Cave walk

Around Christmas, our little village organized a walk to a local cave (Ghar San Brinkat) shrine accompanied by carolers. It's a tradition every Christmas to visit. We thought it'd be fun to piggyback onto their planning and invite the embassy friends to have cookies and hot chocolate at our house and then join the village for a night under the stars.

We milled around the church square for a while and then all walked down the hill for about 20 minutes in the cool December night. Stars shone brightly in the sky, and we piggybacked or shouldered all the kiddos who hummed or sang along the way.

   

(we teased that the below center picture looked like such a cute couple!)

The cave was lighted for the event with speakers and singing (though the blaring Christian rock rushed us off a bit). The sky was clear enough to see the lights on Sicily to the northeast. Chris chatted with little old Maltese men who were beyond thrilled that "the Americans have come" to the event. Apparently, everyone in town knows who we are, and we get to be part of the local gossip for a while. 

Unfortunately, many folks were traveling for the holidays, but we were happy to have a few join us for a pretty and unique night.