Juxtapositions

Antigua is course, bulky, thick walled, old, cracked, crumbling...unpainted and yet it feels refined. There is a certain elegance in the juxtaposition of the course architecture and the simple contemporary appointments....a small wooden table and chairs covered with a Mayan table clothe and a candle azul...soft lighting...vino in a squatty glass...an open window to the sidewalk. It is an aesthetic I appreciate more than the polished marble and flashy, sparkle of modern western buildings, the Trump Towers and Las Vegas....their excesses are overwhelming...like eating too much chocolate and getting ill....when a square or two would have been perfect. In Antigua the simplest treasures, pleasures, luxuries set against centuries old stone walls...well, it is most beautiful to me.