Saturday May 18, 2013

Saturday May 18, 2013  update #456

Bella is having a stay-at-home day, getting caught up on her hobbies.   She is sitting under her mist fan, which I had not seen in operation until today and it really delivers as advertised!   Bella made another of the crocheted cowboy booties for babies so you will get to see it today.  

I was only planning to slip downtown to see if that art place was open then continue on to Joe’s.  However I got a call from my little language buddy, Juan, and the plans changed.   I showered and shaved while he drove over to get me and then we went to the art place only to find it closed again.    We decided to do a little walking around El Centro.

As we passed the church a couple of blocks north of the Coffee Tree I mentioned that I thought it was supposed to be a museum but I had never found it open.   Juan said the religious museum was on the far back side so we went to check it out.   It turns out it is “museum day” so entry to all the museums was free today so we wandered through.  Some of the old photographs from the nunnery were spectacular.   In many rooms they had photos of the nuns working with very old implements, and these old implements were actually on display in front of the photograph.   I though it was an ingenious way to display these.

We then wandered downtown to find the Old Cathedral closed and then surprisingly, also the big Cathedral too!   I had never ever seen Immaculate Conception closed, especially not at 4pm.   Very unusual.

After wandering back through the San Francisco market we made our way back to Calle Larga and checked out the Remigio Crespo Toral museum.  There was one statue that was so lifelike I wanted to talk to it.   I had seen most of the exhibit before, especially the old tile map of early Cuenca on the floor.   One of the tiles showed the hanging tree and I am sure I never noticed that part of it before.

Then we went over to Joe’s where Juan renewed acquaintances with my old friends Jim Mola and Chris and Bettye Petersen who he had met before in his travels with me.  Juan is a likeable little guy and just laughed when I introduced him as my boyfriend.  He and I sat with Alex from Romania and Irma from New Orleans (but Cuenca-born).  Juan was pleased to have someone to converse with in Spanish.   The meal was tasty and everyone ate more than their fill.  Alex figures he ate two whole chickens and I figured Juan ate three!   I kept looking under his chair to see where he was putting all that food!  I am sure he ate his own weight in pollo tonight.  Alex had bought a bottle of wine and served everyone, and Juan had 3 glasses of wine to boot.    I laughed on the way home when Juan said he was heading home to sleep.   Small wonder!

I will be posting 2 photo blogs tonight, one for the museums, etc, and one separately for Joe’s.

That was the day's excitement,   Cheers, Al   Please see all new photos at http://souvenircuenca.blogspot.com/