Happy Anniversary & Beyond

Despite my plans to write about everything we've done and everywhere we've been, life has gotten in the way of writing about life. I suppose that's good - but I do miss writing about adventures and sharing my experiences. I have been paralyzed between finishing the Paris notes from December and moving on to the present.

I remember times - from childhood to adulthood - when I've faithfully kept journals or diaries. If I stopped writing for a while, I would get paralyzed, feeling that I needed to "catch up" before writing about the present. It's a funny thing, isn't it? To feel that you have to catch your diary up on what's been happening. As if the diary will somehow be confused and say to you, "Hey! I had no idea you had moved..." I would like  just to write - write about now. But - since I can't, I'll catch you up on what's gone on since I last posted many, many months ago. And then I'll commit to posting more regularly so we don't go through this again!

We had our one-year anniversary in May.

I just looked at my blog profile, and it says "newly married." Do I change it? Is everything new now? Vienna isn't new. In fact, after having been in Vermont - home - for almost six weeks in April and May, I found myself homesick for Vienna. I missed the things that were so new to start with, a year ago. Sundays: the shops are closed. This made things hard for me; now I like it. I don't trip on the cobblestones (as much as I used to). The brusque manner of many people - I somehow don't notice it, or don't get bothered by it anymore. It's just how people are. And people are nicer than I thought they were. Mostly, I think, home is where you make it. We've made our home here for now, and so... that's it. It's home. And it's beautiful and safe and I know where everything is. And I've made some terrific friends.

But the adventures are still new.

So -since last we met...

January: I turned 40 and we had a visit from M's mother, B.

February: I began volunteering at Peterskirche, cleaning and cataloguing the library's rare books.

March: M & I celebrated the Sacrament of Marriage at Peterskirche, with M's parents, cousin Claudia, and my dear friend Pascale.

Photos by Fr. Chris Tölg (St. Peter's Social Media Team!)

April: A return home to Vermont. I didn't take very many pictures, but had a wonderful time with friends and family. I miss farm stands.

May: We went to Dubrovnik, Croatia for M to attend a conference. What an incredible place - it's a feast for the eyes: the blue of the Adriatic (the bluest point on Earth, as seen by astronauts from above), the blinding white stone of the buildings, and the terracotta roofs.

From atlas-croatia.com.

Arriving by bus from the airport.

We discovered burek - rolled, meat-filled phyllo deliciousness.

We celebrated our anniversary in Vienna at a great restaurant called Skopik & Lohn.

June: We went to Isernia, Italy to work on a "project." I'll tell you more about this project another time, but it has involved returning to Italy quite a number of times.

We also went to London in June to see Claudia & her mom, and M's cousin Deb, as well as my darling friend Mrs. Eff (I got to see her win an award in recognition of her volunteer work & got to see her son O perform in a primary school concert). We had an excellent time sightseeing (Tower of London, St. Paul's, and more), theatre-going (Long Day's Journey into Night; The Taming of the Shrew; Verdi's Requium), Brompton Oratory for Mass, and eating (lunch at Wilton's was a highlight!).

With M's favorite guy in London.

We planted our windowbox garden:

 

July: I spent the first two weeks of July in Budapest, attending a European Union legal practice summer school at Central European University. The academic program was pretty interesting, but the best part was making some great friends.

M came to see me on the weekend and we went to the Esztergom Basilica (the largest building in Hungary and the 18th largest church in the world). The altarpiece (depicting the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, by Michelangelo Grigoletti) is the largest painting in the world painted on a single piece of canvas.

From wiki

Looking across the river to Slovakia.

The bridge from Hungary to Slovakia was destroyed in 1944 and only rebuilt in 2001.

We waited for the train back to Budapest in a very hot, small station.

Also in July, I went to Paris to meet old and new friends (L & I hadn't seen each other in probably 20 years). My friend, the talented and lovely Crafty Bee, had just attended an advanced hatmaking course near Toulouse. Her creations are incredible. We all had a great time together. I hurt my foot somehow, though, and while it is improving, it still bothers me a bit (I will save you the doctor visits saga).

Finally, in July (and into August), M & I took a train to Zagreb, Croatia:

Zagreb Funicular - one of the shortest and steepest in the world.

Soldiers marching to commemorate Croatia's Statehood Day.

Then to Zadar for a conference at the University of Zadar:

 

The view out the classroom window.

In the classroom with Robin Harris & Remi Brague.

We also got to meet the brilliant & charismatic Jose Pinera:

Camera-shy lunch date.

Somewhere in here once we returned to Vienna, I started making bags. Lots of bags. They will likely get their own post, so you won't see them here yet.

August continued with another trip to Italy,

and ended with a visit from a new and wonderful friend Miriam, who I met at the Budapest summer school. She's a German lawyer (she'd say "baby lawyer" because she's still training) and we had a great time together in Vienna.

Taken in Budapest during the summer school.

September: Right after Miriam left, I took the train to Prague to meet M, who'd been there for a few days at a seminar. Prague is known as the city of a hundred spires.

In front of the Danish Embassy.

One of many statues along the Charles Bridge.

 The Strahov Monastery is striking:

The Library (photo borrowed from M).

The Globe Room (photo borrowed from M).

A bunny in the garden near the Monastery.

It's no wonder that Prague is the 6th most visited city in Europe.

Another quick visit to Italy last week, including the 10th of September. It was a poignant day to be in Isernia because of what happened there during World War II. On the morning of September 10, 1943, American planes launched their bombs from B-17 Flying Fortress planes over a crowded town on market day causing thousands of deaths. In the following weeks they came back twelve times without ever hitting their targets: the bridges of Isernia, Cardarelli and Santo Spirito, then built entirely of iron, towards the internal area. All the bridges were vital to the German retreat. (From wiki).

I want to post more photos and tell more stories about all of the things I've done - it's just that... they were all so great, so detailed, so wonderful that I want to make sure I share everything. I know that what I should do is just write. All the rest will follow.

Thanks for reading - and thanks for being part of the adventure of Something New.

By the way, the vast majority of photo credits in this post belong to M. He takes great pictures and then I use them.