Semana Santa in San Miguel

This morning I awoke to fireworks and church bells at 6 a.m. And I mean really loud ones that went on for a good 20 minutes. San Miguel de Allende is gearing up for Semana Santa! Two nights ago, Friday, was my first experience with it. The semi-official start of Easter Holy Week, which is Mexico's biggest holiday, began with a very cool night called The Friday of Sorrows.

I know that doesn't sound particularly fun, but it was beautiful! It's a really mellow night when people all over town create altars in their windows or the front room of their homes, and people walk around and view them. The altars range from small, charming displays on windowsills to whole rooms decked out with lifesize images of Mary or Christ. They use candles, dandelions and other flowers, oranges, and elaborate designs made with flower petals to create scenes of Mary crying over her son.

What I found most interesting about this night is the tradition of the altar hosts giving out popsicles to visitors. Every home had a seemingly endless supply of homemade popsicles in a cooler, and people walked around happily enjoying them (and other traditional treats) while strolling from altar to altar. At first I was shy about taking part in the free popsicle tradition, but by the end of my night of altar strolling, I had eaten three.

It seems fitting that the altar by my house is a boat! 

You can see the cooler of popsicles to the left

The part on the ground is made with petals

Paper flowers are everywhere

While I have to admit I'm a little nervous about the potential noise level of Semana Santa while I'm working all next week, I'm also feeling very lucky to be in San Miguel for this holiday. I'm really looking forward to Palm Sunday traditions today (they make woven palm art), the many dramatic processions, and to something called the "burning of the Judases" on Sunday. This is an event in which they string up paper mache likenesses of unpopular political figures over the main square and then explode them with fireworks. I have a feeling I'll get to see a certain somebody blown to pieces, and you know I don't want to miss that!

The pink church at night 

I'll close with a picture of my favorite dog, which just learned yesterday is actually two dogs. (Mind blown.) I usually see one of them sitting here on the counter of a local pharmacy, greeting passersby with a very bored, seen-it-all expression, basically begging to be harassed.

Money spent yesterday (this is kind of embarrassing):

650 pesos -skirt (but it's really cute)
800 pesos - groceries (I went to the "Mega" store and stocked up)

1450 pesos =  $75 USD