Visiting Friends

Yesterday Norm and Nancy took me to visit a friends who they met 10 years ago when visiting San Miguel. I was such a good dog. You would have been very proud of me. I barked just a little and then I sat laid down and took a nap.
su dulce perrito,
Sultán

H1N1 Flu Shuts Down the Town

Hola Ildiko. Hola Federico. Te echo de menos. No hay muchos eventos en la ciudad a causa de la enfermedad del susto. Estamos dando más paseos. Me gusta María. Ella es la hija de Norma. Ella es una buena womman porque le gusta cute little perros y yo soy un lindo perrito.

Walking Tia Nancy

Dear Ildy, & Federico,
Every morning and every evening I take Tia Nancy for a walk. Que necesita el ejercicio. We are well and I am making friends with Mary and Quinn.

Norm & Sultan at El Ten Ten Pia

Dear Ildy & Federico,

How are you enjoying your holiday? I am enjoying mine with Tio Norm and Tiacita Nancy. They took me "out for a drink." They had limanada, but I only got aqua. Tia Nancy keeps nagging at me to drink mas aqua, pero no me gusta el agua. She is learning. Today she learned that if she me habla en español I will go the direction she wants me to go. I wonder how she learned that trick? Federico?
Please do not worry. We are all well and enjoying our time together and tiacita Nancy told me that La gripe porcina no hará perros enfermos. Soy un perro afortunado!

con grandes cortezas y mucho amor
Sultan - buen perrito

Postcards from Sultan

Dear Frederico & Ildiko,
I hope you had a safe and comfortable journey to Europe. I miss you , but Tio Norm and Tia Nancy are being kind to me. I like the way Tio Norm scratches me behind the ears and Tia Nancy gives me bits of cheese when she cooks. I will soon have them trained. This morning Tia took me on my walk. She thought she could choose the route. Ha! I showed her. In the end we went my way. She is learning.
Tia Nancy says from now on this will be MY blog. She will only put things on it about me so you can follow along with my days. She will have a different blog for her family. It will be http://www.momentosmagicosensm.blogspot.com/ But you will probably only want to check this one because it is all about me!

I slept good last night. At first I snuggled with Tio Norm, but later toward morning I curled up by Tia Nancy. Oh, and Tia Nancy says to tell you that I am not watching the door and that is a good sign......But I do miss you very much.
su buen perrito,

Sultan

Norm & Sultan

Sutlan is not yet our responsibility - that doesn't begin until Saturday, however, he has been to the casita a few times for visits and is starting to warm up to us - especially Norm. Norm named this photo, " Two Old Dogs." :-)

At Belles Artes

Belles Artes is one of the art schools in San Miguel. It's an old convent turned into a school and when you walk around it in the afternoon, with the cool breeze coming through the foyer, you can almost sense all those little nuns around you - those that spent their lives in this place.

Nancy loved the mural of the women. We don't know if it's new, but it was new to us.

At the Botanical Garden

This week we're seeing the sites that would be hard to see with Sultan, since he won't be coming to us until Saturday. Yesterday we trekked out to the Botanical Gardens and were they ever in their glory! We've never seen the cacti in bloon before -- Magnificent!

Sultan in San Miguel

This is the adorable schnauzer we will be caring for while in San Miguel. He looks a lot like Olie (Joe's dog, but he's younger than Oli and very intelligent. Not to say that Oli isn't, but Sultan is almost human in the way he communicates with his cute facial expression and cocks of the head. He took us on our first walk this evening and believe me this little pooch is going to be good for us. He really made us 'step up the pace!"

Tienpo con Sultan en San Miguel

This little guy is acutally 'Oli,' Norm's oldest son, Joe's dog, but he looks very much like 'Sultan' the little schnauzer we'll be caring for while in San Miguel de Allende this year. Maybe we should have re-named our blog Tiempo con Sultan!
Watch for our adventures to begin on April 18th when we return to the lovely San Miguel de Allende.

