Beginnings

Hello all,

Days one and two have passed uneventfully in the St. Joseph River Valley—a name we learned refers to South Bend and the surrounding area.  Somehow I find this far more sexy than “South Bend”, but perhaps this is my latent prejudice against SB talking.  Sunday our cheerful moving crew pulled out bright and early leaving the hub and I to fend for ourselves during a long scorching Sunday. 

The first thing we learned about South Bend is that they roll up the streets on Sundays and you will be hard pressed to find even a coffee shop open for business.  This, we assume, is due to our second finding: Mass occurs often and everywhere on Sundays.  Accordingly, we walked half a block to St. Patrick’s Cathedral where we pretended to be good Catholics until Hub tried to take communion and we were pointed to a spot in the Book of Mass assuring us that though we were welcome to join in the service, we were not welcome to partake of the Eucharist.  Oh well.  It’s back to Protestant land for us next week. 

A small sampling of how the elite lived.  Not bad SB, not bad. 

Today found us in pursuit of internet and wi-fi, something our apartment is sorely lacking.  We ventured forth into the city and bought coffee at a bookstore near ND.  Next we decided to play the part of tourists as we discovered the rich history of South Bend and its multi-millionaires.  At some point in the future I will share some of this heritage with you, but for now suffice to say that we agreed to sum up our findings with the phrase “there’s always someone cooler than Indiana.”  We finished the afternoon off with ice cream from some locals down the street.  It was perhaps the sketchiest experience of my life—the ice cream dealer had to move his groceries out of the case so he could scoop our ice cream without gloves and without cleaning the scooper—but it was also one of the most beautiful moments.    Hipsters everywhere are proud of Hub and me. 

This concludes the joyful narrative of our first hours as Benders (the official name I’ve decided to give us during our time here).  Still to come—adventures of stealing furniture for our apartment, adventures of finding work with an English degree, adventures with Studebakers, and “did that noise just come from inside our apartment???”

--Love from A and P