By Ximena Collado —

Welcome to the first edition of The Eye San Miguel de Allende. I have always connected to San Miguel and so, it felt natural, when my friend Jane, who I met at a two-week creative residency in Valle de Bravo told me she was looking to expand the magazine she had created more than 15 years ago in Huatulco to another city.

When I saw the advertising for this creative residency something told me I had to be there. I followed my intuition and promised myself I would come out of there with a project or idea I could execute. I knew this was the project I was looking for as soon as Jane and I started talking about it.

San Miguel is a city I hold close to my heart. When I was little, I came camping with my family and stayed at a trailer park close to the train rails. These trips to San Miguel were our beloved family vacations and they were the perfect combination of nature and town. My dad would give my siblings and I a 5- or 10-pesos coin, we would put it on the rails and wait for the train to pass. Our coins would become flat. We did that every time we came here on vacation.

Unfortunately, this trailer park doesn’t exist anymore. The land was sold, and I am told there are big houses built on that field now. I am trying to embrace change but the nostalgia hits me when I think of my childhood and the simple life. If anyone knows of a nice, simple place to go camping in San Miguel, please let me know.

We would always eat breakfast at Café La Parroquia where the lovely owner would greet us in what I thought was a fascinating accent. I think that’s where my curiosity for foreign languages and cultures started. She became the first “San Miguel local” I ever met. She was there every single morning. And she was so nice to us.

We hope this magazine can help many small businesses reach new clients as well as educate and inform you, our readers, about this beautiful country and city you are visiting or have decided to live in, and I’m so excited to immerse myself in this amazing town.

See you next month!
Ximena Collado