Papa

I'm not sure how to start this post. (this is Beth by the way).

Today was a very important day for Sam and me. Today we received the Apostolic blessing on our marriage. I still feel the excitement and joy from this great event.

Details and background on the day: Alarm at 4:50AM. We wanted to get to St. Peters early because we had heard that the Pope usually greets the first 3 to 4 couples who get into the first row. We had also heard from a crazy-young-Italian-CL-couple that THEY got to St. Peters around 4AM, thankfully we had heard from others that that wasn't quite necessary. So we woke up, combed our hair, ate our boiled eggs (which we have almost every morning) put on our wedding clothes and headed for the bus stop. I thought it would be embarrassing being on public transportation in my wedding dress, but it was actually quite fun. I think if anyone felt awkward, it was the people we sat down by. We mostly heard "Auguri" 's and got many smiles.

We arrived at St. Peters just before the 6AM angelus bells rang. Which was a beautiful start to our prayer and the day. There were only 2 other couples there waiting, who were very kind and we chatted with them until about 8:20 when the opened the gates to go through security. And this is where the nice, friendly, peaceful time ends. With the crowds at least. People booked it to the furthest seats, leaving their bride/groom and running. Sam also ran ahead (according to my 'prompting' shall we say). But we just made it into the second row. I thinks some Italians had some connections, (like two of them were maybe papal security) which was annoying and I found my heart pounding sitting behinds these couples. I could hardly look at the brides! It was so hard for me to accept that they had skipped the early morning line, and there they were. Well, needless to say, this started my morning prayer even more intensely, and Sam also had to talk through this all with me. It's amazing how easy it is for Sam's presence and constant help to become 'a given', which is bad. But Sam is so helpful in reminding me of what's important and talk some sense into me (a lot of times those two things coincide). So as we were both sitting there, I was quickly distracted by.... Dr. Briel! (the founder of Catholic Studies at St. Thomas, professor and friend). He was sitting to the right side of where the Pope would sit, as close as anyone (besides a bishop or cardinal) can be! So Sam and I left our stuff and ran over to say hi to him. I guess it was the 10th anniversary of the St. Thomas Catholic Studies Bernardi campus (which Jim went to). And while we were talking with Dr. Briel the Geahren family hollers our name! Jim, Margaret and Molly were also here for the Catholic Studies event. Such a great to see them, and fun to talk with them too! (p.s. we also met many of the people who our lovely St. Thomas dorms are named after).

Maybe all my details about meeting these friends seem frivolous, but for me it was the embrace of Christ. It's kind of a strange atmosphere at first, running to get seats, people budging, and just trying to control your own space, and this surprise meeting with friends not only reminded me but showed me how loved and blessed I am. Also it changed my whole attitude toward the row of people in front of us. I was really able to 'let it go'.

Oh! A weather update.... There was a 90% of rain.... but the sun was out the whole time and it was beautiful! It got pretty hot around noon and we might have even gotten a little sun burnt.
Also.... we were behind and to the right of the Pope.

So finally a little after 10:30 the Pope came out on his pope-mobile/cart. There was so much joy in the audience. Singing , cheering, chanting, playing music, waving scarves (that might have just been the cloister nuns though. hehe). And it was really moving to see the Pope riding around, smiling and waving at everyone. The man who has undergone so many attacks by the media and who is the leader of the Church is an amazing thing to think about especially when you are in his presence.

The Pope spoke about St. Angela and her conversion and life story. And through this example of St. Angela, we can remember that through difficulties and hard times this is when we grow. That the more difficult a situation is the more we learn to love. The audience was kind of long to be honest (everything was done in about 6 languages) but during when the other translations were read it was beautiful to look out on St. Peter's square and even the facade of the church, which even though appears so simple is really full of details.

In the end, all my worries about being in the front row didn't really matter because the Pope decided not to greet that side of the audience (which happens every so often). But we did get to watch him greet the other side and kiss many babies that were brought to him. I loved this part. Poor Benedict, the kids were usually crying because they had just been taken out of their parents arms to be brought closer to the Pope and he just smiled and kissed them. I was so happy watching this whole scene.

So we took the bus back home (a man gave us each a glass of lemoncello in auguri before we got to the bus stop) and now we are finally home and about to cook dinner.

I already remember many things I forgot to write. I will edit later.

We prayed for all our family and friends and the papal blessing is extended to you also!
Love,
Beth (and Sam who is cleaning the kitchen now)

Food!

By now, over a month of being here in Rome, we're just about used to Italian food (read: we have pasta almost every night, sandwiches every day for lunch, if we eat out we get pizza). On top of getting used to eating Italian style, we also are getting used to having every meal together. Beth is a great cook - my gastronomic experiences in life have been 18 years of my mom's cooking, 4 years of my cooking, and 1.5 months of Beth's cooking. If I had to order the quality of food I've eaten in those times, I can say with certainty that the person who cooked for me for 4 years was by far the worst. Beth has told me that it's not ok to compare her cooking to my mom's, because she knows how good of a cook my mom is. I do love eating my mom's food, but we sure do eat good with Beth cooking the meals.

It's pretty amazing how much time is spent eating, and how much time it takes to make good food! We're so thankful that both of our families insisted on having meals together - it's so natural for us now to take the time to make a meal, sit down and eat it together, talk about whatever is on our minds, and clean up after the meal.

Beth usually cooks and I either read War & Peace to her, read The Economist (which they have here in Italy), or write a blog...like right now. Tonight we're having soup, which, as Oma wrote of in the letter we just got from her today, we've really started to crave now that the crisp feel and smell of fall is in the air. I'm sure it's not as cold here as in Minnesota, but we're both getting excited about the slight change in weather.

