17 de julio 2017
Mount Prospect, Illinois, United States
Hello everyone!
I have a few travel posts to catch up on (I'm so terrible at keeping up on this, sorry!) but many people have been asking about my school breaks this coming year (probably my last year?) so they can come visit.
If you can't come during one of the breaks, that's fine! I can meet up with you on the weekends and you can entertain yourself while I go to work.
For reference, Bucaramanga is approximately an hour flight to Bogotá, Medellin, Cartagena, and really anywhere else in Colombia (though depending on the city you'll likely have to fly through Bogotá anyway).
Without further ado, here's my work calendar. I've underlined the larger breaks.
August 8 - First day of work!
August 21 No School
October 7-16 October break, but I have meetings on October 9 and 10
November 6 No School
November 13 No School
December 8 No School
December 14 - January 8 Winter break; I'll be coming home for Christmas, dates TBA
March 19 No School
March 24 - April 1 Spring break
May 1 No School
May 14 No School
June 15 - Last day of work!
I hope you can make it down to visit me!
P.S. I have a new address, email me if you want it. I love mail! For packages, FedEx is best and probably takes a week. Letters/postcards take about a month.
Showing posts with label Bucaramanga. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bucaramanga. Show all posts
Monday, July 17, 2017
Saturday, May 13, 2017
Los Animales de Colombia
13 de mayo 2017
Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
Interestingly enough, I haven't seen a lot of wildlife in Colombia. I went on a few hikes through the jungle, but didn't see anything other than birds. There are definitely a lot of cool-looking birds here, and some weird-sounding frogs I've heard but not seen, not to mention some malicious squirrels. Here's an animal update from the past several months.
Lulo la Gata
20 de septiembre 2016
Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
You may or may not know that I adopted a tiny kitten back in September and named her Lulo ( #LuloLaGata ). My mentor, Janeth, introduced me to her maid, whose cat had had kittens, and 6 weeks after their birth, was looking to rehome them.
My students have given me a lot of shit about naming my female cat with a male name (in Spanish, names ending in -o are male and names ending in -a are female), but I wanted to name her after one of my favorite Colombian fruits. It's a fitting name, as she's a fruity cat. Plus, with her green eyes and orange-tinged fur around the eyes, it's like her eyes are little lulos.
My students are always coming up to me with photos of cats that need homes and offering these cats to me. They want me to give them names like Maracuyá and Guanabana so I can have a whole fruit salad of cats. At this point in my life, one cat is enough for me. It turns out this little nugget is quite the handful.
17 de noviembre 2016
Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
I woke up the morning of November 17th sans cat. Usually, Lulo sleeps in my bed and starts meowing and biting me around 5 am when she thinks it's time for breakfast. Her bowl was empty and she was nowhere to be found. I go to the kitchen and fill her bowl, hoping she'll turn up at the sound of food, but no luck. I start freaking out and look in every drawer, cabinet, closet, and crevice (she's gotten herself trapped in a few places, including my drawers of clothes). No cat. By this point, Colleen is helping me look, and we're both going to be late for work. No luck. We look outside a little bit, calling her name, but find no sign of the little cat. We head to school and hope she'll turn up later.
I worry the entire day of school, hoping my little baby cat is ok. I made some signs and printed out a bunch of copies to hang up around the building after school. My 11th grade students told me they killed her because they don't like cats (they have a very grotesque sense of humor). They then were trying to convince me to adopt a kitten one of them had and it would be the new Lulo, or maybe it would be Maracuyá. I tell them all I want is my Lulo back.
I walk home with my signs and see no sign of Lulo on my way up to my apartment. My Spanish is still pretty terrible, so I wait a bit for Colleen to come home and help me knock on doors. Colleen gets home, also without a sign of Lulo. We grab our keys, posters, and tape, and head out to canvas our neighbors.
The instant we walk out the door, we hear a very familiar meowing. We look down the stairs and who do we see but our own little monster, little Lulo! I sprint down the four flights of stairs, grab her, and run back up and inside the apartment.
We deduce that what must have happened is she jumped out the kitchen windows (a good 5 feet from the ground). It's possible she landed on the palm tree below the window on her way out. I text my vet and he comes over to check out my baby. He tells me there's nothing broken, no internal problems, just some bruising on her tailbone. This little nugget fell four stories with hardly a scratch!
During this terrifying experience, I learned that cats can survive falls from very high up. I also discovered that cats have nine lives, but gatos tienen siete vidas.
Unfortunately, some months later, Lulo's sister Buca (adopted by my friend Amanda) would fall out her 17-story balcony, land on a car, and not survive. Amanda's students would then get her a hamster named Little Buca for her birthday to try to fill the hole in her heart.
23 de noviembre 2016
Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
It wasn't long before Lulo got herself into more trouble. The morning of November 23, I woke up and reached for my phone (terrible habit, but one that most people in this day and age share). I went to unplug it from the night's charge, and found that the cord was in two pieces. My little derp had chewed through it overnight, while it was charging.
However, her hunger for electrocution didn't stop there. A few weeks later, she gnawed enough of Colleen's Macbook charger to prevent it from charging. Colleen brought it to the IT guys at school and they MacGyver'd it to work. I also bought her a replacement cord over Christmas break (man those are expensive, damnit Lulo).
16 de enero 2017
Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
Over Christmas break, I needed someone to watch Lulo, as I only plan to subject her to the terrors of flying once - when I return to the United States at the end of my Colombian adventures. I asked my maid Marcela (Yes, I have a maid. Every 2-3 weeks she comes to clean my house and do my laundry for $50.000 COP, or $17 USD.) and she took Lulo to her home, as well as Courtney's cat Leo, Amanda's cat Buca, and Amanda's dog Lila. She texted us updates about the animals every few days.
About a week after Lulo returned home from her Christmas break (she was so happy to see me!), it was time for her spay appointment. My vet came and picked her up; she was going to stay the night at the animal hospital for her early-morning surgery.
The next day, I was out shopping and looked down at my phone - I had several missed calls, texts, and voice messages from my veterinarian. I listen to the voice messages and am a bit puzzled...my Spanish is getting better, but I still have trouble understanding things over the phone. I call him back and he's talking very fast with a lot of excitement in his voice. I hear "quatro sopresitas" (four little surprises) and he says he'll send me a picture.
