¿ Cual es Mexico Auténtico?

Which is the real Mexico? Shopping for some "essentials" not available in San Miguel de Allende (SMA) we headed out to Queretero, the nearest city. After passing Home Depot, Office Max, Office Depot, Costco and Sams, we came to the local WalMart. Need I say more? Hm...I wonder if Hancocks or JoAnn Fabrics are there also?

Compare this to a typical street scene in SMA, where the streets are narrow and the sidewalks impassable for two at the same time. Oh, yeah, did I forget to mention the cobblestones?

I heard that 10,000 American ex-patriots live in SMA. I can believe it! Their influence is low key but ubiquitous. I'll observe more as I go along.

We've been putting sticky notes on things in the casa showing the Spanish word for the object. Such as mesa (table), cama (bed), puerto (door). These are helpful for increasing our vocabulary. On Thursday, Lourdes, our cleaning lady, showed us an error in our notes. On the window we had put "viuda" which is NOT the Spanish word for window (ventana) but the Spanish word for widow. A good laugh for the students and the teacher. With no English she mimed putting a ring on the fourth finger left hand saying "matrimonia" and then put her arms out and head down saying "muerte" (dead), then pointing to the sky saying "cielo". From this we deduced "widow." Just a slip of the finger on the dictionary page.