Saturday, November 9, 2013

Sunday in San Miguel - The Workshop Begins

Our first day in San Miguel de Allende began with an exercise in sketching the beautiful church that dominates the town square in the Jardin (pronounced "Hardeen"), the heart of the town.
La Parroquia
My sketches of the church itself didn't turn out too well, I was too distracted by all that was going on around us - the excitement of our first day of being in Mexico, the warmth of the sun, the sound of the church bells, the vendors selling hats

baskets

and even balloons!

In the end, I drew Judy as she sketched the clock tower.

After a brief tour around the town square to acquaint us with the location of the bank machine and Starbucks (known worldwide for their coffee and free bathrooms), and our first look at the beautiful architecture that surrounds the Jardin





we returned to the Casa Carmen to continue our art lesson in the courtyard there.


The floor of the courtyard was soon littered with drying canvases, in preparation for tomorrow's lesson.
In the late afternoon, we headed to La Sirena Gorda (the Fat Mermaid), where our bonding really began in earnest.  Deep conversations at each end of the table, interspersed with much laughter and the consumption of Mexican beer and/or their famous ginger margaritas.

Katie and Karen
Happy girls leaving the Fat Mermaid
Afterwards, we headed to a restaurant across the street from Casa Carmen called El Pegaso, for further nibbles and/or dessert.  It was here that the famous cake eating incident took place.  Ann left the table to go the washroom moments before her chocolate cake was brought to the table, only to find it looking like this when she returned:

Ann discovers something wrong with her cake
While she was gone, not one but 3 people scooped bites from her cake, while the rest of us looked on in shock.  The amount of laughing and giggling that transpired after that was legendary.  And with that, as our first day in San Miguel drew to a close, our bonding was complete.

All that was needed was one more peek at that beautiful clock tower and church, all lit up in the night:


1 comment:

Kathie Vezzani said...

I still crack up at the picture of Ann looking at her piece of cake and Bonnie covering her mouth, as if in horror.