I look at the picture and ask him incredulously, "¡¿Ella está embarazada?!" and he tells me that yes, she was pregnant. He was already inside and saw what he thought were her kidneys, but then noticed that there were four extra ones. He looked closer and realized they were four fetuses. Since he was already inside (spaying is an invasive surgery in which the vet removes the uterus and ovaries), he just removed the fetuses, turning the procedure into a combination spay/abortion.
He informed me that at her age of 5-6 months, she is at the developmental stage of a 10-year-old human. She is a small cat, and still a kitten herself, and it was not medically wise for her to bring kittens to term. Chances are she would have died, and the babies probably would have too. (My 11th graders still called me a murderer, despite this information.)
After keeping her under watch for a few hours, waiting until she woke up from the anesthesia, he brought her back to my home. Poor Lulo had a cone on her head and was still pretty drugged up. She drunkenly zig-zagged her way to my room, where she just kind of fell over and laid down pathetically exhausted.
The babies were about the size of ping-pong balls (for comparison, Lulo's head is only about the size of a tennis ball) and took up much of her abdomen, so with them gone, she looked emaciated.
The vet came back a few days later to check on her and give her antibiotics, and he instructed me on how to clean her wound and told me to put bacitracin on it to speed up the healing. Despite the cone, Lulo kept trying to bother the stitches, so I had to watch her for that. She had to keep her cone on for about 10 days, and by that time the stitches had some time to start dissolving.
When I first found out she was pregnant, I messaged Marcela, but she had no idea when this would have happened. The vet said the babies were only a few weeks old, placing the conception during Christmas break. Marcela's only cat is a female, Buca is female, Leo is male but was neutered several months prior, and she said the animals never left the house. Lulo is a sneaky little bugger, so I'm betting she found a way out, and while she was out, a gato found her and had his way with her. Personally, I didn't even know she was old enough to be in heat, and Marcela hadn't mentioned her going into heat, but I guess she hit puberty pretty quickly.
My count is that she's used up about 4 of her lives so far: (1) covered in fleas in the cold wet box on the moto ride to school, where I adopted her, (2) when she fell (jumped?) out the fourth-story window and was lost for nearly an entire day, (3) when she ate an active charging cord and was likely electrocuted, and (4) when she was impregnated as she barely began puberty and had a combination spay/abortion. We've gotta be careful, as she's a Colombian kitty and they only have 7 lives (or does she have 9 because she's being raised by an American? Is it nature or nurture when it comes to superstitions?).
Anyway, flash forward to today and Lulo is a healthy little cat (though not as little as she once was!) and enjoys normal cat things, like chasing/eating bugs, meowing at nothing and sprinting quickly to other rooms, and trying to eat all my food (including but not limited to: meat, vegetables, cereal, oreos, popcorn, and more). She's also extremely smart - if I forget to lock the window, she knows how to (and does) open it (luckily she hasn't jumped out again); she slides open my closet doors to hang out with my shoes; she opens the pocket door to the hall bathroom just enough to get a paw in, then grabs the rug and pulls it through the crack, using it as a tool to finish opening the heavy door. As my Oma would say, she's a little stinker.
The Kamikaze Bird
3 de febrero 2017
Colegio Panamericano, Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
One sunny day in February, I was sitting at my desk during one of my planning periods, working on grading some papers. It was hot, so I had all my windows open and my ceiling fans on high. My classroom has two walls of windows, so it makes for a nice cross-breeze. There's a tree right outside the window that's behind my desk, so sometimes I work to birdsong. It's a pleasant way to work.
Or at least, it was.
As I'm working, I suddenly hear a huge THUMP and a bird lands on the floor not even two feet from my chair. I scream and look at it; its eyes are open and it's opening and closing its beak, and then, it closes its eyes and beak and I watch the life fly from the bird.
Needless to say, I freak the fuck out and run out of my room, panicking. I try to tell the secretary what happened, but Spanish is difficult in my frightened state. Through a combination of stuttering Spanglish and sign language, I get the point across.
I'm still hyperventilating, so I go tell Colleen what happened - she has a class, but it's only a few students due to a field trip. She and her students all come look at the bird, and I notice that an entire wing landed a full 6 feet away from the rest of the bird.
Maintenance comes to collect the carcass, and the cleaning lady cleans the floor, but by the time my next class begins, there's still feathers EVERYWHERE. I tell my students the story, and explain why the windows on the tree-ward side of the classroom are now closed. One of my seniors looks up at the wall and asks, "Miss, is that blood?" I had an entire class of 10th graders in my room for an hour and no one noticed that I had a big splatter of blood and guts up on my wall near the ceiling where the bird must've hit after being thrown from the fan before it hit the ground. I tell the cleaning lady and she calls maintenance, and they say they'll come back and clean that after school when I no longer have students in my room. So I get to stare at it the entire rest of the day.
For months I've been terrified to open the windows on that side. Birds still get in through the vents above the windows, the skylights, the windows on the other side of the room, and the door, so it's a dumb fear. I've only recently started to sometimes open those windows again on really hot days. I get sad every time I see one of those little abuelitas walking around.
The School Squirrels
13 de mayo 2017
Colegio Panamericano, Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
Colegio Panamericano has a thriving squirrel population. Part of the reason these squirrels are doing so well is that the kids feed them. These squirrels have no fear and will come right up to you while you're trying to enjoy your empanada. I had one nearly climb onto my foot before I ran away (squirrels aren't my favorite).
A few weeks ago, I saw a few boys from elementary feeding a squirrel. One boy was hand-feeding it and petting it as it ate. His friend then threw a bottle cap at the squirrel, and when I yelled at him for (1) cruelty to animals and (2) littering, and told him to pick up the cap and throw it in the garbage, he seemed scared to approach the squirrel. Nevertheless, I persisted. He tried to walk away, but I kept telling him he needed to pick up the cap and respect the environment and the animals that live in it. He was still afraid, as the squirrel was still there, looking for more food. Eventually, the boy that was hand-feeding the squirrel walked over and picked up the cap, just so I'd stop and they could leave.
Last week, a few of the teachers were sitting at the bottom of the stairs to the high school, below a tree, deciding where we were going to go to celebrate the beginning of our three-day weekend. Pieces of fruit keep falling from the tree above, and we look up and there's a squirrel sitting up there throwing these down at us like little bombs.
Earlier this week, Nestór, the physics teacher, told me that recently there was a squirrel sitting in the little tree right outside the science rooms. The students looked out the window and screamed - the squirrel was eating a bird! It was eating one of the little abuelita doves, spitting the bones onto the ground as it gnawed down on the flesh.
