Auto Reflection

Exploring the city of Vienna on foot last April, I spotted this squeaky clean car offering a funky view of the old buildings on this street. I just like the lines of the building design coupled with the bare trees.

Vienna, 2011

I prefer this scene in monochrome. My honey disagrees; he says the original color photo is almost black and white already and the blue sky adds to the story. Mouse over my image and you can see the color version. What do you think? Don't worry, you are not taking sides in any domestic dispute... this is a friendly discussion. Really... LOL!

Today I link with memes Weekend Reflections, Weekend in Black and White, and Walk in the Street.

P is for Plow

On our way back home after a meeting in the city of Târgovişte we stopped at a roadside car wash in a small village about an hour north of Bucharest. While the car was getting a good clean, I went for a stroll with my camera.

This friendly farmer with a simple manual plow walked towards me and I asked (with body language) if I could take his photo. Didn't he give me a wonderful smile and pose? 

He may be one of the 64% of Romanian farmers who produces on a rather small plot of land for personal consumption.

Despite the vintage look I gave this photograph, I took it only two months ago.

This primitive plow and perky plower join Jennie's Alphabe-Thursday where P is the letter of the week.

C is for Cavtat in Croatia

Cavtat (pronounced "tsavtat") is a harbor town on the Adriatic coast of Croatia boasting a history that goes back to the 6th century BC. But today's earliest structures date only to the Middle Ages. Hah!

My mother and I stayed here for four lovely days in 2009 while her car was being made roadworthy again for us to continue our Balkan road trip. I think you'll agree we couldn't have been given a more delightful place for the normally reliable old clunker to break down.

Here you see the bell tower of the baroque St Nicholas Church, as well as a few of the awnings of the many bars and restaurants lining the harbor.

This is a long view of the town from the northern peninsula. Look how crystal clear the water is! [As usual, all images can be enlarged with a click.]

I don't mean to make you drool, but this was the view from our pleasing private apartment rental that we were so very fortunate to stumble on. The food at all the restaurants we sampled here was delicious and easy on the pocket book.

 

This view from the boat we took shows how beautifully Cavtat nestles in the coastal hills.

 

Watching the sun set from the promenade was the perfect way to end the day.

 Croatia, 2009

Today I link with ABC Wednesday and Watery Wednesday.

Quirino Bridge

Quirino Bridge crosses the Abra river connecting the rocky mountain slopes to the north of the town of Santa and the southern tail end of Bantay in the province of Ilocos Sur.  

The bridge is named after the former President Elpidio Qurino, the sixth president of the Philippines (1948-1953). He was born in this province in 1890. 

 

A super typhoon washed away one of its steel spans in 2001, destroying the bridge. This shot is taken from the new bridge to the old, more appealing, bridge.

Ilocos Sur, 2010

The bridge is also locally called Banaoang Bridge after the barangay it is located in. Barangay is a Filipino term for a village, district or ward or the smallest administrative division in the Philippines.

This bridge joins Sunday Bridges and Scenic Sunday.

How Much for This Trinket?

My honey and I have spent the better part of the last few weeks packing and moving house. And while neither of us are much into shopping, it shocks me how many knickknacks and doodads we've still managed to accumulate over the years. We could set up our own flea market, I kid you not.

This is a photo of a woman in a mirror I took a few months ago at a flea market in Bucharest. For Weekend Reflections and Weekend in Black and White.

Bucharest, 2011

Tonight will be our first sleep in our new home.

O is for Outhouse

Should you have visited my blog before, you know I do more than a modicum of travel. And my treks occasionally take me to what is ostensibly the outer limits of our orb where the comforts of home are sparse.

For Jenny's Alphabe-Thursday, the letter of the week is O, and I want to offer you an outhouse in the most out-of-the-way location I have even been: the far western province of Hovd in Mongolia.

First let me show you our whereabouts on this occasion.

Hovd, Mongolia, 2007

On to the prettiest privy I've ever observed.

And to add a little more humor to this story, I offer this STOP sign in the middle of this no man's land right by this outstanding outhouse for Lesley's Signs, Signs.

I was told that the officials of the provincial government had the onerous objective of making this a tourist destination. It didn't quite work out that way. Or at least not yet.

B is for Black

Each January 9, the city of Manila holds a procession in honor of the Black Nazarene, locally known as Nuestro Padre Jesús Nazareno. 

The Black Nazarene is a dark hardwood statue of Jesus that was carved in Mexico by an Aztec carpenter and brought to the Philippines in the 18th century. The story goes that the wood statue was blackened in transit by a fire on the ship. The statue, believed to confer miracles, is kept in the Quiapo Church.

For the procession, male devotees in bare feet and dressed in maroon pull the Black Nazarene through the streets on a gilded carriage. Followers seek to catch a glimpse, if not touch, the statue in hopes of being healed, being cleansed of their sins, or receiving another kind of miracle.

Devotees from all over the Philippines come to participate in the Fiesta of the Black Nazarene. They bring banners from their neighborhood, association or whatever group they attend with, as well as their own versions of the statue on platforms carried on shoulders. Believers throw towels or handkerchiefs to the people, mostly children, guarding the statue and ask them to rub the cloth on the statue in order to receive its blessings.

This year, the crowd was estimated at 7-8 million, the largest ever, partly perhaps because it fell on a Sunday, and  the procession from beginning to end went from 7:30 am to midnight.  I joined the fiesta with a friend for a couple of hours in the morning. These are a few of my images [click to enlarge] to tell the story.

Manila, 2011

The final photo shows the real Black Nazarene statue.

This is linked to ABC Wednesday where the letter of the week is B.