Final Moments in San Miguel

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What is there to say about our last moments in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato? So many kinds of emotions are rushing all around us that it is pretty hard to even see straight. We have left our usual and fairly predictable lives in San Francisco to move to this gem of Mexico and never really know what the next minute holds for us. We could be walking home from lunch and run into a long funeral procession. But our adventure isn’t ending. It is just a new beginning. I have to keep telling myself that because if I say it is the ending for us in SMA, I get muy triste.

These last few days were supposed to be calm and reflective. Unfortunately, they were crazy and a blur! The end of Semana Santa went out with a bang. Literally. One of the final events in SMA to celebrate this, is to hang up “Judases,” (or shop keepers, or witches or politicians or others), stick them full of dynamite and blow them up in the jardin. The CRACK is so loud, that most of the crowd holds their ears and children jump after each explosion. Our friends who had been visiting us for the week from San Francisco, Megan and Joey, seemed to really enjoy the spectacle of it all. From the procession of Jesus going to trial, to his funeral, to his rebirth, everything was extremely morose and uplifting.

In the midst of all of these celebrations, we had a celebration of our own to prepare for: Ronnie and I’s solo show of our artwork at Ave Maria. Our friends Megan and Joey were an endless help as they hung up our pieces and gave us advice on having a show opening. We were rushing to stores to buy items to make sangria, figuring out prices for our art, and putting ads in local newspapers while the city exploded with tourists from all over Mexico.

Our opening went really well. Many people attended and had great comments about our work, but by the end of it, we were exhausted. Sadly, not much sold.

A few days later, it was time for Megan and Joey to head back to California. Ronnie and I teased Megan (who is a freelancer like us) that she should stay and help us move to Bucerias. After a bit of coaxing, we actually talked her into it!!! So we said our goodbyes to Joey and went back to the apartment to get ready for the day.

As we were walking out of our apartment, we ran into our landlady. We told her that we needed more gas as we had run out. She said we owed her a lot more money than that. We did not understand. She said she has seen us with guests and that she is going to go to a hotel to see how much they charge per day and then charge us that for every day we had a guest in the last 3 months. This outraged Ronnie and to avoid a crazy fallout, I said that we could talk about it tomorrow. To be on the safe side, we rushed to our friends at Casa Luna for help as we would need a translator for the meeting and then we went back to the apartment to pack up our necessities. Who knows what she might have done? She did change the locks on another tenet after all. Long story short, she was very loud and mean at the meeting saying we were dishonest and all kinds of other nasties. Luckily, we already packed up our things and were staying at Casa Luna Pila Seca instead.

The last few days have been spent doing many errands and saying many goodbyes. There are so many people we are going to miss…Eleanor, Dianne, Suzanna, Macky and Aissa (that we met through this blog), Jason, Gioanna, Lalo, Tia, Maria Luz…so many people. They are the hardest to leave.

And so we are all packed up. Tomorrow morning a van is picking us up at 5:00am to drive us to Mexico City where we will hop on a plane to Puerto Vallarta, and then hop in a taxi to Bucerias to meet Rogelio, who will give us the keys to our new life.

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Comments

[Angel]

WHAT?!?
I can't believe that lady!! That's insane! I'm glad you were able to get out of there w/o her causing any real damage!!

[Dad]

Goodbye pretty little town of San Miguel and Julie and Ronnies friends there.. Thanx for taking such good care of them and giving them an experience of a lifetime..