Greetings from San Miguel de Allende, where I am staying with my parents in an hacienda-style hotel. This town is so fabulous and cute and perfect that I vacillate between hating its expat residents' guts and envying the expat pants off of them. In general, I feel that if Mexico were a high school cafeteria, San Miguel would be the popular kids table.
Today in San Miguel de Allende, I was pleased that the cathedral matched my mom's sweater
We just had dinner on a rooftop overlooking the sierra, while the sun set between the hot pink spire of the cathedral and a sea of antique weathervanes and sundresses fluttering on clotheslines. A table of 30-something dudes sat a few feet away, toasting round after round of Pacifico beers while wearing cargo shorts. A few also wore wrap-around sunglasses to protect themselves from, and simultaneously reflect, the sunset's awesomeness.
I didn't need to overhear their loud conversation about hiding facebook party pictures from employers to know that they were American (their cargo shorts instantly confirmed this), but I heard it nonetheless and experienced, as a result, my first tremor of going home in 10 weeks. In an open violation of our shared national etiquette, I found myself staring at the dude table.
The same thing happened yesterday, when a bunch of girls in tank tops and flip-flops (or hussies, according to my inner Mexican grandmother) boarded our tour bus in Mexico City. Having only just started to feel like I'm settled in here, and having only begun to enjoy my growing collection of conservative but fashionable spring sweaters, I had to remind myself that I came here in flip-flops, I will go home to tank tops, and these hussies are my people.
