One of the things our landlord Eleanor was the most excited about sharing with us was the Tianguis....the Tuesday Market. It is a traveling market that goes around Mexico and on Tuesdays, it makes it's stop here in San Miguel. It is very much an old world style market with just about everything you could ever think of for sale. Piles of clothes, shoes, toys and more all waiting to be dug into...all items are one price per table. The fruits and vegetables are the brightest I have ever seen. The seafood vendors had huge cuts of fish and large prawns [View Full Entry]

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The church bells were ringing, the mariachis singing and children were pushed up against the gates to see the bride and groom. Yes, we saw a Mexican Wedding. The HUGE wedding party was coming out of the San Miguel landmark church La Parroquia for all the world to see. Everyone looked so happy, but the bride seemed to be annoyed at being told what to do by her mother. Saturday was the first day that I felt well enough to go out for longer than a couple hours into the world. My illness had disappeared finally, even though my stomach was [View Full Entry]

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Since I have not left the casita since Monday due to my illness, I really have come to learn about the three most important things around the house that we use daily, but never had in the US. First of all is our water filter system. We get all of our drinking water and cooking water from this source and it actually tastes great! Very similar to San Francisco water. I am sure some people in the states use filtered water all the time, but I always used tap. We have learned that if you are going to ingest any part [View Full Entry]

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Last night, while sitting and reading a book, a giant loud cracking sound exploded near us and scared Byron to death! Okay, us a little too...I looked up in the sky and saw the tails of fireworks. It has been announced that SMA is now a UNESCO world heritage site. It is a a huge deal and all of the people of San Miguel are glowing with pride at their honored city. The days have been coming and going. The other day, Ronnie and I played "tourist" and headed to the Centro. As soon as we arrived, rain started to gush [View Full Entry]

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Things are starting fall into place and our casita is feeling more and more like home. Yesterday we took the bus by ourselves in El Centro. The bus ride was great! Each bus is individually owned by the driver. You flag them down like they are taxis and just hop on. The money is collected during or after the ride. The radio blasts loud music as we bumped up and down on the cobblestone streets. I was particularly touched when a very old man who could barely walk flagged down the bus. The driver pulled over and got out of the [View Full Entry]

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It is now day three and even though the thunder and lightening storms continue, we are giddy with our new life. Yesterday morning I met our first neighbor, though I have forgotten his name. I used my broken spanish to discover he worked on the casita that we live in and that he has visited Houston and San Antonio, but never to California. Then Eleanor (our land-lady and rad Senora) took us in a cab down to one of the major supermarkets to do some shopping. The store is called MEGA and it lived up to it's name. I was so [View Full Entry]

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After months of planing, emotions, blood, sweat and tears...we have made it to our casita in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico. But before my first impressions and experiences, I want to share with you what happened on the last days on US soil. It was hard to say good-bye to our apartment in the Lower Haight. We started our lives together there and it will always live in my memory as one of the places that I grew into who I am today. With lots of stress that doesn't need to be repeated as far as cleaning and getting every [View Full Entry]

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We have finally moved mostly out of our San Francisco apartment. Thanks to some awesome friends and a Uhaul truck, we were able to move everything we are storing during our journey to my dad's house (into my old room) by 4:00pm on Saturday. I swear I had no idea just how much stuff we had even after our huge moving sale! It was also the hottest day of the year in SF so you can be sure we sweat and sweat while moving things from the third floor apartment, with no elevator, down to the truck. It was much easier [View Full Entry]

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Our last day of work came and went in a whirl-wind of joy, tears, drinking and karaoke! The last few days of work are very strange. At the start of the week it feels like there is plenty of time to gather your things into one box and be done with it...so of course it made sense to me to start packing up my office space on Thursday. Taking down years of memories and nick-nacks was easier than I expected. For some reason I thought I would cry through the whole thing, but it just felt like it was time to [View Full Entry]

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Our days in this country are winding down. Only 4 days left of work, 2 weeks of packing and then we are off to our great Mexican Adventure. Besides all of the preparations for the great move, we have been busy with other occurrences, some in our control, some not, that have been happening around us. The best news is that on May 31st, my dad remarried for the first time in 25 years to a wonderful woman named Carie. They go together like strawberries and chocolate. Since I love to plan fun things, I volunteered to be their wedding planner. [View Full Entry]

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