An update! You all will die of shock. Or just the two of you that haven't given up on me.
Speaking of dying, the gods of Mexico are trying to kill me. This can't just be the vengeance of Montezuma. There's got to be more than one diety involved in the disaster that was once my healthy happy digestive tract. This is day 7 of illness and it's pretty depressing. But let's not speak of it.
Less than a week ago I was still in Guanajuato, exploring cobblestoned streets and brightly painted stucco buildings and picking out talavera tile and being romantic with my honey. It was really such a lovely getaway. Only a little over 3 hours by plane and it feels like your in a European village, filled with plazas, fountains, gardens, and cathedrals all gussied with paint and gilding, spanish architecture, domes and bells that still ring.
There is a university there so there are hoardes of young'uns hanging about, looking arsty. We tried to sit on the steps with them and fit in. We went to artsy coffee houses, just like home, and bars and clubs. At one club where they had salsa dancing, John and I waited a long time for the floor to fill up so we could dance inconspicuously in our gringo way but then John somehow punched me in the eye with my own hand, so we left and found a little club with about 12 people in it trying to dance techno and fared a little better there.
There is much art and history to absorb. The university was having a show of prints that were very professional and made me think how fun it would be to go to school there. It is the birthplace of Diego Rivera and they have a little museum at the old house. It was interesting to see his evolution as an artist--very accomplished even by age 13 and dabbling in all the various movements with much skill. I think one of the most interesting things was a bronze desk mask of his face that was on display. Those Mexicans and their death.
Speaking of that again, exactly a week ago I was touring the Museo de Momias (mummies). The museum was put together after the town cemetery discoverd a strange phenomenon when excavating some graves for which the families had become delinquent on their internment fees (cruel, no? paid up or dug up!)--the bodies had become naturally mummified. Something about the soil. So to add insult to injury, these bodies were then put in a museum next door where you can pay $5 to see them. It's actually quite interesting, though. John refused to go in with me--too gross for him. I was most fascinated by how the mummies were usually only wearing socks and sometimes shoes. Not sure if that was a curator's choice or grave robbers or what. Anyway, I took about 20 pictures of mummy feet. And then I came out of the museum and realized something was seriously going awry in my lower intestines. The curse of the momias, perhaps!
We went into the cemetery to find the grave of John's great great grandfather. It took John a long time with the guy in the little office there, trying to explain in his limited spanish who he was looking for. At one point, when the man had found someone with the same name who had died in 1987, John tried to say, oh no, he's much much older than that but accidently said he's much much uglier than that. Yet somehow we were able to find it, which was very fulfilling for John. This ancestor of his had been a teacher at the university and had even published some poetry, so John was trying to find some his writing. On our last day there, some very patient folks and the library information center were able to tell us there was some information about him in a historical building that we had just passed the day before. There was no time to go back, but John can at least write to them.
There is more, of course, but that's a lot for now. When I am up to it I will post some pictures. And I will also have to write a little about my best friend's beautiful wedding which was so fun to be a part of and touched my heart most deeply. Now I have to go eat some jello and pray the momias will forgive me.
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