One More Complaint, and Then I'll Shut-up

Today I was sitting on a park bench in El Jardin, the zocalo in San Miguel de Allende. A middle-aged Gringo couple was sitting next to me, having a great time choosing paint colors for the house they were remodeling. The sun was shining, and it was a beautiful day. Our bench was in the shade, and nothing could have been better.

Then, up walks another Gringo, a man they didn't appear to know. He strolled up, commented on their paint chips, and said something I didn't hear. I was having a lovely time waiting for my walking tour of the Centro area to start, and reading an old New Yorker. But I did hear the defensive tone of the woman's voice after the stranger. Then I heard him say something like, "So, how long had you been in San Miguel before you decided to buy here?"

The woman said they had been coming to SMA for twenty years, and moved here a year ago. They had to do some remodeling because of some safety issues. The stranger, literally, a strange Gringo, made some snotty remark about people coming to down to visit, and falling in love with San Miguel. And then making an instant decision to change their lives and move here. And it was clear that's what was he was "accusing" this couple of. Like there's something wrong with that. And who was he to judge total strangers about their life decisions.

And to think I was feeling bad yesterday because people like him chose not to make eye-contact with me. I was kind of proud of my bench-neighbors. I think they just tried to ignore him, and get back into the happy space they had been in until he dumped his arrogant, "I've been here longer than you" attitude on them. I was impressed by their not seeming to get hooked into his bullsh**.

I don't get why some people who move to Mexico seem to be so competitive about how long they've been here. There is always going to be someone that's been here longer. Besides, what does how long you have been in SMA, or wherever, prove anyway? I can only think that man's intention was to make himself feel like he was cooler than someone else. How lovely.

One a cheerier note. On the Walking Tour we went into this church. Of course, I can't remember which one it was. There was no one praying there so it seemed as though it was okay to take these pictures of the ceiling. That's a crystal chandelier in the middle of the circle. And the circle is a dome over the Cross made by the two wings on the church.
The lower picture is taken at an angle, so you can see the dome, and the chandelier more clearly. It was amazing and beautiful. Sometime I think we humans are fading away, and no longer seem to have the capacity to design and buuild such incredible building