These squirrels are vicious little buggers. I feel I have cause to be afraid of them now.
Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
Interestingly enough, I haven't seen a lot of wildlife in Colombia. I went on a few hikes through the jungle, but didn't see anything other than birds. There are definitely a lot of cool-looking birds here, and some weird-sounding frogs I've heard but not seen, not to mention some malicious squirrels. Here's an animal update from the past several months.
Lulo la Gata
20 de septiembre 2016
Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
You may or may not know that I adopted a tiny kitten back in September and named her Lulo ( #LuloLaGata ). My mentor, Janeth, introduced me to her maid, whose cat had had kittens, and 6 weeks after their birth, was looking to rehome them.
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| Lulo and her siblings, Buca(ramanga) and unidentified brother (I wonder whatever happened to him). They survived a harrowing moto ride in the pouring rain in this box. They were very cold and very afraid. |
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| I picked up each kitten to decide which one I wanted to adopt. This little one gave me a hug, and that decided it. Colleen and I wrapped her up in a towel and took her home. |
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| So happy and so tiny! |
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| Lulo la gata y jugo de lulo |
My students are always coming up to me with photos of cats that need homes and offering these cats to me. They want me to give them names like Maracuyá and Guanabana so I can have a whole fruit salad of cats. At this point in my life, one cat is enough for me. It turns out this little nugget is quite the handful.
17 de noviembre 2016
Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
I woke up the morning of November 17th sans cat. Usually, Lulo sleeps in my bed and starts meowing and biting me around 5 am when she thinks it's time for breakfast. Her bowl was empty and she was nowhere to be found. I go to the kitchen and fill her bowl, hoping she'll turn up at the sound of food, but no luck. I start freaking out and look in every drawer, cabinet, closet, and crevice (she's gotten herself trapped in a few places, including my drawers of clothes). No cat. By this point, Colleen is helping me look, and we're both going to be late for work. No luck. We look outside a little bit, calling her name, but find no sign of the little cat. We head to school and hope she'll turn up later.
I worry the entire day of school, hoping my little baby cat is ok. I made some signs and printed out a bunch of copies to hang up around the building after school. My 11th grade students told me they killed her because they don't like cats (they have a very grotesque sense of humor). They then were trying to convince me to adopt a kitten one of them had and it would be the new Lulo, or maybe it would be Maracuyá. I tell them all I want is my Lulo back.
 |
| I made a bunch of signs to hang up around my apartment complex. |
The instant we walk out the door, we hear a very familiar meowing. We look down the stairs and who do we see but our own little monster, little Lulo! I sprint down the four flights of stairs, grab her, and run back up and inside the apartment.
We deduce that what must have happened is she jumped out the kitchen windows (a good 5 feet from the ground). It's possible she landed on the palm tree below the window on her way out. I text my vet and he comes over to check out my baby. He tells me there's nothing broken, no internal problems, just some bruising on her tailbone. This little nugget fell four stories with hardly a scratch!
During this terrifying experience, I learned that cats can survive falls from very high up. I also discovered that cats have nine lives, but gatos tienen siete vidas.
Unfortunately, some months later, Lulo's sister Buca (adopted by my friend Amanda) would fall out her 17-story balcony, land on a car, and not survive. Amanda's students would then get her a hamster named Little Buca for her birthday to try to fill the hole in her heart.
23 de noviembre 2016
Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
It wasn't long before Lulo got herself into more trouble. The morning of November 23, I woke up and reached for my phone (terrible habit, but one that most people in this day and age share). I went to unplug it from the night's charge, and found that the cord was in two pieces. My little derp had chewed through it overnight, while it was charging.
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| Of course I had to do some #catshaming |
However, her hunger for electrocution didn't stop there. A few weeks later, she gnawed enough of Colleen's Macbook charger to prevent it from charging. Colleen brought it to the IT guys at school and they MacGyver'd it to work. I also bought her a replacement cord over Christmas break (man those are expensive, damnit Lulo).
16 de enero 2017
Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
Over Christmas break, I needed someone to watch Lulo, as I only plan to subject her to the terrors of flying once - when I return to the United States at the end of my Colombian adventures. I asked my maid Marcela (Yes, I have a maid. Every 2-3 weeks she comes to clean my house and do my laundry for $50.000 COP, or $17 USD.) and she took Lulo to her home, as well as Courtney's cat Leo, Amanda's cat Buca, and Amanda's dog Lila. She texted us updates about the animals every few days.
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| Moto-gatas |
About a week after Lulo returned home from her Christmas break (she was so happy to see me!), it was time for her spay appointment. My vet came and picked her up; she was going to stay the night at the animal hospital for her early-morning surgery.
The next day, I was out shopping and looked down at my phone - I had several missed calls, texts, and voice messages from my veterinarian. I listen to the voice messages and am a bit puzzled...my Spanish is getting better, but I still have trouble understanding things over the phone. I call him back and he's talking very fast with a lot of excitement in his voice. I hear "quatro sopresitas" (four little surprises) and he says he'll send me a picture.
 |
| Quatro sopresitas. |
He informed me that at her age of 5-6 months, she is at the developmental stage of a 10-year-old human. She is a small cat, and still a kitten herself, and it was not medically wise for her to bring kittens to term. Chances are she would have died, and the babies probably would have too. (My 11th graders still called me a murderer, despite this information.)
After keeping her under watch for a few hours, waiting until she woke up from the anesthesia, he brought her back to my home. Poor Lulo had a cone on her head and was still pretty drugged up. She drunkenly zig-zagged her way to my room, where she just kind of fell over and laid down pathetically exhausted.
The babies were about the size of ping-pong balls (for comparison, Lulo's head is only about the size of a tennis ball) and took up much of her abdomen, so with them gone, she looked emaciated.
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| Pobrecita |
The vet came back a few days later to check on her and give her antibiotics, and he instructed me on how to clean her wound and told me to put bacitracin on it to speed up the healing. Despite the cone, Lulo kept trying to bother the stitches, so I had to watch her for that. She had to keep her cone on for about 10 days, and by that time the stitches had some time to start dissolving.
 |
| After I took off her cone, I noticed it was made from some old x-rays. |
My count is that she's used up about 4 of her lives so far: (1) covered in fleas in the cold wet box on the moto ride to school, where I adopted her, (2) when she fell (jumped?) out the fourth-story window and was lost for nearly an entire day, (3) when she ate an active charging cord and was likely electrocuted, and (4) when she was impregnated as she barely began puberty and had a combination spay/abortion. We've gotta be careful, as she's a Colombian kitty and they only have 7 lives (or does she have 9 because she's being raised by an American? Is it nature or nurture when it comes to superstitions?).
