Monsoon Days in Guadalajara

Buenas tardes! My first day in Guadalajara was very humid – it is their monsoon season, and it still rains heavily most afternoons, but octubre brings drier days and the month-long Fiesta de Octubre, which the city celebrates with music, dance, food and sporting events.

Today I visited two churches (I know…what a nerd…) very near to where I am staying. The first is the beautiful Templo de San Francisco de Asis, built between 1668 and 1692 by the Franciscan Fathers. They established a church on this site in 1552(!) The façade has columns that are described as ‘Solomnic’ because they seemingly spiral upward.

And, of course, I visited and attended Mass at the Catedral de Guadalajara, which is under the patronage of St. Mary of the Assumption (the same patron as the cathedral in San Francisco, USA.) Guadalajara’s cathedral was begun in 1561, and completed about 30 years later. It is a combination of many different architectural styles including Moorish (something we will see a lot of in Spain), Gothic, Renaissance and Classical. There are beautiful plazas surrounding the cathedral where people gather throughout the day, and they are decorated with the colors and flags of Mexico in celebration of Independence Day, which was just a week ago on September 16th. The cathedral has bright yellow steeples atop its towers, but these were only added in 1854 and a major earthquake demolished the original steeples in 1818.

The Mass today was celebrated with the Archbishop of Guadalajara and a choir of men and a few women accompanied by organ. The men had the typical wonderful deep resonant sound so common of Mexican singers. They did both a sung Kyrie, Gloria and Agnus Dei in Latin, and other literature. Not enough women for a very balanced sound, and there were intonation problems caused by the distance from the organ. It was great to hear the choir. Just as Mass started, the monsoon started pouring outside!

Well, tomorrow is the first day of school, and I have those typical ‘first day of school’ jitters which all of you experienced only a few weeks ago. I wonder what my teacher will be like? Other students? I wonder if my teacher will give lots of notes? Just kidding…Adios y hasta luego!