Meeting Maribor

We are getting settled into our new apartment and city.  We have located grocery stores, bakeries, the Slovene State Theater, hardware store, etc.   The Slovene State Theater is on the list because our landlord's wife is THE Prima Ballerina in Slovenia.  She has danced Giselle, which in case you don't follow opera is one the most (if not THE most) difficult roles in ballet, because, in one of the scenes, the ballerina has to go on point (on one toe) and hop across the stage, approximately 30 hops without putting her other foot down.  The whole time she has to either gracefully kick on each hop, or she can kick a few times, then hold her leg at waist height for the same number of hops, and repeat.  It is ridiculously difficult to do, which is why an otherwise plain little ballet is still performed worldwide whenever an opera company has a ballerina talented enough to do it.  I can't even stand on one foot that long, much less hop and kick while doing it.  If you care to see some grace and beauty, here is a Youtube video of various ballerinas doing the scene.  The hops come near the end of the scene.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyQBVR-ALQM
  WE have tickets to see our landlord's wife dance next Friday night in Radio and Juliet.

  We went shopping the other day and among other things bought a little table for the kitchen.  We felt we should do it so that we'd have room to feed hordes of hungry young missionaries, which we hope to do each Sunday.

For style points, a round table in front of the window where we can look out at the round fountain is a treat.

And here is the fountain, looking back at our second floor window by the sun dial on the wall.
    A couple days ago we had the young missionaries all together, but our kitchen wasn't ready to serve them all, so we had to go out to a famous hamburger place.  These young people are a lot of fun to work with.  They work hard and do great things.

The two young elders ordered huge hamburgers with five, half-pound patties, and impressed the young sisters by eating every bite, or maybe only one of them ordered that one and the other ordered an ordinarily huge one.  Then we walked up the hill to an ice cream vendor for dessert.  Sometimes being a missionary can be hard.
    One of the special treats of this place continues to be the swans.  Dozens of them live along this stretch of the river and they are eye candy, to be sure.

They are especially graceful-looking when they hold their wings out of the water.  Only one of the swans in this photo is doing it.
    The pigeons here look to me like they are bigger than the USA pigeons,  Maybe not, but it looks like it.  Anyway, this photo gives you an idea of how big the swans are.

These are both hens.  The males are even bigger.  In a few days we expect to see three little, grey fuzzballs with the one on the nest.
    This swan is holding its leg out of the water and resting it on its back.  Pretty impressive!

    Today we decided to walk up into town.  The road up the hill from our building used to be two-way traffic, but they have closed it and are putting in wall-to-wall sidewalk to make it a pedestrian/market lane.  I think it's going to be great.  There is a little cobble-stone alley that goes from our front door to that street.

This is the wide part of the street where the road used to go around a tall statue that is now fenced in.  It is the Plague Column, which is seven meters tall and crowned with a gold-plated statue of the Virgin Mary.  On the ground, surrounding the tower are statues of Six Catholic Saints to whom the people prayed for deliverance.  And the obvious question:  Why have a monument to the plague?!?  It actually commemorates the END of the  1680 plague that killed one third of the people in Maribor.   Makes COVID-19 seem tame and pleasant, doesn't it? The current monument replaced an older one, and the current one was done in 1743.
    The other monumental thing in the above photo is the building with the clock tower and fancy spire.  This is the Maribor Town Hall.  Adolph Hitler stood on the little balcony of that building in 1941 and addressed the cowed residents to tell them how happy they were to be conquered by a nice guy like him.  The allies largely destroyed the city while rooting his army out of it in 1944, but then they pitched in and help rebuild it afterwards.  Americans didn't actually bomb nor help rebuild it, but they are very well thought of here.
  Lunch time passed as we were window shopping and buying a few little things, so we stopped in a pizza place.

I ordered the meaty half of the pizza.  Notice that we are both eating that half.  In truth, it was all mighty tasty.  Pizzas here are Italian pizzas, not American, but they are outstanding!  And huge.

So, I guess I might sum it up by saying that we are very happy to be here.  We are actually serving as missionaries again, and doing good things.  We are also having a ball exploring and learning about the country.  I have been called as the Branch Clerk and we expect to receive more callings shortly, but having no clerk is an emergency.  I will be busy with it.  And the next audit is approaching, so we are busy with that, too.