Anyway, flash forward to today and Lulo is a healthy little cat (though not as little as she once was!) and enjoys normal cat things, like chasing/eating bugs, meowing at nothing and sprinting quickly to other rooms, and trying to eat all my food (including but not limited to: meat, vegetables, cereal, oreos, popcorn, and more). She's also extremely smart - if I forget to lock the window, she knows how to (and does) open it (luckily she hasn't jumped out again); she slides open my closet doors to hang out with my shoes; she opens the pocket door to the hall bathroom just enough to get a paw in, then grabs the rug and pulls it through the crack, using it as a tool to finish opening the heavy door. As my Oma would say, she's a little stinker.
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| But she's my little stinker! |
The Kamikaze Bird
3 de febrero 2017
Colegio Panamericano, Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
One sunny day in February, I was sitting at my desk during one of my planning periods, working on grading some papers. It was hot, so I had all my windows open and my ceiling fans on high. My classroom has two walls of windows, so it makes for a nice cross-breeze. There's a tree right outside the window that's behind my desk, so sometimes I work to birdsong. It's a pleasant way to work.
Or at least, it was.
As I'm working, I suddenly hear a huge THUMP and a bird lands on the floor not even two feet from my chair. I scream and look at it; its eyes are open and it's opening and closing its beak, and then, it closes its eyes and beak and I watch the life fly from the bird.
Needless to say, I freak the fuck out and run out of my room, panicking. I try to tell the secretary what happened, but Spanish is difficult in my frightened state. Through a combination of stuttering Spanglish and sign language, I get the point across.
I'm still hyperventilating, so I go tell Colleen what happened - she has a class, but it's only a few students due to a field trip. She and her students all come look at the bird, and I notice that an entire wing landed a full 6 feet away from the rest of the bird.
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| These little doves are called abuelitas - little grandmas |
Maintenance comes to collect the carcass, and the cleaning lady cleans the floor, but by the time my next class begins, there's still feathers EVERYWHERE. I tell my students the story, and explain why the windows on the tree-ward side of the classroom are now closed. One of my seniors looks up at the wall and asks, "Miss, is that blood?" I had an entire class of 10th graders in my room for an hour and no one noticed that I had a big splatter of blood and guts up on my wall near the ceiling where the bird must've hit after being thrown from the fan before it hit the ground. I tell the cleaning lady and she calls maintenance, and they say they'll come back and clean that after school when I no longer have students in my room. So I get to stare at it the entire rest of the day.
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| Interpret the blood spatters how you will. |
For months I've been terrified to open the windows on that side. Birds still get in through the vents above the windows, the skylights, the windows on the other side of the room, and the door, so it's a dumb fear. I've only recently started to sometimes open those windows again on really hot days. I get sad every time I see one of those little abuelitas walking around.
The School Squirrels
13 de mayo 2017
Colegio Panamericano, Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
Colegio Panamericano has a thriving squirrel population. Part of the reason these squirrels are doing so well is that the kids feed them. These squirrels have no fear and will come right up to you while you're trying to enjoy your empanada. I had one nearly climb onto my foot before I ran away (squirrels aren't my favorite).
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| They're kinda cute, until you're afraid they're going to attack you. |
Last week, a few of the teachers were sitting at the bottom of the stairs to the high school, below a tree, deciding where we were going to go to celebrate the beginning of our three-day weekend. Pieces of fruit keep falling from the tree above, and we look up and there's a squirrel sitting up there throwing these down at us like little bombs.
Earlier this week, Nestór, the physics teacher, told me that recently there was a squirrel sitting in the little tree right outside the science rooms. The students looked out the window and screamed - the squirrel was eating a bird! It was eating one of the little abuelita doves, spitting the bones onto the ground as it gnawed down on the flesh.
These squirrels are vicious little buggers. I feel I have cause to be afraid of them now.
An Incredible Journey
13 de mayo 2017
Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
Yes yes, I know, I'm terrible about keeping up with this blog. But I'm going to tell you a story of events that happened 5 months ago - my journey back to Colombia from Chicago after Christmas break.
It's a long and harrowing tale, involving standing in many lines and a lot of waiting time. Thankfully there is some frustrated attempt of wit through my live tweets of this trek. (See below!)
7 - 9 de enero 2017
Mount Prospect, Illinois, United States
O'Hare Airport, Chicago, Illinois, United States
Newark Liberty Airport, Newark, New Jersey, United States
Wyndham Garden, Newark, New Jersey, United States
El Dorado Airport, Bogotá, DC, Colombia
Palonegro Airport, Lebrija, Santander, Colombia
Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
What was originally supposed to be a 15-hour trip became a 43-hour odyssey. Here's my original schedule:
Here's what actually happened:
1. ORD-EWR:
It was quite exhausting and took me at least a week to recover. I later sat down and sent the following message to United (I maxed out the character limit):
On my journey from Chicago to Bucaramanga 7Jan2017 I encountered many misfortunes. The first plane UA330 was delayed an hour due to weather, but I still would've made my connection as I had a 2.5 hour layover initially. But, we spent an hour and a half stuck in the plane on the tarmac in Newark because there were not available gates and the plane in our gate was refueling. I sprinted 30 gates to my next plane, which was still sitting there, but there were no United employees in sight to let me in. UA1558 left the gate 45 minutes later-enough time for me to have gotten on the plane if they had not locked me out. I got in line at United customer service at 12:15am. The line was moving extremely slowly so I called United while continuing to wait in line. After listening to 40 minutes of "Your call is important to us. Your estimated wait time is 15-20 minutes," I finally got ahold of a representative. After telling me that the earliest possible flight I could get on was at 4:30pm the next day (16 hr layover in Newark), landing at 10:30pm and departing at 7:30am (9 hr layover in Bogota), he remained silent on the line for 30 minutes confirming my flight (I almost thought he'd hung up). He then connected me to luggage (another 30 minutes on hold), where they told me they THOUGHT my luggage was in Newark but really had no way of confirming that for sure, and that it would "probably" be checked through with my new tickets. I continued waiting in line until 5am (5 hours total) and received a hotel, but the Wyndham Gardens was not ready for that many surprise guests and I waited another hour to check in. Later that day I return to the airport and take flight UA1068 with no issues. When I arrive in Bogota, the United representative and her supervisor refuse to help me out due to policy, despite the note left on my record from the rep in Newark. I had to sleep in the Bogota airport through no fault of my own. I would like to receive recuperation for this harrowing 43 hr Odyssey.
