The Chattanooga Girls Choir

Day 2: MEMPHIS/ROME
Friday, June 10, 2005

When last we left our intrepid travelers, they were flying over the Atlantic on the way to Amsterdam. The trip was long, the food was...well, airplane food, and the movie was unviewable from our part of the airplane because we were too far away from the screen, though several girls told us later that they were able to see and enjoy it.

We had to change planes again in Amsterdam. We made our way through customs quickly, but then had to go wait through another line for boarding passes to Rome for those of us who hadn't received them yet. We finally all hurried to the gate, only to discover that we should have had our luggage receipts scanned when we got the boarding passes--a new anti-terrorism policy to insure that all bags on the plane belong to a passenger on the plane. So Tarbell, our increasingly frazzled tour director, gathered up all the new boarding passes and their corresponding luggage receipts and hurried back to the agent, got all the tags scanned, and got back to us in time to redistribute the boarding passes and herd us all onto the airplane.

After a pleasant two hours on an Airitalia flight, we at last landed in Rome! We all made our way to the baggage area, where we found that one bag had not made the transfer in Amsterdam--sorry, Alex! (To mom Sandy: They said they would send it to the hotel as soon as it returned, hopefully by Saturday morning. We're all helping to provide her with necessities til then.)

As we had waited for the last of our bags to arrive, the girls noticed a group of extremely cute guys in sports uniforms, so our shy Whitley decided to strike up a conversation! Turns out they are Spanish and are soccer or rugby players or something, and I don't think they were quite sure what to make of all the extra attention they were suddenly getting, as one girl after another asked to have a picture taken with them! We finally dragged our young ladies away from the cute fellas when our European tour manager arrived.

Her name is Marie-Agnès and she's French but speaks Italian and English quite well. She showed us to our tour bus, a comfortable air-conditioned motorcoach. I should also note that on the way to the bus, nearly everyone commented on the wonderful weather--blue skies, cool breeze, absolutely perfect. We loaded up the bus and headed for the hotel while Marie-Agnès pointed out interesting sights, including the Tiber River (Tevere in Italian), which Marie-Agnès said used to be clean enough to drink from but now a teaspoon would kill you; and the Olympic Stadium from the Games in...um, anyone know the year? But most of the girls were fascinated by the tiny cars that seem to make up 90% of the vehicles here, mostly two-seaters with room for no more than a bag of groceries behind the seats. Rome has interesting traffic laws, and we were told that traffic signals are mere suggestions and also that everyone parks wherever they want to, sometimes three-deep. To help reduce the massive congestion, Rome now requires special permits for anyone to enter the central city, so our tour bus had to stop and get one. We arrived at the hotel, found our rooms (mostly large and comfortable and all air-conditioned), and met downstairs for a dinner of rigatoni pasta, followed by pork scallopini, and finished off with apple cake!

LuAnn called a choir rehearsal after dinner, since the girls will be singing in St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican tomorrow. Eventually everyone was settled in their rooms for the night after a rather long day. Buona notte, everyone!

We didn't know that Sally and Kasey were such sports fans!

These girls just finished their first genuine Italian meal.

Director LuAnn Holden enjoys dessert with some of her favorite people.

Our tour manager Marie-Agnès (on left) gets acquainted with some of CGC's finest.

Mothers and daughters -- Alyson & Amy, Diane & Morgan.

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