~Norm & Nancy

RETURNING TO SAN MIGUEL

A travel shrine is supposed to a representation of my journey in all its many manifestations. It should show how eager and excited I am to go; it should also show my fears and hesitations, my joys and my fears.
Its primary purpose is to help me see and understand all the issues that surround this journey. What do I want to learn while in San Miguel? What do I want to learn about Mexico? What do I want to learn about myself in San Miguel? These are the questions the Travel Shrine is supposed to help clarify.
Shrines trace back to antiquity, perhaps to when that first cave man lugged a special rock into his cave and placed it on his hunting shrine. Here is my Travel Shrine.
I have lofty plans for my time spent there – 1) Caring for an adorable little schnauzer named Sultan 2) Studying Spanish with a private tutor (maybe it will ‘take’ this time!) 3) Completing the anthology I’m working on for Kaplan Publishing – BEYOND BORDERS, and 4) typing up hours and hours of the manuscript from weekly taped telephone calls with my mother this winter. I’ll be compiling all her wonderful memories into a ‘book’ for the family and hope to have at least all that typing done by the end of my time in Mexico.
So, you can see it will be truly busy four months, but I’ll be living a fantasy as I’ll truly be…

A writer in San Miguel,
~Nancy

Adios San Miguel de Allende

Yesterday we said "Adios" to San Miguel....NO, actually, I think we all said simply "Hasta Luego," as am pretty certain that Candy and Susan will return, and you KNOW I will. I am at an Internet Cafe in Puerta Vallarta. It took a 12 hour bus to get here....a story in itself. We are staying at my sisters vacation club the Vallarta Torres - very fancy! I have only 5 minutes on the clock so I will try to get some pix on here.

Living la vida buena in PV

Senora Nancy

En Hecho Mexico - Made in Mexico

What a fun day! We showed Pam all the best places to shop - especially the jewelry places. Then tried to go to a Flamenco Show. It was cancelled though (no reason given - just cancelled) so we drowned our sorrows at our favorite watering hole, Tio Lucas, then more shopping and dinner at Hecho en Mexico (Made in Mexico) Yummy! We ended the evening with a trip through the jardin for a little Mariachi musica then home early for PJs and 'girl-talk." Just another great day in San Miguel.

Mi Hermana Ha Llegado - My Sister Has Arrived !

My little sister, Pam arrived late last night and we've just spent the morning have slow coffee and breakfast on the patio. Gosh, how four women can talk when you get us together! :-) Pam brought her laptop with her so , once again, we are connected. What a relief! We all like being able to 'talk to home' and those Internet Cafes just don't quite do the trick, besides their keyboards are all different and you may have noticed the extra symbols they produce. :-)

So, we're off to show Pam the city. This will be fun! She was here about 30 years ago while in college and has not returned. It will be interesting to see it through her eyes.

Yesterday we walked until we were reardy to drop - about 8 hours of walking the cobblestone streets and on those sidewalks that are something like doing step-aerobics - up and down. We slept llike the dead last night once we were all settled in. Ahhhh.....just yet another wonderful day in paradise. I am missing Norm, but it is going to be hard to leave this place.

Limping Along

Well, we are limping along with the Internet Cafe, but at least we can check mail. It is such an easy way to stay in touch while we re here. No modo....that is Spanish for ...it is all good....or something like that.

Last night we enjoyed a 3 hour dinner. FINE DINING! It was fantastic. Dos Casa is an upscale B and B on the corner less than half a block from the casa. it is open to the public, but you have to knock on the door to get inside. All the very handsome young waiters practically fell over each other to take care of we three aging gringas....well, at least they did before the place got busy. It seems that word is getting out about Dos Casas. They don't want to get too busy because their main business is actually the $450 a night rooms of the bed and breakfast.

We sat outside on the open air patio and the rain began to fall. Quickly Manuel pulled out the canapy to protect, Raphael came running, "You must come in. Come in, come in, come in." We just laughed and said we'd rather stay outside. Loco gringas.