As a response, they gave me a $200 travel credit. Here's the catch: if your flight involves planes that are not United (even if they are Star Alliance) it won't work. United doesn't fly to Bucaramanga. I've got a year to figure out how to use it.
Last but not least, in case you're interested and missed it the first time around, here's my Twitter tale of this venture:
Travel Nightmare - Jan 7-9, 2017
Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
Yes yes, I know, I'm terrible about keeping up with this blog. But I'm going to tell you a story of events that happened 5 months ago - my journey back to Colombia from Chicago after Christmas break.
It's a long and harrowing tale, involving standing in many lines and a lot of waiting time. Thankfully there is some frustrated attempt of wit through my live tweets of this trek. (See below!)
7 - 9 de enero 2017
Mount Prospect, Illinois, United States
O'Hare Airport, Chicago, Illinois, United States
Newark Liberty Airport, Newark, New Jersey, United States
Wyndham Garden, Newark, New Jersey, United States
El Dorado Airport, Bogotá, DC, Colombia
Palonegro Airport, Lebrija, Santander, Colombia
Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
What was originally supposed to be a 15-hour trip became a 43-hour odyssey. Here's my original schedule:
- ORD-EWR: 7 Jan 6:10 pm CDT (GMT-6) - 7 Jan 9:22 pm EDT (GMT-5)
- EWR-BOG: 7 Jan 11:55 pm EDT (GMT-5) - 8 Jan 5:55 am COT (GMT-5)
- BOG-BGA: 8 Jan 9:45 am COT (GMT-5) - 8 Jan 10:51 am COT (GMT-5)
Here's what actually happened:
- ORD-EWR: 7 Jan 7:25 pm CDT (GMT-6) - 7 Jan 11:52 pm EDT (GMT-5)
- EWR-BOG: 8 Jan 3:59 pm EDT (GMT-5) - 8 Jan 10:34 am COT (GMT-5)
- BOG-BGA: 9 Jan 9:45 am COT (GMT-5) - 9 Jan 10:51 am COT (GMT-5)
Here's the full story:
1. ORD-EWR:
- Takeoff from ORD delayed an hour and fifteen minutes.
- Spent another hour and fifteen minutes on the tarmac at EWR.
- Pilot says we are waiting for our gate.
- Pilot says our gate is being changed.
- Pilot says our gate is back to the original.
- Pilot says we are waiting for another plane to finish refueling.
- FINALLY we get to the gate.
- It's just about midnight. I run to my next gate. It's bare. Not a single United employee or customer in sight. Plane's still there though, but I've got no way to get to it.
- I get in (a very long) line for United customer service. One girl tells the rest of the line that she just called United and got helped a lot quicker. I call while waiting in line.
- I get a notification around 1:45 am that my plane JUST TOOK OFF from Newark. Needless to say I'm pissed that there were no staff at the gate.
- Though I was told by the hold track several times that my call was important to them and would be answered in the order it was received and that it would be approximately 15-20 minutes, my call gets picked up in about 40 minutes. I've hardly progressed through the physical customer service line.
- The man on the phone schedules me on the next available flight: EWR-BOG: 8 Jan 3:59 pm EDT (GMT-5) - 8 Jan 10:34 pm COT (GMT-5), BOG-BGA: 9 Jan 8:45 am COT (GMT-5) - 9 Jan 9:51 am COT (GMT-5).
- This means 16 more hours in Newark and 9 hours in Bogota. This means arriving home 22 hours after my original plan.
- The customer service rep takes about 30 minutes to schedule this and leaves me on the (mostly silent) line.
- I learn that hotel vouchers can only be given in person, and travel vouchers can only be given by complaining online.
- He transfers me to luggage services to see where my suitcases are. After 30 minutes, they pick up the phone and tell me they have no way of knowing exactly where my luggage is, but that it should follow me. I can't retrieve it until Bucaramanga.
- After waiting in line for over 4 hours, I get to the desk, where I'm given a hotel for the...morning? It's about 4 am. The rep can't promise a hotel in Bogotá but says she'll write a note on my file. She sends me on my way with a hotel voucher, three $10 food vouchers, a toiletry kit, and a bottle of water.
- Took the airport train to the hotel shuttle pickup point and wait almost an hour for my bus.
- The bus is full of British people for unknown reasons. Half of the Brits are left behind because the bus isn't big enough for all of us.
- Get to the hotel and wait almost an hour to be assigned a room. Spend one of my vouchers at the hotel cafe on a banana, muffin, and bottle of water.
- Get to my room about 6 am. I look in my carry-on and find no change of clothes, just weird stuff that wouldn't fit in my suitcase but is not useful to me now.
- Sleep for about 7 hours. Find out the banana is definitely not ripe and definitely not edible.
- Take the shuttle back to the airport. Throw out the two full bottles of water I didn't have time to drink.
2. EWR-BOG:
- Get on the plane, stow my carry-on, and find my seat.
- A flight attendant comes to me, hands me a boarding pass with my name on it, and says, "Ms. Roznai? Please occupy this seat."
- It's business class!
- There's no one next to me, or occupying either seat across the aisle.
- I get to order a complementary alcoholic drink?!
- Oh, I had to scarf it down before takeoff? Bye mostly-full Jack & Coke.
- Cool, I don't have to pay to watch TV in business class!
- First I watched the Golden Globes until we lost the US signal somewhere at the end of Florida, then I watched Miss Peregrin's Home for Peculiar Children. It was an enjoyable film.
- Flight lands in Bogotá and luckily there's no line at immigration. I take the bus to my terminal and ask the Avianca desk about a hotel voucher. They can't do anything since it was booked through United, so they direct me back to the main terminal to find the United desk.
- I walk past customer service desks for every airline except United. I ask around and am directed to the single United ticket counter.
- I tell my story to the United worker, she looks up my reservation, and says she cannot give me a voucher because it is against United Airlines policy to give vouchers for weather delays.
- I argue that it was not entirely a weather delay, that the gates at EWR were full of other planes so we could not occupy a gate. She argues that those planes were occupying those gates because of weather. She calls over her manager who repeats the same company line.
