End Of Summer Class

Thursday was the last day of classes for the summer session at the local Casa de la Cultura.  Friday night there was a concert at the Auditorium for the dance, music, pantomime, and other students.  It was well attended which was nice to see.
The first act was this young trio who did a recitation.  I was impressed that they all remembered their lines so well.  They were definitely cute.

I got a few pictures of some of the dancers.

Some of the stuff I just plain forgot to take pictures of.  The pantomime had people laughing as it was pretty funny and well done.
Considering that the class was only 4 weeks long the performers did well.

This is supposed to be a traditional dance of the Yucatan.

An Evening Out

Yesterday was Roys birthday and also our anniversary so we decided to head out for dinner.  The place we like to eat overlooking the bay wasn't answering their phone when I tried them to see if they were open.  On to Plan B, we decided to try a restaurant that we have heard good things about; but have never tried.   The restaurant Oeste in the Armida Hotel.
This restaurant is known for its steaks and its decor is very interesting.  The walls are covered with mounted animal heads, not something I really care for and definitely not the usual restaurant decor here.  I prefer my wildlife hunted with a camera; but it was different to see here.  I guess if you are trying to beat the heat this is the place to go, the air conditioner was set to sub-zero in the frigid zone and I just about froze to death.  I would take a sweater if we went again in the summertime.  I am pretty sensitive to the cold now though, so for others it would probably be fine.
We took a look at the menu and decided on Chateaubriand for 2, which included salad bar, baked potato and some veggies.  We ordered our beverages and snacked on the usual totopos and salsa, while checking out the decor.  Hmmm, I felt kind of guilty ordering meat in such an atmosphere with all those eyes staring at me from the walls.
The meal came and it was very good.  There was probably more meat on my plate than I have had in many years.  I am not much of a red meat eater, when my kids were young they used to laugh at me and call me a vegetarian, which I have never been even close to.  Roy managed to eat his portion by skipping a trip to the salad bar.  I couldn't resist a bit of salad and managed to eat about 1/2 of my portion of meat.
The meat was flavourful and tender, very good.  The baked potato was good and I really enjoyed it.  I don't use the oven in the summertime so miss having baked potatoes.  Veggies were a cauliflower/broccoli combo and were also OK.  Salad bar was lettuce with adds on of veggies, nothing exceptional; but all was fresh and crispy and there were a couple of dressings.  I chose a cream dressing, kind of a ranch type and it tasted  nice, not like a bottled one here which I don't care for.
Overall, I would say the meal was very good.  Baked potato is something that very, very few restaurants in Guaymas serve so it was nice to have that.
Service was prompt without being a nuisance, no loud annoying music, the washrooms were well equipped with the necessities and clean.
This was the most costly restaurant we have encountered so far in Guaymas, the cost for the Chateaubriand for 2 was 460.00 pesos about $ 37.63 CAD and our total bill came to 508.00 pesos, which is about $ 41.56 CAD..  High for here; but it was a good meal on a special day and we enjoyed it.  I don't mind paying more as long as the food is good and this was.
So if you are a meat eater I would recommend trying this place.
They seem to cater to the business clientele that stay in the hotel by the look of the other patrons there while we were.
The camera was left at home so no pictures of the decor.