At any rate we had a truly exceptional dining experience complete with complimentary appetizers of Marlin fish , fabulous dinners of seared tuna and strawberry salad finished off...after several glasses of red wine..with a shared piece of hot chocolate cake. Ahhhhhh we were in heaven.

Today we're off to the library then the artesians market again and then ??? Who knows what adventures are waiting out there for us....Oh the places we will go!

Feliz en San Miguel,
Nancy

The Lady Skeleton

I just love these skeltons that you see all over in the artesian markets and shops. Mexico has such a healthy, "fun" approach to death. They don t actually see it as any different than "life." My old Spanish teacher, Socorro, told me ," I have relatives in this world, I have relatives in another. There is no difference , Nancy. there is NO difference."

Ahhhh.....I am pretty sure I was Mexican in a previous life! :)


"Mexico: where life is cheap, death is rich, and the buzzards are never unhappy." ....Edward Abbey

En Juarez Parque

Candy & Susan are falling too…..in love with San Miguel that is. This city does that to you, makes you dream about “what would it be like to live here…” and talk about “The next time I come…” It isn’t as though we’ve done anything very out of the ordinary. Breakfast at the Bagel Café this morning followed by a walk around Parque Juarez, back to the casa for a siesta, then a wonderful dinner and drinks at Tio Lucas, where “Max’ the owner charmed us, and the waiters treated us like queens. A small parade of Mohehanis - those large puppet like- fun things – passed by Tio Lucas while we were eating. Too fun! We ended our evening at the ‘bar on the corner’ for a nightcap by candlelight since the power had gone off. Just so very, very ‘San Miguel” We are in love.

Now we’re off to the “Tuesday Market” for the adventure of the “flea market on steroids.” Candy is cautiously interested; Susan is estatic.

En amour con San Miguel,

Nancy

Computer Esta Ka'Put

It is official. My comuter has died. I don't know if I picked up a virus, or if it was one of the many storms that have blown through. I will need to wait until I get back to Iowa to find out. So, I will be trying to update my blog from Internet Cafes. It may...or many not work. Please know that Candy and Susan arrived safely and we are having a blast. I will try to get some pix of them on here by tomorrow, but it is a very complicated procedure in th cafes... and I am not the sharpest tack in the box with computers. Bear with me.

Vivo en San Miguel,
Nancy

Calabaza Blossoms - Pumpkin Blossoms

Everywhere I go I see women selling pumpkin blossoms. When I asked her how to cook them she told me to make a soup with onions and garlic and chicken and cheese. Hmmmm. It sounds good! I may have to try making some!

This morning I woke up to find my laptop KAPUT. I am not sure what the problem is, because it worked great just before I went to bed. I unplugged it just in case we had more storms in the night. We did have a BODACIOUS one last night that made the streets run like rivers! So, its Internet Cafe for me , probably for the rest of my time in Mexico unless I can find a computer guru here in San Miguel.

But, it is ALL GOOD! Just another one of the wierd quirky things about Mexico that I love. Mysterys! Who knows what happen to my 'puter in the night?! It rained so hard I had water in my casa all the way around the edges and this morning the big wooden door was swoolen shut so hard I thought for bit I was going to be held captive all day! But, I managed to pry it open....now if I can just get my computer working....

Hasta!

Nancy

Socorro's Secret Delivered to Habla Hispana

I started my day at the Bibleoteca for a Cappachino and a copy of the Atencion - the weekly newspaper that tells everything that will happen during the coming week. On my way I passed a woman selling roses, so I picked out a dozen for my old Spanish teacher, Socorro. Later, after slow morning coffee I delivered the flowers and a copy of my book, 'Womankind" to Socorro at my old spanish school - Habla Hispana. I was pleasantly surprised that she remembered me immediately since I certainly wasn't a 'star student' four years ago when I studied under her. Socorro is a very special lady. If you haven't read her story - "Socorro's Secret" - DO! Now I'm just hoping that she maintains her delightful sense of humor about my mentioning "Socorro was experimenting with hennas that winter...." :-)