Most of the day was spent in the city of San Miguel de Allende. Driving in from the mountains (or hills, around here I’m not sure what the difference is), it was clearly a gorgeous city.
The morning was incredible. We went to the area’s hot springs. The first was a series of enclosed grottoes with stained glass ceilings, creating a feeling like I have never experienced. It was the most relaxing and enchanting place I have been in a very long time. The second was also a series, but was much shallower, maybe a foot deep, and while the walls were high we were not enclosed. The result of ten people (seven of us, a professor, her husband, and her cousin who lives in the city) who have spent a lot of time together, are very tired, relaxing a hot spring? For us, it apparently meant an hour or so of lying in the water and singing whatever songs came to us. Mostly 60s and 70s music, with the random Spanish song or showtune thrown in. It was a unique experience, definitely bonding us together as we ended our time together. (I really wanted pictures of all of this, but the whole steaming water thing made it impossible). After we finished at the hot springs we had lunch at a wonderful restaurant, then went downtown to see the cathedral, which has a unique design among Mexican churches. Am I the only one reminded of a Disney castle?
Because we spent so much time at the hot springs, we lost most of our shopping time, so we rushed back home. Now, because this was a last-minute schedule change, we didn’t have our usual hired driver and school van, but the Drs. McCormick drove us themselves. I was in a car with Dr. Mr. McCormick, the one who is not a native Mexican and who is not nearly as aggressive at driving as he should be. So basically, on the ride back he didn’t change lanes fast enough and we missed our exit to go home. No problem, we’ll just drive though Queretaro until an exit looks good. After passing at least one exit that I was sure would have worked, he picked one that said downtown. It took us through neighborhoods we had never seen, but finally we hit a light for a major street we had heard of. We had to decide whether to turn left or right. I thought about everything I had learned over my two days of independence walking and riding busses, and told him my gut said to turn right. David remembered the area from one of our drives to a school, and his gut said right. Of course, Dr. Mike’s gut (which has been traveling to Queretaro for 18 years or so) said left. But he agreed to listen to us. Sure enough, a mile or two down I realized we were approaching the Alameda. This was still unfamiliar territory for him, so I gave him directions and led us the rest of the way home. It was a great boost to my confidence and I felt great that my misstep yesterday paid off in getting us out of being lost today. On a related note, I have been told that after my recent adventures, I have proven that I am ready to move here :)
The last part of the day was our goodbye dinner, attended by our host mothers, our language teachers, the special education coordinator who we worked closely with, the McCormick family, and Gaby, the director of the school that coordinated our program. Because of our trip tomorrow and our early flight Sunday, it really was goodbye to our teachers and to Gaby, who we have all grown very fond of, as well as Dr. McCormick’s mother and aunt, who are just wonderful and treated us like family. Now the only goodbyes left are our host families and to Mexico itself. It is still hard thinking about leaving, still a lot of mixed feelings, and I’ve realized that it’s going to just be like that. This experience was so much more than I expected it to be, and it may take a long time to deal with going home and missing Mexico and figuring out how to incorporate everything I have taken from this experience into my life.
It is 2:22am. Time to make a wish and go to sleep so I can enjoy one more day in my lovely Mexico.
(note- due to very long days and limited internet, I had to post a couple days late)
No comments:
Post a Comment