November Dirt Dwellers in SMA
—Blogpost written by Bob
In this blogpost, we continue our 6-month winter excursion in San Miguel de Allende (SMA), Mexico. We arrived by car on October 15, traveling from near Annapolis, Maryland where we live on our sailboat. This has been quite a change in our life style!
Tuesday, November 23
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| Kali watching us leave through the front door this morning. |
Today was another leisurely day for us. Leaving about 10 AM, we drove to La Comer (the supermarket) primarily to get poultry seasoning for our Thanksgiving dinner which we forgot on Monday. We picked up another couple frozen pizzas and some other small items.
We researched restaurants (on TripAdvisor) before leaving and we decided to try a restaurant called Rustica which had great reviews. The restaurant was in a neighborhood called Guadiana which I recognized from looking at rental apartments before we came to San Miguel de Allende. (Apparently, the neighborhood is populated mostly by gringos like us. Most of the occupants of the surrounding tables were speaking English.)
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| The outdoor dining area at Rustica. |
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| The old broken brick wall beside our table with a plant in the window space.
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At Rustica, Maggie ordered fish tacos and I ordered a steak sandwich, Mexican style--it was a solid steak (not shaved) with fried onions on ciabatta bread--it was very tasty!
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| Our shared dessert of a chocolate brownie with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream. (Note the artistically presented sliced fresh strawberry!) |
Lunch for the two of us (with a very tasty chocolate brownie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream for our shared dessert) cost 570 Mexican pesos (about $28 USD)--this was among the most expensive lunches we had since coming to San Miguel but it was also one of the best.
In the afternoon, I worked on the fine tuning of the autofocus on my camera and lenses. I have never done this on this (Nikon D750) camera previously although I have done it on my previous (Nikon D700) camera. (I ordered a plastic device on Amazon that will assist in the lens auto focus tuning process.)
Wednesday, November 24
I was very thirsty last night due mostly to the lack of humidity here in San Miguel. I got up in the middle of the night and drank some sugar-free Fresca and did some reading. Consequently, I didn't sleep very well last night.
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Today was the day before Thanksgiving and even though we bought a turkey and plenty of fixings, it just doesn't seem like Thanksgiving time here. I just got an email notice that the marina back home is turning off the water at the end of this month--it was always a sign of imminent cold weather. Lately it has been a little warmer here in the mornings but still in the mid-70's in the afternoons. I don't miss the cold but I do miss the water. (I'm hoping that our upcoming trip to Mazatlan in December uncovers a nice inexpensive place in Mexico to spend the winters near the water, even if the ocean is on the wrong side. For the most part, places in Mexico near the water are full of tourists and high prices.)
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On today's agenda was going out for lunch at Cafe Santa Ana in the bibliotheca and then searching the nearby artisan's market for a (ceramic) pie plate needed for tomorrow. Instead we stopped at the corner coffee shop and had sandwiches--it looked more inviting in the warm sun.
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| New college buildings near our apartment. (Note the solar panel in the foreground) |
We checked out a local butcher shop after lunch--it looked great! We made a note to try it out in the future. It was nice and warm outside but I was having some difficulty changing my camera from it's single point focusing mode--I came back to our apartment early to fix it. Maggie went on to look for a pie pan (but never found one nearby).
Thursday, November 25
The turkey was in the oven and the Thanksgiving Day parade was on TV, all the typical signs of the Thanksgiving Holiday back home. I had just taken a nice long hot shower and the world was good. The weather was perfect (highs in the mid-70's and lows in the mid-40's), as usual for San Miguel de Allende. Obviously, Thanksgiving is not a holiday in Mexico, except for us visiting gringos. (I was surprised that we were able to purchase a frozen turkey at La Comer--but we were not able to purchase fresh cranberries!)
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The delivery man for fresh water was supposed to come this past Monday but he never showed up. No one but us seemed to be concerned about it. Beto (the onsite manager?) went out and purchased a 5-gallon jug of purified water for us after I mentioned the fact that we had no purified water. In this situation back home I would be calling the water delivery company and complaining but this is Mexico and I have to conform my first reactions to the cultural standards of the country. So, we will simply wait until the water delivery man eventually arrives and be grateful for the delivery.
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My friend Bill called yesterday to let me know that he had not received my recent blog posts--he thought I may have been kidnapped and held for ransom. I have contacted the company (follow.it) who is responsible for my blogpost distribution--I had this same problem once before. I hope it gets fixed soon but I'm looking for a more reliable alternative in the meantime!
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We invited Christine, the Polish lady from the apartment below ours, to have Thanksgiving dinner with us. We had a very nice dinner in the middle of the afternoon. (Maggie spent almost all day cooking!) We have plenty of leftover turkey for next week...
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