As far as romantic comedies go, this is much better than usual. But maybe it's more drama than rom-com. It's nice to see a romance between older, more believable people. I liked it.
We took a train from Rome to Ancona, Italy, where we had a one-day stop. Ancona is about ¾ of the way up the east coast, on the Adriatic Sea. The next evening we planned to take an overnight ferry to Split, Croatia, so this seemed like a simple transfer place, but Ancona is a really neat city itself! At night I wandered around and ended up hiking to a functioning lighthouse. The stone sign is at 104 meters above sea level, about 341 feet. Our neighborhood had some nice murals / graffiti: Here is a view out over a pentagonal building formerly used as a quarantine colony, a little island right by the city, open to the public: There are quite a few drinking fountains scattered all over, and all the ones we tried worked! This is the correct way for a city to be. It is very hilly, with stairs and steep roads all over. Many narrow little alleys between buildings, and connecting passages and staircases up and down hills, between houses, churches, and pa...
In Malta on Palm Sunday I went to a Holy Week pageant called “Ħtija Tiegħu?” which means something like “His guilt?” It was held in Marsa, a few kilometers south of Sliema where we were staying. The pageant has been held since 1970 and is normally done outside on the street, but rain was forecast for the day and by evening it was coming down pretty steadily, so they moved the pageant indoors to the church and started two hours late so they had time to adapt to a fully indoor setting. It's a newish Catholic church, bright and colorful, and a bit in the suburbs and there were lots of families there. While we were waiting during the delay, a man who spoke English, named Albert, introduced himself to me. He has been involved in the pageant for 30 years and is currently the treasurer and one of the participants, no longer Judas as he was for many years and got tired of portraying. 😂 In a building across the street they had a display of some neat handmade Christian artwor...
Изгрев (Izgrev) is a neighborhood of Plovdiv. Some people call it a “Gypsy” neighborhood. On the surface it looks like the poorest neighborhood in the city. There is no hard dividing line from the surrounding neighborhoods, but you know you’re here by the decaying buildings, trash, toxic burning garbage, horse-drawn wagons (sometimes carrying new washing machines as seen below!), and lots of people without work. However, there are people working. Some commute to distant jobs. Others run small businesses such as the blacksmiths below who were hammering out horseshoes when we visited, lots of small stores and car repair places, people trying to get by. There are both large apartment blocks as well as small individually-owned homes. In the midst of it all are some freshly renovated nice homes, one of which we heard was funded by family members working in Germany. The last photo is of our friends from church named Христо (Hristo) and Иван (Ivan) who live there and introduced me to some...
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