Friday, April 22, 2011

Shree's photos, April 22

My brother and sister-in-law (mi hermano y mi cuñeda) visited for a week and a half.  Thank goodness for visitors:  you get to see many things you would not otherwise have seen, because visitors are much more conscientious with a camera than those of us who live here all the time.  You will enjoy this!

First, the photographer, Shree Mickelson.  (Well, okay, I took this picture.)


And my brother, David Mickelson.  These photos and the next ones were taken on the rooftop terrace of a hugely expensive new hotel/restaurant, the Rosewood, that opened here a couple of months ago.  Rooms start at $300 a night, and 4 drinks on the terrace cost $50.  But what a view!




 



They joined me at my conversational Spanish class every day, having learned some Spanish in a trip they took to Cuba a few years ago.




Pretty fine place for a class, isn't it?  And here is our teacher, Elvira.  She was born in San Miguel and has taught English for 50 years.  Hard to believe, but she's 70.  An amazing teacher:  I can understand every syllable she says.



Shree also joined me for my weekly cooking lesson.  (I'll put the recipes on the next blog.)  First, of course, is the mercado (market) where we buy what we need for the dinner.  In this picture, the green round things are prickly pear cactus -- nopales in Spanish -- which you cut up and drain of the gooey stuff, sort of like okra, and then you can cook it or eat it raw.  Yurina, my friend and cooking teacher, has taught me two ways to make nopales and I give up.  Yuk.



Here we are, Shree, Yurina and me, in the kitchen preparing the meal.



I am scribbling down what Yurina is teaching us how to do, which will become the recipe you read on this blog.



And here is the fruit of our effort!  From the left, Rick, me, our friends Natalie, Louis, and Luba, and David.


Shree took this photo of Rick and Mela outside our house.  The shrine to the Virgin protects the house from graffiti!



She took this excellent photo of Rick.



David and I are talking in the shade at the Jardin.


This could be a Utrillo painting, of one of the beautiful San Miguel streets.


And an evening on the town.  First, a fine dinner at Hacienda Guadalupe.


Walking through the Jardin, we found an amazing thing:  a Mexican Klezmer band that played superb Klezmer music -- "Bei Mir Bist Du Schön" and others -- and consisted of non-Jewish Mexicans!  We asked them where we could hear them again but the next day they were traveling to Mexico City to play there.


Every weekend there is a Sound and Light show at / on the Parroquia, the main church in town facing the Jardin, to commemorate the Bicentennial.  This is simply a spectacular photo.


And two excellent guitarists, Jack and Frances, to round off the evening:


To conclude this photographic tour of life in San Miguel, another visual treat.

 

 Thank you, Shree!

No comments:

Post a Comment