metro passed the Colosseum stop
And went on to the Circus Maximus stop…. Where we got off. Because of so much being blocked off they had completely closed many areas of the Colosseum since the Pope was due to arrive for the Stations of the Cross. I had thought that we would be seated inside and the Pope would go from station to station around the center of the Colosseum……. Wrong… everyone was outside standing and the Pope had a flaming cross with a canopy setting area way up on the street above the Colosseum near the Roman Forum. We stayed for about an hour watching more and more people arrive when
We realized that the Pope would not even be close to us nor inside the Colosseum so we decided to head back to the metro. I do have the candle & book that they were giving out for people to use during the stations. But our decision was not to get caught in a crush of people again. Mary went back to her apartment and we took Kristin on the metro to see the Spanish Steps and to the Trevi Fountain so she could toss a coin in the fountain. Naturally this called for a gelato to eat while we walked between the two. Then walked back to the Spanish steps and caught the Very Crowded Metro back to the Termini for home.

This was not what I had expected to do today as we had planned for 5 PM Mass in St. Peters and then the Stations of the Cross at 9 PM at the Colosseum....but think that we made good last minute plan changes because of the multitude of people here. And I find that our Wednesday Audience with the Pope would be hard to top. It's a great feeling to know that I am spending Easter Week in Rome.