- I ask about the note written by the representative in New Jersey. She says the note says, "If possible" and that it was not possible. She says if she were to have written the note she would not have used that language. She would have been more direct and written that it was "required."
- I tell her it's ridiculous that it comes down to passive voice like that. She doesn't bat an eye.
- Through sobs of despair and desperation, I ask if there are cots somewhere. She tells me "There are some chairs over there."
- After crying in the bathroom for a bit, then buying a few souvenirs (including some dinosaur stickers 'cause treat yo'self), and buying some dinner, I find a plot of floor to call my own for the next 6 hours.
3. BOG-BGA
- I head to check in to my flight and am redirected to the other terminal. I find a bus that takes me there.
- I check in and find my fellow teacher Andrea, and we wait together for our flight.
- Our flight ends up being delayed an hour.
- We finally start boarding, and I am thrilled to discover that I'm in a row all by myself. In fact, I am the only person sitting in the entire 12-person exit-row section. The flight attendant is concerned that I can't handle the responsibility and offers to relocate me. I stay.
- I raise the armrests and lay down for a nap, waking up only for my complimentary Avianca juice box.
- I arrive at the airport and my luggage does too!
- Andrea and I wait 20 minutes for my scheduled cab to arrive.
- Finally I make it home and collapse on my bed.
It was quite exhausting and took me at least a week to recover. I later sat down and sent the following message to United (I maxed out the character limit):
On my journey from Chicago to Bucaramanga 7Jan2017 I encountered many misfortunes. The first plane UA330 was delayed an hour due to weather, but I still would've made my connection as I had a 2.5 hour layover initially. But, we spent an hour and a half stuck in the plane on the tarmac in Newark because there were not available gates and the plane in our gate was refueling. I sprinted 30 gates to my next plane, which was still sitting there, but there were no United employees in sight to let me in. UA1558 left the gate 45 minutes later-enough time for me to have gotten on the plane if they had not locked me out. I got in line at United customer service at 12:15am. The line was moving extremely slowly so I called United while continuing to wait in line. After listening to 40 minutes of "Your call is important to us. Your estimated wait time is 15-20 minutes," I finally got ahold of a representative. After telling me that the earliest possible flight I could get on was at 4:30pm the next day (16 hr layover in Newark), landing at 10:30pm and departing at 7:30am (9 hr layover in Bogota), he remained silent on the line for 30 minutes confirming my flight (I almost thought he'd hung up). He then connected me to luggage (another 30 minutes on hold), where they told me they THOUGHT my luggage was in Newark but really had no way of confirming that for sure, and that it would "probably" be checked through with my new tickets. I continued waiting in line until 5am (5 hours total) and received a hotel, but the Wyndham Gardens was not ready for that many surprise guests and I waited another hour to check in. Later that day I return to the airport and take flight UA1068 with no issues. When I arrive in Bogota, the United representative and her supervisor refuse to help me out due to policy, despite the note left on my record from the rep in Newark. I had to sleep in the Bogota airport through no fault of my own. I would like to receive recuperation for this harrowing 43 hr Odyssey.
As a response, they gave me a $200 travel credit. Here's the catch: if your flight involves planes that are not United (even if they are Star Alliance) it won't work. United doesn't fly to Bucaramanga. I've got a year to figure out how to use it.
Last but not least, in case you're interested and missed it the first time around, here's my Twitter tale of this venture:
Travel Nightmare - Jan 7-9, 2017
Sunday, February 5, 2017
Noviembre y Diciembre en Colombia
5 de febrero 2017
Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
Several small things happened in Colombia in November and December that I haven't gotten a chance to write about, so I figured I'd smoosh them all together in one post in the interest of getting to more recent stuff (while still reminiscing!). So, here's a bunch of small(ish) blog posts all in one.
25 de noviembre 2016
Colegio Panamericano, Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
In most of Colombia, US Thanksgiving isn't a thing, which makes sense. They start decorating (and having sales) for Christmas before Halloween is over. However, due to the amount of North American staff, Thanksgiving is a thing at Colegio Panamericano. The week prior, we were told to head to the main office to get our Thanksgiving present from the school. I had never received a Thanksgiving present before, so I was excited!
The box for the speaker advertises that it uses "Beats technology," which makes it sound like it's made by Beats. Unfortunately, as noted by the "S" where you'd find a "B" on Beats, it is not. When turning on, changing modes, or connecting devices, the woman's voice that guides you has an accent that is a mix of British-English, German, Japanese, and robot. It's actually quite an interesting feat to get all those sounds together. Interestingly, the + and - buttons do not change volume, but skip tracks and change radio stations. There is not a volume adjuster anywhere on the speakers. This is fine when you're listening to your phone, but there is only one volume for radio - loud. All that being said, it's always nice to get unexpected gifts, and the speakers have pretty decent sound!
In addition to the gifts, Colegio Panamericano throws a hell of a Thanksgiving party for the staff. On Friday (we had school on Thursday), school gets out a few hours early so all the teachers have time to go get their hair and nails done and put on their suits and elegant dresses (Shout out to Kelsey for helping me with my makeup!). The party began promptly at 7, which in Colombian time meant 7:45 or so. Each guest was handed a cocktail on their way in, some sort of strong but tasty fruity thing. Waiters walked around offering glasses of sangria and scotch when it looked like your drink was getting low.
After a few drinks, dinner was served. They did their best to give us a traditional American Thanksgiving meal, and man, did they deliver.
Once everyone had gotten some food, they started announcing winners of the raffle every so often. This wasn't a little basket-o-food raffle - they broke out the big guns. Everything from food processors to tablets to TVs were given away as door prizes, with a few winners picked every half-hour to an hour. While we all anxiously waited to see if we'd be the next lucky winners (Kelsey won a tablet!), we danced to the live band (and when they were on break, the DJ).
Around midnight, people walked around handing out masks and silly string and it got pretty crazy. I left a few hours later, but the party was nowhere close to finishing, and they hadn't even given out all the prizes yet, but it was time.
27 de noviembre
Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
That Sunday, all the expats had our own (low-key) potluck Thanksgiving. We met up on the roof of Ryan and Kate's apartment building, which is gorgeous. It's got a pool and a great view of Floridablanca.
In addition to the gorgeous weather and beautiful view, everyone brought delicious food to share. A fantastic time was had by all and we had to roll ourselves out of there!
