Day One in San Miguel de Allende

9 Jan 10

I never expected to freeze in Mexico. Okay, I can't pretend I wasn't warned... my students AND the internet told me that the temperatures were going to be a bit nippy. I knew the house didn't have heating. STILL … I woke up my first morning in Mexico and it was so freaking cold. Luckily I had plenty of blankets, and, of course, my trusty pink snuggy to keep me warm.For breakfast Katie had fixed some Papaya with lime, boiled eggs, and a roll. She was super excited about the papaya and lime. I had told myself before that I didn't like papaya but decided that it would be ill advised to break Katie's happy face with my imagined distaste. It was actually good! I definitely recommend the lime + papaya combination to anyone looking for a different sort of treat.
For the weekend Katie and I had decided to take a little trip to San Miguel de Allende. This was particularly exciting for me because I have known lots of people from San Miguel, especially back in my hotel days. A couple years ago I managed a La Quinta several of my employees were from San Miguel. They had always encouraged me to go, telling me how beautiful it was, and told me that if I ever traveled there I should let them know and I could stay with their family. I remember researching San Miguel online, browsing pictures of the beautiful city, and wishing I could go visit someday. You can't even imagine how surprised I was whenever Katie suggested we go there!
We stepped out the door and down the road I saw a giant red umbrella coming down the street. This immediately perked my interest. Over a megaphone a man shouted TAMALE-TAMALE-TAMALE. I immediately thought of my friend Noah back home and rushed over to the tamale man. I decided I had enough room in my tummy for a tamale (“Rojo o Verde?” “Uh... verde!”). HOLY SMOKES THAT WAS A SPICY TAMALE!! (Note to self: next time go for ROJO!)We went to the bus station and got tickets. This wasn't my first bus trip (we had taken the bus to church camp every year when I was a kid) so I had some expectations. Being in Mexico, I decided to take those expectations and lower them. Boy was I surprised! Katie booked us a nice bus! It was the fanciest bus I have ever ridden on: plush seats, ear plugs, several music stations to choose from (English, Spanish, and instrumental), a movie (drill bit taylor in Spanish), fancy leg rests, pillows, and a sack lunch. I was pretty sure we had somehow wandered onto the princess bus.

Katie and I weren't too interested in watching Owen Wilson speak Spanish (and the movie reminded both of us of that time he attempted suicide, kinda a downer,) so we entertained ourselves. We watched the beautiful countryside pass by and ended up playing Flip the Farm (don't get jealous Maze!). I, as usual, lost. =(
(Flip the Farm is a game Noah and I invented. In the movie 'Eagle vs Shark' the characters go on a road trip and play 'horse'... they say 'horse' every time they see a horse. I expanded horse to include all animals. If you see a cow you say 'cow'. If you see a bird you say 'bird'. Noah and I decided that these animals go on your 'farm' and that at the end of the game you sell “flip” your farm. Whichever farm would get the most money wins. This game may sound really stupid but I promise it rocks.).We got to Querétaro (Q) then took a 40 minute taxi from Q to San Miguel de Allende (SM). We had our taxi drop us off right in the middle of the central plaza by the main cathedral.A cultural note about Mexico: you don't pay taxis by the mile, you agree to a price for where you are going before you begin. When we were in Q and we hired the taxi to take us to SM we agreed to a certain price for the whole trip. As soon as we got into the city limits of SM the taxi was trying to let us out of the cab. You have to be assertive about exactly where you want to be let out... it won't cost you any extra money to make them take you to the center of town but they will certainly try to get rid of you ASAP!San Miguel de Allende actually is as beautiful as they say. =D The city at times reminded me of the best things about my travels in Europe (and New Orleans... lol). Old, neat looking buildings, cobblestone streets, plazas, specialty shoppes, street performers, statues everywhere. Beautiful. It's the kind of place where your eyes never rest because you are always looking at something beautiful and interesting. It's also very conducive to my favorite style of vacationing... the piddle around. You can start on the main plaza and literally wander in any direction and find something amazing/interesting/cool/whatever to look at or experience. It's neat to just sit and look around, you don't need an agenda and there is nothing about SM that says HURRY UP. I loved it and plan to return someday. The first item on the agenda was to find a hotel. We started at the main square, turned in a random direction and went to the first place with 'hotel' written on it. The price was right but it didn't include breakfast and Katie had it in her head that our hotel needed to include breakfast. The next place, a couple doors down, was double the price. The next two places were 3 – 4x the price. None of them included breakfast. Katie kept going on about other places she had stayed in in Mexico that were as cheap as the first place and as nice as the last place AND included breakfast. Of course, I was thinking, this is San Miguel... a famous and gorgeous city packed full of ex pats and tourists... prices are going to be inflated. Anyway I hadn't seen anything wrong with the first place except maybe that it was a bit plainer than the other places.
We decided to take a tea break and had some DELICIOUS crème brulee (my favorite) and a croissant (another thing I love) at this cool cafe. Over snack we decided the first place would be sufficient... although it costing 1/2-1/4 of the price of every other hotel in the area made us slightly nervous. We went back to the first hotel (Vista Hermanosa) and investigated the room... it looked fine. (Plain, but fine.) We checked in and were pleased with the location. We were on the 3rd floor (only a penthouse was above us) in an open air courtyard with large windows. We could easily walk from our room just steps across onto the roof of the second floor and had a gorgeous view of the big pink cathedral and a partial view of the central plaza. None of the other, 'fancier', hotels had this view (location, location, location). I felt pretty good about it. =D

