My New Favourite Spot...

San Miguel! My new favourite place in Mexico! Honestly, if you haven’t already visited this colonial town, you must do so. It is beautiful and full of character… with great shopping (in both markets and stores) and lots of great restaurants.

This was our first long weekend of the school year. Because of Mexican Independence Day, we had the Friday off from school. On Thursday afternoon, three cars, consisting of 11 people, caravanned from Monterrey to San Miguel (almost 750km and 8 hours!). We arrived late Thursday night (around midnight) but this meant we had the full days on Friday and Saturday to explore.

Mexican Independence day is a bit like Canada day… but much bigger! There are such feelings of patriotism in this country. The entire city seemed to be decorated in red, green and white, with flags and banners all around. On Friday evening at 11pm, there is a celebration in cities around the country. There is singing and the national anthem, and fire works. Fireworks here are a little different than in Canada, where there is usually a distance required between the actual fireworks and the spectators. Here, that was not the case and an object that had been lit on fire and flown into the air actually came crashing down on the crowd. I don’t think anyone was hurt too badly; but we immediately bolted a 100metres or so away, so I don’t know for sure.

I was a very successful shopper this weekend – though most of my purchases were not for me. I won’t show too many pictures of what I bought because some of you may be receiving this gifts at Christmas time. Speaking of Christmas, for family members and the Hunters who have been discussing a Destination Christmas for 2007, this may be the place! Though not on the beach, it is lovely and relaxing...

San Miguel is actually one of the top 20 places for Americans to retire… So there is quite a bit of English spoken here. This was the first time in my 7 or so weeks in Mexico that I didn’t feel like we (as a group of Canadians and Americans) stood out completely. Despite all these English speakers, I did get to practice a fair bit of Spanish, and I can tell that I have improved.

My internet keeps timing out... so I will try to get the accompanying pictures up tomorrow.