Sunday with the locals

Sunday morning we woke up and walked to the local church in the little village. It was a simple church with rock walls and an old painting of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit about a saint that was praying. It was a bit strange though. I wanted to ask someone about it but I didn’t get a chance. The saint was a bishop but two angels were playing with his mitre and crosier. Also all the people in the painting did not have any indication of holiness like a halo or light above their head. This seemed strange knowing the era that it was painted in. The people of the church were very friendly. They noticed that Regi was looking for something and asked her what she needed in French only to find we couldn’t speak French so she found someone in the church that could speak English to help us. He was a nice man and we asked when the Ash Wednesday mass was going to be. We found that there was only one priest for 5 churches so the mass was going to be held in another near by church. The man also had a daughter that was very eager to try out her English on Regi. It was very cute. She told us she had a dog and a cat and wanted to know if we had any.

We feel kind of strange coming from a place were growing food was the priority to a place were aesthetics and enjoyment are priority. It’s also strange to come from a place that was a temperate to a semi-tropical climate. There are a lot of eucalyptus trees and a tree that is going on the driveway in Freshwater. I can’t remember the name we call it but they call it the Mimosa tree. It has beautiful bright yellow fluffy round flowers all over the tree and the village even has a parade dedicated to the flower. I will post a photo of it later on.

Regi and I get to live in a guest house that they rent out in the summer. It has an old rustic stone fireplace in the kitchen/dining room area and a cozy bedroom with wooden timber beams that have not been hewn. The bathroom has a state of the art shower that has more shower heads than any that we have ever seen coming from every direction all contained in a glass tube that looks like a space portal.

Until next time…