THE GENE POOL: ITALY: THE VATICAN

We spent the better part of Wednesday and Thursday at the independent city-state of Vatican City, hanging out with the pope and staring in awe of sculptures and paintings.

When we first decided to honeymoon in Italy, Nicole said we should go to a papal audience and get our marriage blessed by Pope Francis.

It's called Sposi Novelli, and the pope blesses new couples every Wednesday. You have to have been married within two months of the audience and come dressed in your wedding gear with a copy of your marriage license signed by your priest.

Nicole made all the arrangements for this. In February, she emailed the bishop's office for United States visitors to The Vatican in Rome to find out about tickets. She gave them our marriage information, and they asked what Wednesday we wanted to attend.

We coordinated with our travel agent to be in Rome for Wednesday the 22nd. Days later in February the office responded that we were good to go and told us to pick up the tickets the Tuesday before at their Rome office.

Nicole bought a low-maintenance white dress online so she didn't have to lug the real one all across Italy. At the office on Tuesday, a sister gave us instructions on where to go the next day and the timeline of events for the audience.

All that effort to say that when we got to The Vatican, no one ever checked our tickets for the special seats we sat in or ever asked to see our marriage license to ensure we were newlyweds. We figure as long as you look the part, you can go shake hands with the pope every week.

That's two pictures, one of Nicole kissing Francis' ring and the other is me shaking his hand, though you can't see my face.

We arrived at The Vatican at 6:30 a.m. Getting in was unorganized as the one line at 6:30 gradually evolved into a cluster-mob of madness by 7:30.

We busted our butts once the gate opened and were the third couple to arrive in the bridal seats. We were proud of our front-row status and thought that would earn us special time with the pope. We were wrong.

That's a look at the couples sitting behind us. The ones way in the back ended up being the smart ones, not only arriving three hours after us -- so extra sleep for them -- but then getting in the actual front row when all the couples were scurried to a different section after the audience was over. The last were first, and the first were last.

So we were in the back of the line and had to fight a little bit to get to the pope for Nicole to kiss his ring. The couples who showed up last got to chill with Francis in the first row and got a little extra pope time. Oh well, I guess.

It wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't New Orleans hot. We were out in the sun from sunrise to about 12:30 before the pope made his way to us.

As for the audience, the scripture of Jesus healing the leper because of his faith was read in multiple languages before Francis preached in Italian.

His message was then summed up in the other tongues. The pope said that faith alone could only get us so far; we must combine our faith with action, as the leper did.

Here is the pope -- if you can see him -- walking up to his seat. It was an interesting event with people from all around the world represented. There were signs for the pope and chants in different languages.

We returned to The Vatican on Thursday for a three-hour tour, a three-hour tour.

This is Ian, our worst guide of the honeymoon. Basically useless, and it was my fourth straight day waking up way too early, so I was having trouble focusing.

The tour took us down several corridors of sculptures and paintings before we hit the Sistine Chapel -- absolutely mesmerizing but no pictures allowed -- and St. Peter's Basillica, aka Pete's Pad.

We could have stayed after the tour to see more of the Vatican museums -- papal tombs, a room of Raphael paintings, etc. -- but we were so exhausted that we left and found a lunch place recommended by Luca.

I got an eggplant dish, and Nicole got what was essentially a meatball sandwich and her first iced tea of the trip. It was probably the best lunch of the honeymoon.

And now a photo gallery of some of the beauty from The Vatican tour.

A faraway shot of Pete's Pad.

On the bottom row, second from the left is the villainous emperor from The Gladiator.

Remember that wine cellar from our Roman food tour? This sculpture was found there and moved to The Vatican. It's a Greek athlete using a knife to wipe off his sweat.

This guy here knew the Greeks' plan with the Trojan Horse, but before he could warn Troy, the gods sent a serpent to kill him and his sons.

This depicts Jesus appearing to two disciples after his resurrection, but the disciples didn't know it was Jesus until the breaking of the bread.

The rest are from the Basillica.

Michaelangelo sculpture of Mary holding Jesus' body. It's enclosed in glass because someone took a hammer to it in the 1970s and put some dents in it.