Christmas in Provo, without people

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Ancona, Italy and ferry to Split, Croatia

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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...
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The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum

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This is not the sort of book I normally pick up at the library. But I liked the movie so... First of all, it's a lot different from the movie. And longer. It sort of went on and on, repeating a lot of phrases which got sort of annoying. Okay, I know the guy was an amnesiac, and he had to repeat phrases to himself to try to stir his memories or whatever, but if I had to read " Cain is for Charlie, Delta is for Cain. Get Carlos. Kill Carlos.. " again, well....I would have skipped it like I did that last few times it was repeated. The plot was really long and really confusing (I missed a lot). And THEN, after all the plot twists, all the chasing, fighting, running, excitement, the bad guy gets away!! Setting up for more books, I'm sure (which there are. More books, that is). The author was good at describing fight scenes, but my imagination has a hard time picturing it. Movies are much more intense. Now I have to watch the movie again. It was so different and I wo...
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Malta devotional niches and shrines

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Malta’s long history is very interesting, including what is widely thought to be the shipwreck by the apostle Paul in AD 60 described in the New Testament Acts of the Apostles chapter 28 , the last chapter in Acts. Later there was a period where the inhabitants were killed and it was mostly unpopulated, then was resettled around AD 1049 by a Muslim community and their slaves, who rebuilt a ruined city and called it Mdina after the Arabian Madīnah / Medina. Eventually Christians reconquered the island, yet the Arabic dialect spoken by the population remained, with new Christian faith. Here is one example, a guest house called Dar is-Sliem, “house of peace” in Maltese, similar to Dar es Salaam in Arabic, the largest city in Tanzania: Nowadays Malta is a strongly Catholic country. This is evident in many ways. Visually it is obvious in the large in the many, many churches on the islands. In the small, see the very common house devotional niċċa (niches) and shrines that are al...
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