WE LOVE SAN MIGUEL, OR SHOULD I SAY THE SOUTHERN BERKELEY

We have been here 4 days and are already saying to ourselves why didn’t we do this years ago!! We absolutely love the house, it is especially nice to have our morning coffee on the back patio looking at all the hummingbirds and listening to the fountain. We see hummingbirds when we first wake up in the morning as you can see them flitting about from our bed which looks on to the upper terrace. We are both sleeping great and are waking up when the sun shines through the semi-sheer curtains. It is a natural way to begin the day, and we love it. I am no longer waking up in the morning and having coffee then going back to bed for a couple more hours. I feel healthier here. The house is bright and sunny with big windows in just about every room. We leave the doors open whenever we are home until the evening starts and then we close them because of possible mosquitos. Glenn has found the two patios at home are great places to start the day with his tai chi practice. We have also returned to our favorite park of the past, Parque Juarez, which is another place so conducive to his tai chi. It is so mellow with all the birds, plants, walkways and fountains. We have never been this relaxed.

We can play our music at home whenever we want and not worry too much about the neighbors as they really can’t hear us. That is especially nice as we couldn’t do so when we had tenants above us. We have been cooking at least once a day but will start doing more once we go to the big market, La Comer, not too far from the house. We have been using the tiendas around the neighborhoods for small stuff, and there are some great organic/artisan shops but we need to do a big shopping run. Maybe tomorrow. We will just have to wait and see how the day goes as we are not making any plans just yet. It is nice to just relax and not think too much.

We have started calling San Miguel the Southern Berkeley, not because of anything visual but because we have met so many people from there already!! Some have moved down permanently and others are here for just a stay. It has been fun talking to them. Everyone is so open, friendly and positive. People look and are happy!! What a change from the USA where everyone seemed fixated on their devices and into their own little worlds. We have stopped watching TV which is great because we really don’t want to watch any depressing news, and we are really enjoying reading again. We still have our Oakland library card so we can use the Overdrive System with them to check out books for our kindles. And there is a great library in town with a fabulous English section.

Reading the Attencion newspaper this morning we loved seeing all the events we can go to or participate in. We are certainly not going to get bored. When we put a notice in the San Miguel Renter’s Forum we received so many responses. And some were from people who did not even have a place to rent to us, they just liked what they read. So people contacted us after reading through our blog or Instagram account and we have quite a few to meet up with. What we will probably do is choose a date next week and try to get together with all of them at once for coffee to make things easy. They all seem really interesting. And we would love to meet some people who have traveled as we have.

I have been taking lots of photos as you can tell because it is so colorful and beautiful, and it is hard not to. Glenn thinks I am going somewhat overboard and possibly getting a bit manic, but I tell him that I am back into doing something that I love so I just enjoy it.  It is the low season too so it is not overcrowded and we can really get our bearings  and I can get some good pictures without a lot of people. We are still in the honeymoon stage of the move too with everything being so different, although I hope we never get too far beyond it.

This is an artists heaven and we can’t wait to go to some of the gallery openings and see what is out there. Our landlord Sher Davidson is an artist and writer and her fabulous artwork is all over the house. She has also written a couple of books, the latest is Under The Salvadorian Sun. And she has an NGO here, the Latin America Relief Fund, for refugees with a safe house in Celaya, Mexico.

Today as we were setting up our P.O. Box at La Connexion (no one uses the Mexican mail, we now have a box in Laredo, TX) we also met a great painter who had his gallery next door. He is an autistic savant and does really eclectic, colorful work, most of it taking very little time to do. It is amazing how he can do that. You can check out Michael Tolleson Robles to see some of his work. And to top it off, you see artists working all around the town with easels and sketchbooks which is fun to watch.

Music plays a big role here too. We have had 2 out of the 3 breakfasts accompanied by great guitarists. And a lot of the places to eat offer music as part of their charm. We love that. There are also some great venues in town to see live music and theater. We are hopefully getting some tickets to upcoming events that are a tenth of the price, if not more, than the States. And we have heard about a really cool venue Zandunga a bit out of town that we must get ourselves to. It is Gil Gutierrez’s place and he is a fabulous musician. It sounds like our kind of music!! It is $600 pesos(about $33.00) per person but you get the show and an amazing buffet for that. We have heard it is best to get a private taxi and have them come back at the end to get you, and pay them then. Otherwise it is very difficult to get back home. We will use Uber a lot here too. We certainly don’t want a car!

This is just a few of our impressions of our new home over the first 4 days!! Just think what we will find out about next.

There are 4 great decisions that we have made that have lead to this point:  1) Glenn buying the house in Temescal 2) our getting married 3) Selling the house 4) moving down to San Miguel.

And moving down to San Miguel de Allende is where we are going to stay. Hope you enjoy our journey of discovery.

Lavanda

courtyards of San Miguel de Allende

Lovely doors and windows of San Miguel de Allende