Is This a Great City or What?

One of the reasons I have not been showing many photos of Querétaro is that since we live here now, I am not looking at it from a tourist’s standpoint. I usually carry my camera, but don’t often take touristy type pictures. Now when I look at the church towers and facades all lit up at night, I just thank my lucky stars that we live in such a cool place, and since we do, we have no need to take photos to remind us of where we are. I will try to take more for the blog. It is really an extraordinary town, with views and interesting things to see around every corner. Once I really begin to relax, I am seriously considering taking some watercolor classes to see if I can still do it, and there are plenty of street scenes to paint.

Last night we went to Shelley’s pre-St. Patrick’s Day party for her ESL (English as a Second Language) students and a few English speakers like us to keep the conversation going in English. Carl, Francis and their Toronto friend, Jan, were there two. We left early to stop by Maria and Bob’s for dessert (and a little tequila), and met Barry (from NY) and his friend Anne (from Toronto). It is beginning to look like there are two kinds of English speakers here, Americans, and folks from Toronto. Anne and Jan work for the Toronto school system, as did Carl, so maybe there are Americans and teachers from Toronto.

Yesterday, we walked until I thought my legs were going to drop off. C and I walked to her culture class on the other side of the historic district. Then I left her and walked to our landlord’s office on the south side of the district past Alameda Park. On the way I bought some niveladoras (levelers for the furniture legs). I came back through the park and on to where I am having business cards made. Then, since I had a few minutes I walked beyond C’s class to Maestro Javier’s to see who was playing chess. No one was, and I asked if anyone (Tomás and Javier were there) knew where to find tuercas (nuts) for the niveladoras, which are not that easy to find, BTW. I was directed to a hardware store a couple of blocks further on (there must only be 4 or 5 blocks a mile in Querétaro). After buying the tuercas and some washers (they cost $4 MX and the smallest bill I had was $200 MX), I went to wait for C’s class to finish. When she came out we walked to the Arte Expresse café, had a cup of coffee, then to the art museum which is in an old convent and which had a great sculpture exhibit and book store. We walked back past the business card store, and then back across town to our house. Between 9 AM when we left and 2 PM when we got back home, I sat down a total of 45 minutes, whew! Must have done 3-4 miles. No wonder I’m losing weight.

Art Museum in what they call Baroque, but I feel is late 19th century Art Nouveau. The figures are very Art Nouveau, and if you look closely you will see that the upper ones have their hands over their heads and the hands are in a series of signals. These must be the first set of gang hand signs. See the closeup.

This is the upper balcony.

Today, we went to the Regional Museum which has an excellent exhibit on the prehistory and indigenous history of Querétaro. I will have to go back a few times to absorb it all. It is in the old San Francisco monastery, which was so large and well located that it served as the bishop of Michoacan’s (next state over) headquarters at one time a few centuries ago. The history of the movement of the Otomi from further south into the region after the conquest was interesting and something that you would not have seen in such a museum 30 years ago.

Looking at the convent patio from below.

The previous picture was taken from the between the trees in the corner.

On our way back home, we stopped at Quinta Real, a shop specializing in high class Mexican crafts. Anne had told us the night before that the owners were Chris and Renata, and that Chris was looking for someone to play chess with. She was correct, and in addition, Chris had been a Peace Corps volunteer in Paraguay. I now have someone nearby to practice with to get me up to speed to take on the Maestro again, and hopefully win this time.

Well, tonight we celebrate Nat’s birthday at the only Irish Pub in town, just around the corner from us. Are we centrally located or what?

In order to maintain its World Heritage Site status, Querétaro has to bury all of its cables within the next 10 years. It is actually going pretty quickly. This guy is trimming the sidewalk stones (cantera) to cover over the ditch where the cables have been installed.

Typical cable work. Why can't Atlanta do this?