We decided to go ahead and get to the heart of things, our first stop was the giant pink cathedral right outside our hotel. It was beautiful. When we walked up it was apparent that a wedding had just taken place (flowers set up everywhere, the alter decorated, rice and flower petals out front). Even without the wedding décor this church was... BLINGING. I have visited cathedrals in the US and in Europe before and, let me tell you, those cathedrals, even the cathedrals in Rom

e, have NOTHING on Mexican cathedrals. They go ALL OUT. Statues, saints, pictures, lights, everywhere you tu

rn. They even still have their Christmas decorations out (at least that's my assumption, I saw more strings of Christmas lights than candles). The outsides look comparable to the European cathedrals I have seen but inside...whoa. Katie and I took turns taking pictures with the crazy idols and alters.

Then a wedding started.
Yes. I was standing over on the left side of the Cathedral taking a picture inside of the confessional (a huge novelty for a girl who grew up protestant) when the wedding march started to play. I turn and look and the bride is walking down the aisle. Katie looked slightly horrified. I rushed over and started taking pictures. =D

I grabbed a couple shots of the bride then we quietly hurried out of the Cathedral. When we got out, giggling like crazy, Katie told me that she had just gotten shoe dissed. I, of course, had no

idea what she was talking about. Apparently, while I was taking pictures of the wedding, a guy started checking Katie out. He was giving her the once over with an interested look until he got to her shoes (tennis shoes, just regular brown sketchers). Once he got to her sketchers his expression changed completely. He looked disappointed, a bit disgusted, and averted his eyes.

We aimlessly explored San Miguel, following whichever street seemed right in the moment. To really appreciate the beauty of a city like this you really have to experience it. There is something magical and soothing in the air. It's just a great place to be. We stepped into some shoppes and browsed. Goods from all over Mexico, and even some other Latin American countries, were represented. The weather all weekend was very nice. A bit chilly but nowhere near as chilly as Toluca.

Katie and I ended up at another cathedral and... right out in front... another wedding! I was way excited and snapped some pictures of the bride and groom. Katie was sure the bride was 19 and the groom was, like, 48. (Being the nosy person that I am, I found out, from the Aunt of the bride, that Rosi was actually 29 and that the couple have two kids together.)

This wedding had MARIACHIS. (Hi Janice.) I was pretty impressed.

We met a cool ex-pat couple who gave us some tips on places to go and things to see in SM. Kati e was particularly enamored with them. They had moved to SM from Florida a few years before but both had every international backgrounds. The lady had been born in Mexico, raised in Holland, lived in Germany, and settled in the US. The guy had some crazy accent and I never really understood his back story. I think he was semi-French.. We decided they were a couple of ex spies who had fallen in love and settled down together.

We went exploring some more and made it our mission to find our new local favorites. We came across another big gorgeous cathedral and... guess what was outside of it... ANOTHER FREAKING WEDDING. Well now brides had become like Pokemon to me. I had to catch them all. This wedding was way way fancy compared to the other two but I still managed to get some photos of the bride. I also got some shots of the snazzy mariachis. I'm not sure how I am going to feel when I get back stateside and weddings don't end with mariachis (I'm talking to you Lara and Ann).

We had dinner at one of the little spots our locals recommended and I had my first molé dish. It was definitely something quite different than anything I had experienced before. I ate every bit of it but I am withholding my judgment for now. I am just not sure what I thought about it. We then wandered around the corner to the other restaurant we had been recommended and got some banana cake.

We headed back to the hotel. San Miguel is even beautiful at night. Lights and street vendors and couples kissing and a calm sort of bustling life. If we hadn't been so tired, and if it hadn't been so chilly, we might have stayed out all night just watching life happen in the main plaza.

For more pictures click here!