Arrival

The courtyard in my house for the next two months.

I decided to come to San Miguel after hearing that my mother and grandmother were planning a trip down here to see my grandma's brother and his lovely wife. There was very little to the decision process: I heard about the trip and promptly bought a ticket. My grandma and mom have traveled extensively together. The dynamic between the two of them while on those trips is perfect. It is a chance to see my grandmother when she is most carefree and at ease. Nobody fusses over anything, everybody laughs all the time, my grandma tells dirty jokes and (rightfully so) impresses everyone with her knowledge of the world and politics and she proves just exactly what a woman in her (now late) 80's can do. There are pictures and stories of her riding camels in Egypt, stooping beneath the low ceilings of Italian catacombs, beaming atop the Great Wall of China, sipping tea and clapping along to the performance of a whirling dervish in Turkey, the list goes on and on. The times my mom has had on trips with my grandma are some of her most cherished times with her mother. They can bring each other to tears of laughter reminiscing about illness, mishaps, and Three Stooges moments they've had through their travels. For years I had been wanting to travel in a Spanish speaking country, and suddenly I was presented with the opportunity to do that and start the trip off with my grandma and mom. It would have been foolish for me, recently unemployed after my summer job working in the Sierras had ended, with money in the bank and no solid plans for what to do next, to pass up the opportunity. The free flight from the award miles I had accrued on my United airlines credit card also helped. Actually all three of us had enough miles for free flights- not a bad deal.

Grams looking out over Mexico.

So here I am. Three generations of Reid/Raab/Dunbar women all flew down together on January 15th. After Mom and Grams leave, I'll be here with my mom's uncle Bruce and his wife, Marsha, until their two-month trip comes to an end on January 27th when they fly back to Port Townsend, Washington. I'll be here tentatively until March 15. In early February, Bruce and Marsha's neighbor is going to come and stay for two weeks, right at the end of her stay my sister, Roxy, and her boyfriend, Sean, are coming for a week. I'm really excited about their visit. I want so badly to share this place with other people. It's unbelievably beautiful.

Bruce and me in the courtyard right after arriving on the 15th.

During my time here alone I'll be taking Spanish classes and roping whoever I can into conversations with me. That's mostly limited to cab drivers, waiters, and people I find on the street. Yesterday I (very haltingly) chatted it up with a man, Juan, who was feeding pigeons near the city center. I was telling him about St. Mark's Basilica in Venice where the food they give the pigeons has something in it that prevents them from having offspring. Our Italian tour guide joked that Catholic pigeons on birth control aren't really all that Catholic after all. I'm not exactly sure whether that was an appropriate story, or whether it was even interesting for Juan to listen to, but he was great about it and talked with me for a long time about a variety of things that was mostly determined by what topics I had words in Spanish for.

Bruce and Marsha's house in San Miguel, which previously belonged to my grandmother's other brother, Bill, is unbelievable. In the interest of time (mine, not yours) I'll just post a part of the email I sent Roxy about it:

"Miss Roxanne,
Turns out this house is absolutely incredible. Really really nice. I can't wait for you to get here and see it. I had the impression that is was mostly cleared out since all of Bill's things were distributed to the relatives... that apparently was completely wrong. The house is beautiful, decorated with the art and furniture that was either too cumbersome to ship back to the States or not worth it. Bruce and Marsha have done a lot in sprucing the place up since they've had the house. It's beautiful. I was stunned when we walked in. I had no idea it was as big as it is (not huge but I had pictured a small little house, this is about the size of Mom and Dad's house). Like most of the houses here, you walk into the inner courtyard through a locked door. The courtyard is gorgeous. There are tons of plants and plenty of sun during the day. At night there are lots of those star-shaped lights that you can turn on. It's very romantic- just what I'm looking for while traveling alone. Through the courtyard are doors to the kitchen and to the living room. If you go through the living room or through the 1st floor bedroom you enter the second smaller courtyard. Maybe more like an atrium? The upstairs has a second bedroom with another sitting area and then a door that leads to my bedroom which is the smallest but I like it so much that I think I'll stay there once everyone leaves. One of the walls is just screens with a door that leads to the rooftop patio. The roof has a pretty good view, but also has a fair amount of buildings that overlook us, and definitely some buildings that have a straight shot view into my room... I try to change discreetly. I'm sitting there (here?) now and I can hear all the noises across the city. I don't think light sleepers would like it. The noises are mostly dogs barking, yelping, and howling, alarmingly loud church bells at alarmingly obscure hours, roosters, which I don't understand because it's past midnight, and a little bit of traffic noise. It's definitely the Mexican version of the street noise in Brooklyn. Everything in the house is decorated. Grandma can't get over it. She keeps saying "Everywhere I lay my eyes they find something beautiful." It's true, though. "This aint no shabby vacation home," as mom would say. Hahaha there was just the most stereotypical cat howl that came from down the street. Yeeeeooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwllll."

The courtyard when you first walk in from the street.

I'm pretty sure Mom became famous with the San Miguel street vendors. We did a fair amount of shopping in the five days they were here.