Mass disappointment

Friday was sunny but cloudy with a few showers, a fresh day, and good for walking, so I climbed up to the Gibralfaro mirador in the afternoon before making a circuit of Old Town streets less familiar to me. Looking down from above, the port looked emptier than usual. An HGV ferry and a container ship which has been slowly discharging and adding to its cargo all week.

Then I walked down and into the old town to look for the Vega photographic shop I recalled from last time, not far from the Iglesia de Santiago where Picasso was baptized. As I was having trouble tracking it down, I googled for photography shops, identified the correct name and map location. The only trouble was that I had trouble making sense of what the map said on such a close up scale. at this point I was only couple of hundred metres away, so my phone said, but which direction wasn't clear, until I walked a while to establish my direction of travel. Sometimes, Google maps is very useful, and other times, it's just confusing. You really can't beat an old fashioned street map, so long as you can work out which way is north.

It started to rain, and as it was nearly seven, I set out for the apartment. Bells rang announcing the evening Mass at Santiago, so I decided to join the congregation at worship. There must have been a hundred there. Most took part in the service, though some just prayed privately before one of the side chapels containing a processional image of Christ or Our Lady. There was a young priest on duty. He spoke fast and had a thick accent, therefore little he said apart from the Mass itself did I understand, and likewise the man who read the lesson and Psalm. I couldn't even identify the piece of scripture being read. Most disappointing, bad for my linguistic self-esteem. Still, it was good to spend time praying a part of a congregation, and answering Mass in English, as I still haven't got around to memorising the Spanish responses.

Saturday, it rained all day, so I didn't go out of the apartment, but occupied myself sermon writing new reading and email answering. I don't know where the time went, how a day can just slip by with seemingly little to show for it.