Aristos San Miguel de Allende

... sentence or two together when I need to. I'll no doubt have more to report at the end of the week.

Oh - I'm not sure how the photos work - some of them have captions but I don't know if the captions come up when you view the photos as a slide show. It might be necessary to just look at them without the slide show if you're interested in the captions. If anyone can figure it out - ie how to watch the slide show with captions, please let me know.

Salud!

... setting up the altar. Our altar was not only honoring the dead, but was also honoring children who had passed away. As a backdrop, there were several magazine cut outs of young children and on the altar there were several toys. We added our sugar skulls, candles and flowers to the offering. Our altar is almost complete. Tomorrow we'll be baking pumpkin cake and day of the dead bread to add to the ofrenda. I'm looking forward to it!

... the street.

I arrived at my home for the next few weeks: the Queretaro Guest House. I was met at the guest house by M and when she opened the doors I was welcomed by the lively blue and red entry way laden with various plants and ceramic decor. The guest house was much nicer than I had expected for the price and was happy to find that it was clean and quiet as well. The only downside I noticed was ...

... night, I got up early and got my golf gear together for a go at the links. I was not certain that Javier would show up, but he was right on time and he said it would be fine at the course for golf. Interestingly, the closer we got the cloud cover was darker gray and as we got to the edge of San Miguel it started to sprinkle. Rain was coming down as we approached the first tee. Javier had his rain gear and I had my umbrella and off we were on another round of golf. Actually it stopped on the ...

Mexico et Emilie sont au Mexique !!!

Pas très loin de Querétaro se trouve la ville de San Miguel de Allende, autre splendeur coloniale, avec notamment une cathédrale magnifique. Tout comme Querétaro la ville est pleine de petites ruelles de toutes les couleurs.

Nous arpentons donc les marchés pleins de bijoux et d'artisanat typique, faisons une pause où Trucha ne parviendra pas à terminer son ...

Trucha et Emilie sont au Mexique !!!

Après avoir passé 5 jours au Yucatan, à Tulum, ils reviennent sur Mexico bien bronzés, cramés même.

Pour ce 2eme week end ensemble nous partons visiter un joyau colonial tout proche de Mexico : la ville de Querétaro. Mon pote et ex-colocataire lorque je vivais la bas, Thibaut, nous a prêté sa maison située sur les hauteurs de la ville ...

... furniture and even stairs. There were 4 burros in a large pen near the house, waiting to be petted by friendly visitors and adding a soft touch to the cactus filled terrain. This was a great way to get a peak behind the outer walls and see the lifestyles of the "rich and famous" while at the same time providing aid to local children. Coming soon: San Miguel de Allende - A Walking Tour (another blog written by Barbara)

... a serene calm. I feel as if I am looking around with new eyes. And what is funny is that since thursday morning you could say things started to happen. BJ, who lead the meditation, invited Shay and I for dinner to talk about the Camino de Santiago in Spain, which he has done and which we are planning to do. Then Teresa, a woman from the meditation offered Shay and I to come work on her organic farm, something that we have really wanted to be able to ...

... in the U.S. is not the right type for making tamales and that the lard at home is inferior too. It was interesting to see the whipping together of the corn meal and lard, to spread it out on the soaked corn husk, to top it with poached chicken , and to add our choice of red (red dried chili) salsa or green (tomatillo). I had never had real Mexican tamales so that was a good experience. There is a new tamale place in San Miguel ...

We want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, or shall we say Feliz Navidad! We will be thinking of you over the holidays. We miss you, but not the weather, lol! We would love to get some emails from you, since we won't be getting any Christmas cards:( Take care, Jack and Audrey P.S. We put a photo of us on this post for those of you we didn't get to see on our short visit home. Just in case you are starting to forget what we look like!