San Miguel de Allende

I went to San Miguel de Allende last weekend with a friend. San Miguel de Allende is known for the really big church located on the left side of this picture. If you're up to it, you can zoom in on the picture pretty well without too much loss to the details. Like Guanajuato, San Miguel de Allende is located in a bit of a valley. But it doesn't appear that San Miguel de Allende is as dry. Also, like Guanajuato, San Miguel is quite the tourist town. Lots of Americans and foreigners buy their retirement homes here.

We arrived about midday and did a little bit of window shopping before we got hungry and we sat at a place called, I think, The Terrace. I had a Negra Modelo and some enchiladas potosinas. It was all quite good. Afterwards, we started walking. My friend had studied in San Miguel and knew the way around pretty well. So we headed to a school of art.

And saw these on the way. And, well, heck. I just had to take a picture of it.

At the school of art, we found some mariachis, located behind where I was standing when I took the big panorama. I thought these guys were pretty cool, too.

And this one was pretty impressive, too. It encompasses floor to ceiling, wall to wall. I'm just not able to put them all together to make it look better. I'm pretty certain it's not strengthening stereotypes, but the drunk on the left in the sombrero is kinda funny looking.

Later on, there wasn't much to do, but we heard of a bar called La Cucaracha, which supposedly had the least expensive prices on beer. We thought it was going to open between 6 and 7, so we took a walk up a hill (maybe half to a mile long, at 10-15% grade or so) to the motorcycle rental place. $280 pesos ($28USD) for a bike for the day. But we were headed to bars, and I didn't think we'd really need it.

When we heard that La Cucaracha wasn't going to open until later, we continued walking. It must have been the innate US collegiate student instincts, but I found an Irish pub within five minutes. Happy hour(s)* still in effect for another hour and so we stopped in. We ordered a Trois Pistoles (9%) and an Indio. Played a few games of billiards and another Indio was ordered. Paid the tab of $90 pesos because we knew where to find some live music. *Happy hour(s) was for national beers, like Indio. Thus, $40 pesos for the two Indios, and $50 pesos for the Trois pistoles. Oops.

We wandered down to Flannerty's where there was to be music at 8:30pm. But we had to kill 30 minutes before anything was to happen. Luckily, there was an art showing across the street with lots of people. This meant that there'd be wine. So we checked out the photos and paintings (which had price tags between $375 and $1900 USD to feed youths) and had some wine and cracker with cheese. We still had ten minutes, but went back across the street. We ordered some quesadillas and a new type of beer Leon from the Cancun area. It was all pretty good. The show began promptly, and we met the trumpet player in between sets. His name is Paul. What he was doing at Flannerty's was just an impromptu thing and later he'd play at Mama Mía's bar afterwards.

Not the greatest picture, and I remember in retrospect that I should have taken a movie of a few songs. But ah, well. But I did buy the CD that Paul had pressed with his regular band. As we attempted to leave, we got caught with the $100 pesos minimum per person. We had spent all of $90 pesos so far, so we ordered quesadillas and nachos to inflate our bill a bit. So we ended up spending $200 pesos regardless, but had a total of $190 pesos.

We went to Mama Mía's and listened Paul's band until late at night, and then a second band stepped up and played lots of American pieces like Lenny Kravitz and Janis Joplin, but also threw in the mix some old Mexican standards. We ordered an Indio and Negra Modelo there, too. On the four beers and glass of wine during the night, we were a little hung over the next day. Maybe it's the air. It was a good trip.

For this weekend, I have no idea what's going on. Superbowl Sunday, and no classes on Monday. I'm going to have to get some cocacola for my 7am class and drink part of it on the way to class in the mornings. I think some people are headed to Michoacán. I'll have to figure out which way the wind carries me.