Soccer for Papa

Today was all planned out and organized ahead of time. Needless to say, all such plans went directly down the aqueduct after I slept till 10am.

We had planned to start out at Colosseo, which I can only spell in Italian.  When we stumbled across the street, however, the lines were utterly insane. "This is awful, and it's so hot," I said, "Let's try the Vatican." This will go down in history as one of the dumber things I've ever said. "It's crowded and hot, let's try something likely to be far worse."

Apparently the square was hosting a special event, with a Mass of course, for the sports organization here. Every single soccer player, along with all the soccer moms, was present and many were wearing a shirt of some kind that proclaimed their team's adoration of "Papa" (pope) or "Francesco" (Francis). A martial arts school was arranged around a big mat in the center of a closed-off street, and my kids had to watch. I felt so sorry for those kids. It was in the 90s, with broiling sun, and they had to pour water all over their mat to keep them from burning their feet.  For my karate friends: They were doing what looked like a karate form, but they had some different stances and moves, including one where the backs of your hands touch each other in a sort of inside-out-prayer pose (how is that an advantage in a fight?).  They also did a thing where they threw punches forward while stepping backward, which I thought was kind of odd.

Well, the Vatican was closed off for the Papal Punchers and Sistine Soccer Moms, so...how about the Castel Sant'Angelo? It is pretty much next door to the Vatican, which means you only have to walk half a mile to get there. Totally worth the whole clusterf%#k of a morning! What an awesome place. It was built as a tomb for Emperor Hadrian, so I have instructed my family to start planning my kick-ass tomb now. It has to beat the Castel, and that will be tough.

Here's one for my public health geeks. On top of the Castel Sant'Angelo is a statue of an angel sheathing a sword. This was built because someone saw a vision of an angel putting away his flaming sword (no flaming sword jokes, please, I've thought of them all) -- and they took the vision as a signal that the plague was ending. That's right...a hallucinated angel putting away his blazing weapon meant an end to plague. No one even asked this guy what funny mushrooms he had eaten...nooooo, they went out and made a giant statue instead. This was clearly an ancestor of all those anti-vaccine, anti-medicine freaks.