Today was a slow day getting going, probably good given that we would be visiting religious facilities for much of the day. We didn't intend that, but that's how it turned out.
The day began with our ritual checking of email, reading, having breakfast (at the apartment), and trying to decide how we would spend the day. We thought we would see some museums today: there are some good ones in the centre of town. And we wanted to take guided tour around town as well. But when we got downtown, stomachs prevailed and we went to eat at Casa Pascual, a well-known breakfast and lunch place in town. Lovely food, and a good time, but it was 1:00 before we got to the museums, and they closed at 5, and we wanted to see two of them. So that plan was thrown out. Instead we took a guided tour of the town, which was about 90 minutes long and showed us many parts of town we would not have otherwise visited. (Interesting fact: this town has an artists colony of such size and skill that the Art Scene here is second only to New York City, apparently.)
After the tour, we went to and visited the Cathedral in town, a wonderful building, French Romanesque on the outside, and definitely New Mexican on the inside. Lots of colour, lots of fun almost in the decorations (is that sacrilegious?). For a Basilica, it was amazing. And one of the amazing things about it was that it was built using partly money from a local Jew, and there is a Jewish symbol for Yahweh right above the main door, complete with the appropriate script. You don't see that every day!
So, logically, the next place we went was the Loretta Chapel, which used to be part of a Catholic girls' school, and is now privately owned by a spa, of all places. But has inside it a 24-foot high spiral staircase made without external supports, and using wooden pegs rather than nails. Made, according to legend, by an itinerant carpenter who is still anonymous, over a hundred years later. The chapel itself was pretty ordinary, and probably not worth the money to get in, but the stairs were kind of neat.
Having seen the girls' school, we then went to the boys' school. Now their chapel was pretty fantastic: the San Miguel Mission church, built in 1625 with the help of Mexican Indians, destroyed almost some years later by American Indians, rebuilt by Spaniards and .... well, you get the picture; kind of like the castle in Monty Python. But the chapel was wonderful. It is simple, mostly done by hand only, in an adobe-walled structure, with a wood-carved front screen influenced by the Mexican heritage. There was a sense of it being a very well-used building with real people really believing, and was refreshing after the Loretto chapel. We loved it.
Now, I have to say that we had a quest here. There is a saint known in this area, San Pascual, who is the patron saint of kitchens and cooks, among other things. He is always shown with a bottle or glass of wine, as well as wooden spoons, and perhaps other kitchen stuff. So of course we like him, and were looking for something like a painted image of him to bring home. Well, as Darlene said to me, the search for San Pascual turned into, at the end of the day, a finding of San Gria in one of the local cafes. So we had to end it there, and decided in the end to stay at home and eat again from foods gleaned from the whole foods store in town.
On the way home, as we walked by the parking lot near our apartment, we were met with a rather strange bleating noise. We looked, and saw a man blowing on something, sitting on one of the guard rails of the lot. As we approached, it was clear that he was blowing repeatedly on a ram's horn, a shofar. We asked the lot attendant, and he told us that this was the owner of the adjacent restaurant (which is called Los Mayas). Since it's somewhere around the Jewish New Year, we have to assume that he is Jewish, and this is not some weird Mayan custom. But it kind of fit in with the rest of the day.
Tomorrow is a day for hot springs and pueblo explorations. We have car, so we'll be out of town for much of the day.
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