Church....of all different kinds

I woke up early, heavy chested, and decided I needed to get out as soon as possible. I took the metro, got off randomly and started wandering. I came across this huge old cathedral in the middle of a town square amongst a bustling market. It was incredible...walking in seeing the pews filled to the brim and looking up to high cielings with vast and detailed religious murals (frescos?). I sort of took my breath away for a number of reasons. First, you could smell how old this building must have been...at least back to the early Spaniards and who knows what sort of Aztec shrine they may have built it over. Second, amongst all this incredible adornment...statues, flowers, gold leaf, paintings upon painting, and stained glass I looke up to the front and there was the priest preceding over the ceremony sitting on this lavish couch with an incredibly intricate and ornate background of more flowers and paintings and....insane. Walking out of the Church, after sitting inside and reflecting and somewhat listening, I was brought back to the night before where a terrible judge of character on my part got me into an awkward situation that I ended up learning a lot from. I was invited to a ''party'' that ended up being a miz between a social gathering of a secret society/country club/ social elite network. I've been here a week and I cannot seem to escape experiencing the top 1% of the social situation of the average Mexican every time I have gone out. It's sort of ironic since out of all the interactions I wanted/ want to have....mixing with the richest of the rich was not on my list of things to do. All the more uncomfortable I could not help but indulge in the rich social analysis the opportunity provided. I was explained (and I am not sure how accurate this is) that the spaniards formed three social clubs, and this was one of them. In this banquet hall I was surrounded by business tycoons, politicians, factory owners etc., the '' most influential people in the city'' and the only sign of what I was soon to learn about this group was a huge projected cross right behind the DJ that I noticed, fittingly, as the ''I will survive'' was playing.
The ''church'' in this room, as far as I was concerned, was designer clothes, fake breasts, and died hair. In fact, the only reason that I didn't sorely stand out as under dressed and a complete outsider ( another score for the gringa...misgauging party attire) was the fact that I was blonde and blue eyed. Unfortunately,my breasts didn't quite cut it. Well, it turns out that not only was this group the ''creme de la creme'' (only such a cliche term can fit how awkward and cliche this event was) one of their uniting factos was their ''religiosity'', not solely in the form of sared aesthetics but also (surprise, surprise) in their shared devotion to the lord jesus christ (cheese on rice). I really do not want to go into the details of my horrible character misjudgement. Suffice to say that I was too sick to my stomach and uncomfortable even to dance a little bit.
Part of me, walking out of that Church yesterday, yearned for some sort of sanctuary to pray, or really just bask in my thoughts in. Another part of me thought how nice it would be to have a community in which you practiced some entertaining ritual while singing and sharing principles with people that had the same mindset as me. Right outside of the Church, in the market square, was a group of people doing Capoeira and laughing and singing and looking like they were having a very good time. Definitely a more appealing ''Church'' to me than one that is solemn and dark, where the differences in values and access to resources between parishners is not shared, and where there a acosting statues of a man looking sad and bleeding from all over his body with a thorny crown. But then, as my exploring took me further, I came across the closest equivalent I was going to get to my church that day. An amazing squashed and squishy food, fruit and brightly colored things market where people were bustling about. If there's anything that I don't mind people trying to press on me, it's most definitely delicious fruit. There were amazing, juicy, huge figs, and mangoes, and peaches and these things that in French are called Maribelle's but I don't know how they're called in English....it was amazing. I wish I'd had my camera. Feeling a little better since the morning (it had turned into quite a beautiful sunny day, sort of rare around here during this temporada) I treated myself to a very delicious Caldo de Pescado...big fish and vegetable, and clam soup. MMM...soo good. A soul cleansing experience, I would say.