mother teresa

so here we are, almost a whole month since i've written last. a lot has happened. my brother matt finally got to rome, and met his nephew. my mom also got to meet her grandson. luca got his passport and US birth papers, officially making him a US citizen. mother teresa is now "blessed" mother teresa, pope john paul ii is the 4th longest reigning pope in history, there are 30 new cardinals who can elect the man who will succeed pope john paul ii once his reign is over, luca is almost 2 months old, i'm trying to grow a beard, and after 30 or so days of working non-stop i am finally able to sit down and type a little for the folks on the other side of the river.

lets start back a while... after weeks of preparation for major news coverage of the events in rome (the 25th anniversary of the pope, beatification of mother teresa, and the consistory of 30 new cardinals) it finally came. we had a great live shot set-up, everything went pretty much as well as planned, and i cut a number of network spots on final cut pro. all in all, it was a great month. i got a lot more experience, met a great bunch of people, and my relationships with the local rome crew has grown to new levels. on the bad side, i didn't get much time to see my family, or visit with my mom and matt.

i did, however, find time to have a few drinks with matt pretty much every night, and we were able to all have dinner together twice. we got to roberto's, my mom's favorite restaurant in rome, on borgo pio. aubrey hadn't been there in so long, and was the first to finish her pasta. (we always get thier specialty: rigatoni with a cream sauce and sausage, "norcina") since it's also a favorite of the boys at work, we were getting norcina pasta almost every other day for lunch, so i had had my fill. it's always nice to bring someone new there though and see the reactions. i also was able to introduce my brother to grappa. :)
matt also got to see the colesseum, have a beer in the street without getting hassled, and was falling in love about every 4 feet. they had a great view from their hotel window, which was THE cheapest hotel i have ever seen literally around the corner from the piazza navona.

through our swiss guard friend, stefano, we got tickets to the beatification mass for aubrey luca my mom, and matt. there were UP on the colonnade, looking down on st peters square. it was fantastic and they got some great pictures. i got to see it on tv at work of course, but judging from the shots they took, it was an amazing spot to be! after the mass they came to visit us at work and met a few of my colleagues and saw the roof, which is an amazing view of the vatican.

they were only here for about a week, but it felt like less than 10 hours. i was glad i got to spend time with matt, and also on his birthday, but i still wish there was more time....

i saw them on thier last night in town, had a slight tear-up kissing my mom goodbye, and that was that. of course, we'll be seeing everyone in NJ in about a months time, but it was still a rough goodbye. about another week or so of work later, cleaning up, rearranging, logging, editing, and what ever else needed to be done, we were finished with our "dress rehearsal". when i was told, ok, come in when you want to finish up, it was surreal. i didn't HAVE to be in to work for a few days. i didn't know what to do with myself. getting reacquainted with luca, and aubrey, and dealing with free time pretty much took up the whole day. of course by now, it's getting more normal, to do whatever we want all day long. but i was going thru work-withdrawl. i didn't ever think i'd hear myself say that.

of course with all this pope-news going on, tons of my engineer friends from the UK are in rome. so it's been big bashes at night, every one anxious to see luca, let's get lunch, let's get dinner, whatever. but last night was interesting:

we had met a couple online, about our age, who had moved to rome for work. she's pregnant, and they had a ton of questions about how things work in italy, regarding childbirth and childcare. we had been emailing here and there for a few weeks, and yesterday we get a call from micah, saying he and nikoma are in town and would we like to get ane arly dinner. so we do. we're on our way to meet them in piazza navona when the phone rings and they say they are near the castel sant'angelo, so we'll turn around and meet them there instead. on our way walking down governo vecchio we pass a man who looks like bill murray. i say to aubrey, hey that guy looks like bill murray. i couldn't resist. i ran back and tapped him on the shoulder and asked, "are you bill murray?" and he said "yes, yes i am". i almost lost it. i turned immediately into this 15 year-old girl. i was blabbing, oh my god, we love you, we just watched rushmore last night, and finally he said, "ok, thanks for watching, nice meeting you", we shook hands and off he went. i didn't even think to tell him where la botticella was, or introduce him to luca and aubrey. such a loser i am!

so we meet the couple shortly after the bill murray incident. we ate at antica taverna, and just had a fantastic evening, chatting about everything, and loving rome, and what not. we got on so well, that i can see this friendship lasting a long time. afterwards we went to visit giovanni's and then they had to roll back to pomezia where they live. in the meantine, EVERY engineer that was in rome was at giovanni's and after aubrey and luca left we had a great night talking about past work experiences, and people we knew in common, and whatever. i'm slowly making a name for myself in rome and in the industry in general. so it was a fantastic day in total.

this morning, sunday, we woke up around 930 am and decided to go see the pope's angelus. we walked over to st peters, fought the crowds and stood in the sun and watched the pope from the window. luca slept. then we had a nice sunday afternoon lunch at gino e pietro's, and were met later on for coffee by 2 sng engineers. here i am now, updating the site, and later on getting together with the engineers again.