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Don't hate me, but this is the view from our outside patio looking out over the beautiful center of San Miguel. We spend a lot of time out here. I'll be sharing more views later on.

The house is enormous and at first I thought I was going to need a map just to navigate around it. As is typical with these types of houses, they look like nothing at all from the front, but when the door opens a whole other world is revealed. The house is beautifully decorated, so beautifully that it's almost like being in a museum. I'm kind of afraid to sit in some of the rooms. We tend to spend most of our time in the library, where I am now, the kitchen and outside soaking up the spectacular view. Some of the rooms can only be accessed by the outside, also typical. Not so good in rainy weather though, which thankfully we have not really had. It was stormy when we arrived on Saturday afternoon but it soon cleared up by dinner time.

And then there's Skipper, the resident bassett hound.

Or pretzel dog as I have begun to call him. I guess he's so long that he can get himself into odd positions. He's a super sweet dog and he attached himself to us right away. So much so that I think we are spoiling him a little. He follows us around and wants to be in whatever space we are in. Last night I could not stand the sad, soulful eyes looking in the door at bedtime, so we let him in and he happily hopped up the stairs and laid down at the foot of our bed. Sometime in the wee hours of the morning he got me up and I followed him downstairs to let him out. He disappeared for only a few mintues, only to reappear at the door and it was obvious he did't want to spend the rest of the night outside (where they told us he usually sleeps). But we are cutting him some slack since his buddy Gracie went to dog heaven a few short weeks ago. We did correspond with the owner to make sure it was okay and he was thrilled that we were looking after him so well.

We've been eating out since we got here except for this morning when Jaunita made us huevos rancheros -- oh so good! Plus fresh papaya, apple slices and bananas. The owner told us that she makes a mean American breakfast but when we got here and first met her we told her we did not want "American" breakfast. She just grinned from ear to ear. She doesn't speak much English but she understands it just fine and so far we've managed to communicate.

We've been doing lots of walking and a lot of it is up and down hills on the knobby cobblestone streets. We're having a great time! More soon, I don't want to overload you with photos!

In the last photo you can see all the plants where people have rooftop patios.