Actual text! Written on the fly...

Grabbing a bit of time to write before my classes today, though i expect i won't be able to post this until perhaps lunch break or later.

I love it here. I see why people buy homes here and retire, or buy summer homes (or winter homes) here, why artists open galleries and just live here and paint. Everything is beautiful, even the dilapidated ruins and areas of squalor. Check out the random statues someone had on their balcony, and the airbrushed flamejob on this VW bug (a very popular automobile in San Miguel, the old ones, not the new ones).

The rains are crazy intense, and it rains every single night without fail, hard driving rains that flood even the deep runoff gutters, covering the steep streets in 6" of deluge. I got trapped in it today and had to hide out in a church. I was still soaked though.

The weather so far is temperate and beautiful when it's not raining, not the kind of sun that beats down, just gentle sun, grey days, clouds, middays in the 70s. I'd only brought one hoodie and one light jacket, so yesterday i bought an alpaca sweater for the equivalent of $22. I packed super-light but the clothes they sell here are so beautiful and inexpensive, i'll probably buy about 3-4 more outfits while here--bright gauze tops and flowy embroidered skirts.



One thing that's pretty fun is that in San Miguel, overwrought 80s music is what they use for muzak in their public spaces, so i eat lunch every day at a bagel cafe (no really) and listen to "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and the greatest hits of Journey while i read my classmates' writing and come up with workshop critiques. The classes so far have been really great, my fellow students all very interesting people from a range of ages, backgrounds, and experience.

A typical class day goes like this: get up at 6:30am to shower and dress, head over to the lounge to take care of essential email and check the news, breakfast at 8am. Then two classmates, Roger and Libby (both of whom used to teach at UT-Knoxville, coincidentally), and i meet at 9am to walk up a narrow steep cobblestone street to our first class. Lunch is pretty much always at the bagel shop, as i can get an onion bagel with gouda, bacon, and avocado for 35 pesos (about $3). Then off to another part of the city on my own for my afternoon class, held in a local Escuela (school). Then i usually drop off my books at my room before heading to a big bullfighting-themed restaurant called La Pamplonada where we watch movies or have readings (as in, read your work aloud). Then, return to my B&B at 8pm for homework and sleep.

Tomorrow will be my first day off, so we'll see what that brings. Probably a bunch of writing homework, punctuated by laundry.