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Pool Boys
Going away party at the bar... 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 item out of there by the 30th, we left it in great condition and received our FULL deposit back. That night, our friends wanted to throw us another going away party. It was so wonderful to see friends from work that we hadn't seen in the weeks of packing, but being in a bar from 1:00pm until 9:30pm made for a rough hangover the following morning. I even continued down to the Castro with some close friends to celebrate the "Pink Party" the night before pride. It was the perfect good-bye for me to San Francisco. Everyone was smiling,
laughing, dancing and celebrating in the streets and I could just feel myself glow.
The following day after completely packing up the rest of the apartment and turning in the keys, we headed to my mom's house and then to an old San Francisco tradition called Westlake Joe's. My dad and Carie joined us and we had giant plates of steak and pasta to fill our
still hungover bodies.
The following and last day in the US was a day of laundry and repacking our 7 pieces of luggage down to 5 suitcases, 2 laptop bags, a backpack and Byron's carrying case. Mom cooked us a wonderful turkey/mashed potato/ fixings dinner and we all went to the airport together. My best girlfriend Kirsten met us at the airport for a final good-bye. We went to check in our luggage, ready to pay the extra fee for having one more bag over the limit, when the ticket agent informed us that there was no way we could bring more than 2 suitcases each. Ronnie and I looked at each-other in terror. We had already shaved off stuff we thought was "Can't Live Without." So we did what we had
to. We picked the smallest suitcase to leave behind and then just kept shoving everything we could into the other 4 bags until they all reach the max. weight...50 pounds. It was an ordeal but we made it. We waved good-bye to Dad and Kirsten as we passed through security.
The flight was pretty non eventful except for me having to find Byron a
pet relief area in the Houston airport which made us take a buss and go through 3 terminals to get to...then go through security...again. We slept a bit on the second flight. We were some of the last people to get off the plane in Guananjuato. In Mexico, for customs, you walk up to a signal light and push a button...if it is green, you can go out without a bag search...well I go the red light. So they went through my bags. Funny enough, the thing that confused them the most was our game of Yahtzee. Hahaha! So then we took the long car ride (almost 2 hours) to our casita.
Now we live a bit outside of town in a fully Mexican area. Our landlord Eleanor is the only gringo in the
neighborhood. At first, I was a bit nervous as it did look a bit rundown but like all the other times I have visited San Miguel, once the door opens, my heart soars. I chatted with Eleanor while Ronnie carried some bags up to our casita. He came downstairs with I swear, the biggest smile I have ever seen on his face. I joined him upstairs and instantly understood. Our place is better than we dreamed and so cozy and warm. I think it will be hard to leave to even go to El Centro! (Downtown) Eleanor then had us down in her garden and we had tequila and limonada to celebrate our arrival and to get to know each other. She then suggest we go to El Centro for comida so off we zoomed in a taxi to Harry's, a wonderful steakhouse. But first we took a walk through the beautiful town square, El Jardin, until it began to downpour buckets of rain! We made it to Harry's only a bit drenched and sat by the open window to watch the storm. Thunder and lightening struck as we discovered it was 2 for 1 margaritas...so there we sat, eating
Our Sala
Byron has found his new favorite hangout spot a beautiful filet mignon, mashed potatoes with saffron and corn and creamed spinach while a river of water started to flood the streets. We heard the bangs of drums as some students walked by in a parade. Ronnie and I looked at each other in excitement and knew we had made it.
We then took a bus back up the hill to our casita in the rain, as a little boy sang in the back of the bus, hoping for pesos. We arrived home, took some long needed showers and crashed into bed.
Being away from El Centro is truly a culture shock. We are a bit scared at times of making fools of ourselves or saying the wrong thing in Spanish or being rude to someone without realizing what we had done...or making errors counting pesos, or tipping when we shouldn't or forgetting to when we should...but already I feel like this adventure is everything that I hope it would be...even if that includes a bit of fear and nervousness. So here we are...in our casita in San Miguel, doing what we dreamed.
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yo
sorry i missed your bar day! looks like mexico is already treating you well. xx