Queueing for The Vatican

The queue grew longer by the minute and snaked its way around the ancient walls of The Vatican. So many people had come, as they do every day, to visit this special place and to marvel at the works of Michelangelo. Amongst these polyglot crowds, of mainly young people who queued so patiently, it was easy for me to think optimistically about our shared European, and World, heritage. For even on that damp February morning, with nothing to do but to wait, I felt a real sense of identity with all those around me. One of them, an American woman in her thirties, I suppose, was explaining the history of Rome in general and of The Vatican in particular to a group of young people who all wore hearing aids. She was so absorbed in her impromptu tutorial - constantly praising her pupils for their every answer to her frequent questions - that she seemed to care nothing for the essential skills of queueing. Maybe she was just absent-minded, or maybe she was a gentle soul who thought it wrong to jockey for position. Whatever the explanation she was nowhere to be seen behind me by the time I reached the head of the queue some ninety minutes after first joining it.