7 de diciembre 2017
Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
The eighth of December marks the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (aka the Impregnation of the Virgin Mary), and it's a pretty big deal here in Colombia (and one of Colombia's many national holidays). The Eve of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception is a big deal as well - Colombians get together with their families, light candles, pray, and enjoy each other's company.
Noche de las Velitas, or Candle Night, is one of Colombia's Christmas season traditions. In the weeks leading up to the event, every store and street vendor sells packs of colorful little candles so you can stock up. Each family gets together and lights one for each member of their family and for loved ones who have passed away. They pray for everyone, eat, and enjoy the evening.
On this night, Courtney and I went over to Amy and Denise's apartment. On my way there, I saw families lighting tens and hundreds of brightly colored candles. It was pretty beautiful. The four of us sat on the balcony and lit candles for all our people and had some delightful conversations. Rather than the traditional buñuelos, we ordered Domino's for a little taste of home to go with our wine. It was quite a delightful evening.
8 de diciembre 2017
Piedecuesta, Santander, Colombia
On our day off (on a Thursday right before finals), my host family invited me and a few others to their house for a party. Vero and her friend Ximena picked up Colleen and I, and we headed out past Piedecuesta to where my host father calls "the boonies" and where their gorgeous villa is located. Colleen's host family and one other family also joined the fiesta later.
This house is HUGE and was built to my host family's specifications. The master bathroom has a bidet, and the bathroom between the fitness center and the workshop has a urinal.
The kitchen is enormous - two ovens (one doubles as a microwave) and a giant island in the center.
In his fitness center, my host father has one wall dedicated to a map full of pins of places he's been (he used to be an airline engineer before he retired). I hope to one day have that many pins on my map.
In their giant yard, they have a huge outdoor cooking pit (probably mostly used as a paella pit).
My host father Luis is from Spain, and his wife Luz Elena is Colombian. Their daughter Samara was born (and lived her first 7 years) in Florida. Luis loves the United States and is hoping to move the family back there soon.
We had quite the Spanish smorgasbord - we started off with pan con tomate - like Spanish bruschetta - which was made by cutting tomatoes in half, grating them (with a cheese grater) so you get all the juice without the skin, grating in some garlic, and adding salt and olive oil. You then spoon it onto some nice fresh bread. They had gotten some kick-ass garlicky bread, apparently from Mas por Menos, a grocery chain! It was so delicious and I think I ate a whole loaf by myself.
Next on the menu was tortilla española - Spanish omelette. We sliced up a bunch of potatoes and onions into thin-ish slices, and then in a deep cast-iron pan, Luis heated up about 2-3 inches of olive oil. He cooked the potatoes and onions a while in the oil, then added several eggs and scrambled it all together. After it had hardened enough, he used a plate to flip it over and finish the omelette on the other side. When finished, this concoction was about 3-4 inches deep. We cut it into little cubes and snacked on it (and I think I probably ate almost half of this delicious dish).
Next, Luis headed out to the grill to start work on the paella, while the rest of us had a little descanso on the porch. Colleen and I actually curled up on a hammock and a bowl-shaped chair and took a little siesta.
Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
Several small things happened in Colombia in November and December that I haven't gotten a chance to write about, so I figured I'd smoosh them all together in one post in the interest of getting to more recent stuff (while still reminiscing!). So, here's a bunch of small(ish) blog posts all in one.
25 de noviembre 2016
Colegio Panamericano, Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
In most of Colombia, US Thanksgiving isn't a thing, which makes sense. They start decorating (and having sales) for Christmas before Halloween is over. However, due to the amount of North American staff, Thanksgiving is a thing at Colegio Panamericano. The week prior, we were told to head to the main office to get our Thanksgiving present from the school. I had never received a Thanksgiving present before, so I was excited!
 |
| It's a Bluetooth Speaker! |
The box for the speaker advertises that it uses "Beats technology," which makes it sound like it's made by Beats. Unfortunately, as noted by the "S" where you'd find a "B" on Beats, it is not. When turning on, changing modes, or connecting devices, the woman's voice that guides you has an accent that is a mix of British-English, German, Japanese, and robot. It's actually quite an interesting feat to get all those sounds together. Interestingly, the + and - buttons do not change volume, but skip tracks and change radio stations. There is not a volume adjuster anywhere on the speakers. This is fine when you're listening to your phone, but there is only one volume for radio - loud. All that being said, it's always nice to get unexpected gifts, and the speakers have pretty decent sound!
In addition to the gifts, Colegio Panamericano throws a hell of a Thanksgiving party for the staff. On Friday (we had school on Thursday), school gets out a few hours early so all the teachers have time to go get their hair and nails done and put on their suits and elegant dresses (Shout out to Kelsey for helping me with my makeup!). The party began promptly at 7, which in Colombian time meant 7:45 or so. Each guest was handed a cocktail on their way in, some sort of strong but tasty fruity thing. Waiters walked around offering glasses of sangria and scotch when it looked like your drink was getting low.
 |
| Beginning of the evening - only 2 drinks (and one half-hour) in! |
After a few drinks, dinner was served. They did their best to give us a traditional American Thanksgiving meal, and man, did they deliver.
 |
| Yum. |
Once everyone had gotten some food, they started announcing winners of the raffle every so often. This wasn't a little basket-o-food raffle - they broke out the big guns. Everything from food processors to tablets to TVs were given away as door prizes, with a few winners picked every half-hour to an hour. While we all anxiously waited to see if we'd be the next lucky winners (Kelsey won a tablet!), we danced to the live band (and when they were on break, the DJ).
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| All dolled up |
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| After dinner |
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| Party time! |
27 de noviembre
Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
That Sunday, all the expats had our own (low-key) potluck Thanksgiving. We met up on the roof of Ryan and Kate's apartment building, which is gorgeous. It's got a pool and a great view of Floridablanca.
 |
| Betcha none of your Thanksgiving celebrations had this view. |
 |
| Figuring out what to wear really tripped me out - usually when I think "What do I wear to a Thanksgiving party?" the answer is a sweater... |
In addition to the gorgeous weather and beautiful view, everyone brought delicious food to share. A fantastic time was had by all and we had to roll ourselves out of there!
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| Another Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat! |
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| Nuestra Familia de Colegio |
7 de diciembre 2017
Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
The eighth of December marks the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (aka the Impregnation of the Virgin Mary), and it's a pretty big deal here in Colombia (and one of Colombia's many national holidays). The Eve of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception is a big deal as well - Colombians get together with their families, light candles, pray, and enjoy each other's company.