After dinner I'm usually in charge of cleanup, and Beth reads Tolstoy or does homework. It's works out pretty well.

We love being here, but we're also so excited to be back with family, sitting around the dinner table or waking up in the morning for coffee and granola, with the people we love so much.

I would write more, but it's just about dinner time and things are about to start happening...Beth insists on eating things hot, so that's all for tonight!

School, Friends, Blessings

With me not really being a journaler and Beth liking to write in her physical journal and not share whatever it is that she writes in there, we might be the worst bloggers ever. If you've checked the website a bunch and are continually disappointed, well sorry. We're busy, ok? But, here's an update, an anecdote from a little while ago.

On our first day going to the IES (school) building, we both were not expecting much. We were concerned about how good our classes might be, what kind of classmates we might have, and in general, were feeling a bit jaded going into our fifth year of college.

On our hour walk to school, we have a ten minute walk through a park, then around a half-hour going down a busy street, then we walk along the Vatican walls to St. Peter's Square, walk down the street from St. Peter's to the Castel Sant'Angelo, walk across a bridge built under the Roman Emperor Hadrian, and arrive at school.

This first morning, Beth -as she's done so many times since- reminded me that we should take time to pray. We prayed the Angelus walking through the park, and afterwards asked for an awareness of something more throughout the day. We had been thinking fairly negatively about school, and the start of the program, and we felt like that wasn't the way to start out a semester in Rome. So we prayed for God's blessing, to open our eyes to His presence throughout the day.

As happens so frequently, we forgot about that desire for more, and throughout the day were disheartened by the people in the program. At the end of the first orientation day there was one last talk on how we were supposed to apply for our permits to stay in Italy, and Beth and I were dispirited. We hadn't realized our own failure at that point, we just weren't feeling good about things in general. There was an empty chair next to Beth in the lecture hall, and ten minutes into the talk a blonde haired girl came in and sat down next to Beth. During a break in the talk, we had a chance to chat with her, and after introductions and talking about majors and all of that, we slowly came to realize that this girl, Tess, was really interesting. She told Beth that her name was actually Anastassia, and Beth asked if it was after the Saint. Yes it was, and, as came out in the rest of the conversation, Tess is a practicing Catholic and was hoping that she could make it to daily Mass right after the meeting.

Tess is from South Bend, Indiana, and goes to Indiana University. Her boyfriend, Bob, goes to Wabash College, and is also here in Rome for the fall semester, studying Greek and Latin. Tess is living with her sister, who is here in Rome studying Canon Law, and Bob is at an intensive Duke University program, living at the school. We've gotten together with them many times already, and are growing to be good friends. There is no question that our prayers on that first day were answered. Even though we had forgotten what we asked for during our walk in the park that morning, God has blessed us so much with the joy and companionship of two good friends, Bob and Tess.

And Tess told us a few days ago that when she left school on that first day and told Bob about meeting us, he exclaimed, "It's the Holy Spirit. It's the Holy Spirit!"

I think Bob's right.

The Apartment

We promise, posts on what we're doing here in Rome will come...but the most common question we get asked is what the apartment is like, if we're happy with it, and how our neighborhood feels. So, if a picture's worth a thousand words, here's the longest post so far.

The Patio

I find creating my first 'blog post' to be a little overwhelming. So I'm going to write about our Roman Patio and hope for more insightful posts to follow. Either that or just set the standards low.

We are so lucky for the beautiful apartment that we have here in Rome. We also just found out yesterday that,with being married, we have cut our IES living cost in half... which is great. This might be about the only 'married benefit' that IES offers though, because I'm pretty sure we are thought of as either weirdos or crazies. More about that later.... in a more insightful post.

Back to the patio. Attached to the apartment is a beautiful patio which,come to thing of it, is probably the size of our actual apartment. Funny. But the apartment doesn't feel small, it's really pretty big for Italian living standards. When you walk in there is a couch, a little table and two chairs and a big bookshelf. But that's not all.... open the closet doors and you have a kitchen! Kind of funny but it is everything we need (except an oven, dishwasher and space to actually cook). Then down the hall way there is the bathroom followed by the bedroom. We have a nice (firm) stationary bed. and a window which looks out over apartments buildings. It's actually a private enough view though.

Oh boy. Back to the patio. The patio has nice brick floor, 2 tables, 7 chairs, lots of little lights and candles and about 50 potted plants (Sam thinks 31). It is such a nice space to be outside in the sunlight, eat lunch dry our clothes. It really does make a difference to have the little chunk of 'land'. I'm thinking about taking out some bricks and starting a garden. laughs.

So that's the patio. Maybe sets the scene for more insightful posts to come. Sam and I are really happy and have been eating lots of pasta. I'm starting to wonder what else you can cook here.... kind of at a loss.

Missing our dear family and friends and love hearing from you.
Love,
Beth (and Sam walking around in his boxers)

First Post

Hi everyone! We currently have zero followers, so we're writing to a large audience. Hopefully our blog will be interesting enough for you all to continue reading as we add posts.

For anyone who isn't up to speed with our lives yet, here's a quick breakdown of what has been going on recently:

-December 8th, 2009: We got engaged on the steps of the cathedral in St. Paul.
-August 14th, 2010: We got married at St. Joseph's Church in beautiful Crosby, MN!
-August 16-21, 2010: Honeymoon in Charleston, SC.
-August 24-26: Left the US for studying abroad, day-trip to London, and arrived at Rimini.
-Aug. 26-28: Rimini Meeting.
-Aug. 29th: Moved in to our apartment in Rome!

We have lots to say about so many of these things, but I figured I'd just get the information out there right away. Sit tight, here come the posts...