Category Archives: Mexico

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Postcard from Guanajuato, Mexico: Saints on the move

Statues of saints, or in the case above Jesus on the cross, seem always on the move in Guanajuato.

For an officially non-Catholic country the mix is an interesting one of drummers and trumpeters in military fatigues parading along with feathered dancers and faithful parishioners bearing the vacationing santo aloft on a bed of flowers.

No idea the regional religious significance of September 2, but these photos are from two distinctly separate desfiles, or parades, welcoming us on our first walk into town. One was gathering in the midst of a bustling Sunday market with a banner of San Miguel and a modest-size Franciscan saint to take on a tour of churches. The second centered around a large crucifix with a banner indicating Jesus was heading to be venerated in the Little Plaza of the Monkeys, wherever that is. Women in this procession were cradling their own personal Jesus Nino statues to be blessed by a priest.

And clustered around a planter, there were several men in drag entangled by the noontime parade assembling by the market who appeared more Saturday night leftovers than eager participants.

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Biannual list of top posts always diverse

You need hold your breath no longer. That much anticipated list revealing most-read blog posts over the past year is here.

While the brutally murdered Helen Madarasz was a real person, at one time I believed I invented her ghost refusing to leave the site of her former home in Brackenridge Park. So many keep reading the post six years later, even I am starting to think she might really be haunting the park.

My readers seem to be as Alamobsessive as I am, fretting over proposed plans for Alamo Plaza. Every time I think the plaza will remain fence-free and historic gems on the west side of the plaza will be spared, renewed threats arise. That barely watercolored-in white rail in the background of the image above is a fence. Just to be safe, please consider signing the San Antonio Conservation’s Society petition at change. org.

venison at Fricska Gastropub in Budapest

Thanks for taking trips with me; you seem particularly drawn to food. We fell hard for Fricska Gastropub in Budapest, and our taste buds feel vindicated with its recent receipt of Bib Gourmand recognition from Michelin. (And, yes, sister Susan, I promise to get to food posts from Italy soon. She has been whining about being sent into so many churches first. But it takes a long time for postcards to arrive from Italy, and the Alamo keeps interrupting.)

Margarita Cabrera

Like many of you, cannot wait to see Margarita Cabrera’s ‘Tree of Life’ take root on the Mission Reach of the San Antonio River near Mission Espada.

So here’s your top 12, with the numbers in parentheses representing the rankings six months ago:

  1. The Madarasz Murder Mystery: Might Helen Haunt Brackenridge Park?, 2012 (2)
  2. Forging consensus for the Alamo Comprehensive Plan: Don’t fence us out, 2018
  3. Postcard from Budapest, Hungary: Currently suffering from case of miss-you-Fricska blues, 2017 (3)
  4. ‘Tree of Life’ bears bountiful crop of tales from the past, 2018
  5. Please put this song on Tony’s pony and make it ride away, 2010 (4)
  6. ‘Just the Facts:’ A fence by any other name still smells the same, 2018
  7. Postcard from Guanajuato, Mexico: Wishing these dining spots were not 600 miles away, 2016 (8)
  8. Morning walk turns into thematic parade through San Antonio’s heritage, 2018

    San Antonio Livestock Show & Rodeo’s Western Heritage Parade

  9. How would you feel about the Alamo with a crewcut?, 2011 (10)
  10. The Curse of Madarasz Park: Another Ghost Wandering in Brackenridge Park, 2014
  11. Postcard from Mexico City: Pausing for a playful food break at Mercado Roma, 2017

    fried charl taquito amuse bouche at Seneri in Mercado Roma in Mexico City

  12. Postcard from Oaxaca, Mexico: Where fiestas erupt all the time, 2017

Thanks for stopping by, and feel free to chat back. We’ll wind up this round-up with a fiesta in Oaxaca.

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Postcard from Mexico City: Shimmering with colorful experiences

So quick and inexpensive to reach Mexico City by air. Don’t know why we waited so long to return. Tossing out a few final shots from our stay.

And now, an excuse for the next leap around the globe:

The easier an experience, or the more entrenched, or the more familiar, the fainter our sensation of it becomes…. Complexities wane, miracles become unremarkable, and if we’re not careful, pretty soon we’re gazing out at our lives as if through a burlap sack….

I try to force my eye to slow down. A good journal entry – like a good song, or sketch, or photograph – ought to break up the habitual and lift away the film that forms over the eye, the finger, the tongue, the heart. A good journal entry ought to be a love letter to the world.

Leave home, leave, the country, leave the familiar. Only then can routine experience – buying breakfast, eating vegetables, even saying hello – become new all over again.

Anthony Doerr, Four Seasons in Rome

My posts are never as elevated as Doerr’s journals, but there are an unlimited number of pots of gold waiting to be discovered around the globe. Mining springtime in Rome now.