San Miguel...Fail

Well, today I went to San Miguel de Allende to try to pick up my student visa to no avail. They told me that it hadn't arrived yet and I should give it until Wednesday. FAIL. So, as of now, I am still visa-less which I find pretty ironic since I, as an American, don't have the proper documents to be in Mexico. Oh well.

Since I didn't want to completely waste the trip, I explored around downtown which mainly consisted of me going to the many Catholic churches that are on every corner. I knew, of course, that Mexico was extremely Catholic, but I didn't realize just how many churches there would be. The architecture is beautiful and there's lots of religious artwork everywhere. The one thing that I've noticed, however, is that in every church there are tons of depictions of the Crucifixion. This is all well and good because I realize that it's like the essential part of Christianity, but I can't help feeling really depressed every time I leave the churches. I think that it's because in every picture Jesus and/or the numerous saints look like every second of life is miserable. I prefer to think of Jesus laughing a lot because so much of life is so absurd/random/awkward. Who can't help but laugh at it?

In other news, as I was exploring the streets of San Miguel, I randomly saw a sign that read "Garrison and Garrison Books." Books? Well, of course I'm going in. It was a used book store run by an American lady originally from Seattle. Most of the books were in English (San Miguel de Allende has a huge percentage of Americans that live there), but there was one shelf of books in Spanish. I found a book (in Spanish) for 80 pesos and immediately bought it because that is SO CHEAP for Mexico. There were books of all sorts and I saw among them "Anne of Green Gables," "To Kill a Mockingbird," "The Kite Runner," and "Water for Elephants." (In case you don't know, this means major kudos to the quality of literature in this bookstore.) I really enjoyed spending time looking through all the books AND there was jazz music playing in the background AND an espresso machine in one corner. Perfect. Discovering this bookstore was worth the trip to San Miguel, if nothing else.