San Miguel de Allende, Once Again

We have been in San Miguel de Allende for the last couple of months, arriving on February 1st. Several years ago we stumbled upon a nice little apartment in the heart of the city, for a very reasonable price.  

Jardin (main square) & Parroquia 

The landlady, a charming Mexican woman, Maria Louisa, for some reason seems to like us and has sais that she will only rent to us--that makes coming back to San Miguel so very easy. 

View of our street, Mesones, at sunset

View from our balcony of the nearby San Francisco Church

What can possibly keep one coming back to the same place, year after year  Besides a nice climate, a moderate cost of living, and the lovely Mexican people and culture, there is just so much to see and do.

This time of year, there are a lot of long term visitors from Canada and the US.  Films, plays, and music events are constantly being offered at local restaurants, theaters and the Biblioteca (a library founded more than 50 years ago by expats to provide community for extranjeros and scholarships for local youth). 

The Biblioteca puts out a weekly bi-lingual newspaper called "La Atención" which lists many acitivities going on around town. We spend Fridays, when the paper is published, going thru the calendar of events planning our week ahead.  Often there are conflicting things to do and see, so we have to make a choice.

Larry continues with his daily, one hour Spanish conversation class and has since last year taken up Duplicate Bridge--Sue calls it obsession.

Sue goes to Urban Sketchers, a group that meets at various places throughout the city once a week to draw and encourage others to draw and recently she took a watercolor class that she really enjoyed. The photo below shows her first watercolor done in the class.

We have made friends with people who have chosen to live here full time and with a number of people who come back every year like us. 

One group we have enjoyed getting involved with is the Audubon de Mexico which offers weekly and monthly bird walks that sometimes takes us to the near countryside. The pictures below are from a bird walk along the Laja River, not far from the city.

As Easter approaches, there are many processions in San Miguel, especially on Palm Sunday and Good Friday.  Many, many people participate, some in costume and several groups carrying huge pallets covered in gorgeous flowers beneath statues of the Holy Family.