Most of the pictures from last week are from Trento, where we spent 3 days. The occasion was the First Communion of Alessandra (Ale), the daughter of my cousin Dan from California and his Italian wife Elena.
But I start with two semi-abstract Alicante images.
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Close-up of leaf:
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Floor of Alicante’s main concert hall:
Then on to Trento.
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Sunday morning, just before 10 a.m. The children are lined up to march into the church. Various emotions are on display:
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Show time–the children walk into the church:
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No photography during the ceremony itself. Afterwards, the priest hands out large pieces of bread to the children who in turn distribute it to the adults:
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Afterwards, people stand around chatting outside the church. This is Dan with Ale:
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Ale looking pensive:
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Afterwards, we drove to a restaurant high in the mountains overlooking Trento, where a lunch lasting several hours would be enjoyed. And of course Ale got her presents:
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Ale and friend being photographed:
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Ale and cake:
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Another portrait of my cousin Dan. He is an anesthesiologist with a large group of doctors in Oakland:
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Dan I share a passion for cycling, and conveniently he keeps two bikes in Italy. So the day after the communion we went on a 70 km ride along the Adige river:
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Monday night we had dinner at the house of Dan’s in-laws. Don Giancarlo built a successful business, distributing high-end Italian food to shops and restaurants on both sides of the Atlantic:
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There is a very cute dog, Lilly. She is always hungry and therefore pays a lot of attention when something is happening in the kitchen–just like my own Cheeta:
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Lilly also begs at the table in an extremely cute manner:
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Tuesday morning, on the way to the airport, we stopped at the office of the Lapiana business. Here is Giancarlo with some old photos; the smallest of the newspaper boys is him:
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And this is Elena, Ale’s mother, next to a portrait of herself as a little girl:
We flew home on Tuesday. The last two pictures are from Wednesday evening, when our office sponsored a Europe Day concert at the Auditorio de Alicante, a modern and quite nice concert hall.
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The choir of the parents from the European School of Alicante. My wife is on the extreme right, next to the pianist:
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Of course, the final piece of music was Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, performed by orchestra plus three choirs. My wife is somewhere in there too:
More Trento pictures can be seen here.