Opening Of The Art Walk For The Festival Mar Bermejo

Friday night was the opening ceremonies for both the Mar Bermejo Festival and the Art Walk that is showing during the festival.
The openings were held in several venues with the first one being at the Casa de la Cultura at 6 PM.
There are two different areas of art work at the Casa de la Cultura.  In the patio there are large works of a size specified by the committee for the display, quite a large size.  I have no artwork in this exhibition as I have no where to place a work of this size after the exhibition and therefore didn't want to do one.  The second display is in the gallery at the Casa de la Cultura by an artist by the name of Zacarias Paez Casanova according to the banner on the outside of the building.  With the opening ceremonies out of the way refreshments were served and people viewed the works, mingled and chatted.
All the pictures in this post are from the Casa de la Cultura, my camera didn't like the lighting at the PincelArte gallery so none of the photos from there turned out..
The second or third opening was to be either at the Civic Auditorium or the PincelArte Gallery, due to a bit of a mix up they were both scheduled for 7 PM.
We decided to head to the PincelArte gallery as that is where my classes paintings are displayed.  I was asked if I could put the name tags on the paintings done by my class, as it hadn't gotten done in the shuffle of activity.  That done Roy and I viewed the displays and chatted with people until the heat in the old building drove us to find some cooler air.
The building that houses the PincelArte gallery is around 200 years old with the old style ceiling used here at one time and there is no air conditioning in the gallery.
Roy and I headed outdoors and walked over to the malecon and sat on the sea wall to drink a nice cold coke, we could have had drinks inside the gallery; but opted to get outside and try to cool off.  We decided that we weren't going to bother going back in there to see the opening ceremony and just sat and relaxed.
I am not sure when or if the mayor and others ended up there as they were also doing an opening ceremony at the Civic Auditorium where there is more artwork displayed in the lobby.  The state governor was in town and was supposed to be at that part of the opening and then there was an opera there afterwards.
We never did head over there, as we were hot and decided just to go home.
I enjoyed the evening despite the heat, Roy I think was somewhat bored as I ended up chatting with quite a few people about our class and the art displayed by our class, not too riveting for him as he has heard it all before.
There are many activities going on everyday until the 13 th, and as far as I know it is all free so if you are from this area come on downtown and enjoy yourself.

This is the banner for the summer courses at the Casa de la Cultura, it has nothing to do with Mar Bermejo, I just thought it was cute.

This seashell painting is my favorite one of the whole exhibition it is lovely.

One of the paintings by the artist in the gallery, Zacarias Paez Casanova.

Art Route During Festival Mar Bermejo

The inauguration of the Art Route for the Festival Mar Bermejo is going to be on Friday the 8 th of July at 6 PM at the Casa de la Cultura.
This year there will be exhibits set up at various places including:  the lobby of the Civic Auditorium - open from 9:00 to 20:00 hrs., in the central patio and also in the gallery room at the Casa de la Cultura - open from 9:00 to 19:00 hrs., the gallery PincelARTE - open from 17:00 to 20:00 hrs. and you can also view the photos from all the past Carnivals in the usual room in the back of the Civic Auditorium which will be open from 9:00 to 20:00 hrs..
The paintings from our last class are supposed to be exhibited in the PincelARTE gallery or this is what I have been told.

So Alan and I went to our classes yesterday, me to art and him to guitar.  He seemed to enjoy it; but we will see how the 4 day a week thing goes as the month progresses.  He is used to going to school everyday so he should be fine.

We had a nice rain in the night again last night with lots of thunder and lightning.  This morning is cooler and we have the door and windows open which is nice.  At around 9 AM it was only 28 C. with 74 % humidity which made it feel like 31 C. so cooler than it has been, well for us anyway.  It all depends on what you are used to.

Spanish class this morning and some errands and then art class this afternoon.

Rain

We had a nice little shower at some point during the night.  I have no idea how much as a rain gauge is not something we have here, not really a necessary thing usually.  It was enough to settle the dust anyway.  It is cloudy this morning and a bit cooler so we have the windows and door open.  The temperature at 8 AM was 27 C. with 84% humidity and the "feels like" temperature was 31 C. so it feels great.  Nicer weather than Saturday afternoon when we had a big dust storm, my allergies did not like that so I was really plugged up yesterday.  Great to have a bit of rain to get all the dust off of everything.
No rain pictures as I slept through it all.

Summer session art class starts today so I will be busy for the next month as I think class is 4 days a week.  We also will be taking our paintings from the last class over to the gallery sometime in the next week for the Mar Bermejo Festival.