Noche de las Velitas, or Candle Night, is one of Colombia's Christmas season traditions. In the weeks leading up to the event, every store and street vendor sells packs of colorful little candles so you can stock up. Each family gets together and lights one for each member of their family and for loved ones who have passed away. They pray for everyone, eat, and enjoy the evening.
On this night, Courtney and I went over to Amy and Denise's apartment. On my way there, I saw families lighting tens and hundreds of brightly colored candles. It was pretty beautiful. The four of us sat on the balcony and lit candles for all our people and had some delightful conversations. Rather than the traditional buñuelos, we ordered Domino's for a little taste of home to go with our wine. It was quite a delightful evening.
 |
| Floridablanca is #lit |
8 de diciembre 2017
Piedecuesta, Santander, Colombia
On our day off (on a Thursday right before finals), my host family invited me and a few others to their house for a party. Vero and her friend Ximena picked up Colleen and I, and we headed out past Piedecuesta to where my host father calls "the boonies" and where their gorgeous villa is located. Colleen's host family and one other family also joined the fiesta later.
 |
| This place could be a hotel. |
This house is HUGE and was built to my host family's specifications. The master bathroom has a bidet, and the bathroom between the fitness center and the workshop has a urinal.
 |
| No excuse not to work out. |
The kitchen is enormous - two ovens (one doubles as a microwave) and a giant island in the center.
 |
| This is the kitchen of my dreams. |
In his fitness center, my host father has one wall dedicated to a map full of pins of places he's been (he used to be an airline engineer before he retired). I hope to one day have that many pins on my map.
 |
| I want to be a world traveler. |
In their giant yard, they have a huge outdoor cooking pit (probably mostly used as a paella pit).
 |
| Time to make the paella |
My host father Luis is from Spain, and his wife Luz Elena is Colombian. Their daughter Samara was born (and lived her first 7 years) in Florida. Luis loves the United States and is hoping to move the family back there soon.
We had quite the Spanish smorgasbord - we started off with pan con tomate - like Spanish bruschetta - which was made by cutting tomatoes in half, grating them (with a cheese grater) so you get all the juice without the skin, grating in some garlic, and adding salt and olive oil. You then spoon it onto some nice fresh bread. They had gotten some kick-ass garlicky bread, apparently from Mas por Menos, a grocery chain! It was so delicious and I think I ate a whole loaf by myself.
Next on the menu was tortilla española - Spanish omelette. We sliced up a bunch of potatoes and onions into thin-ish slices, and then in a deep cast-iron pan, Luis heated up about 2-3 inches of olive oil. He cooked the potatoes and onions a while in the oil, then added several eggs and scrambled it all together. After it had hardened enough, he used a plate to flip it over and finish the omelette on the other side. When finished, this concoction was about 3-4 inches deep. We cut it into little cubes and snacked on it (and I think I probably ate almost half of this delicious dish).
Next, Luis headed out to the grill to start work on the paella, while the rest of us had a little descanso on the porch. Colleen and I actually curled up on a hammock and a bowl-shaped chair and took a little siesta.
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| It felt like we were on vacation |
After an hour our two, the paella was finished - complete with mussels, shrimp, octopus, calamari, lamb, chicken, and rice. The pan was probably about a 2-foot diameter, and it was their smallest paella pan.
Even with about 10 adults and 4 kids eating, we only got through about half of the paella. I was all ready to put my pickiness aside and eat the seafood, until the little octopus on my plate waved at me as I carried my plate to the table. I picked at it and ate some of the land-dwelling animals and the rice, but I couldn't bring myself to get over it and try the seafood. It'll be my challenge for next time.
9 de diciembre 2017
Colegio Panamericano, Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
The next day was an odd one at school, since we had just had a day off (that for me and Colleen felt less like a 4-hour party and more like a 3-day weekend). We had a half day at school because the students had to finish preparing for their Christmas show that evening.
Kindergarten, elementary school, middle/high school band, and the senior class had been working hard for the past month on their dancing, singing, and musical performances. The seniors had been taken out of class for much of the previous week to finalize their choreography (their dance was superhero themed...not sure how that relates to Christmas). It was quite a to-do. On top of all these performances, we were also treated to a mini-concert by Ivanna, winner of La Voz Kids Colombia, a 7th grader at our school. Man that girl's got pipes. Here's a video posted by the school about the event:
Mesa de los Santos, Santander, Colombia
On our last weekend before we all left for Christmas break, Rosa and I jumped on a bus and headed up to Mercado Campesino in Mesa de los Santos for a bit of Christmas shopping. The bus from Piedecuesta made a bunch of stops to pick up and drop off people, sometimes seemingly in the middle of nowhere on the side of a mountain.
We finally got there and got some breakfast of arepas de choclo, platanos con guava y queso, y cafe.
We wandered around, looking at everything from homemade pasta to salves made from marijuana and coco leaves.
We made several lists of more things we need to eat next time we're there, including fried quail eggs on a stick. Unfortunately, our first meal filled us up too much to have anything other than Colombian-made German beer and fresh coffee that was roasted and ground specifically for our cups.
As we waited almost an hour for our bus that was supposedly supposed to come every half hour, a trio of young people came up to us and asked if we knew the name of God. Rosa said she didn't think of God as having a name, and I guessed Yahweh. Apparently we were wrong, and they dug out the bible passage to tell us his name was Jehovah. We were trapped waiting for the bus and did our best to seem uninterested, but they kept telling us about their church in Bucaramanga and how we should look them up. The bus eventually (finally) came and we hopped on to head home.
11 de diciembre 2017
Bucaramanga, Santander, Colombia
The next evening, after hanging out with Dan, Colleen, and Kelsey, Rosa and I went to Parque San Pio to look at the lights and shop a bit more. Bucaramanga went above and beyond in its Christmas decorations (starting in October). Lights everywhere, especially in the parks. Of course, Bucaramanga is known as the City of Parks, so, really, everywhere. Luckily, most of the light displays are made from recycled materials like plastic cups, so it's actually pretty green.
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| Dayum |
Even with about 10 adults and 4 kids eating, we only got through about half of the paella. I was all ready to put my pickiness aside and eat the seafood, until the little octopus on my plate waved at me as I carried my plate to the table. I picked at it and ate some of the land-dwelling animals and the rice, but I couldn't bring myself to get over it and try the seafood. It'll be my challenge for next time.
9 de diciembre 2017
Colegio Panamericano, Floridablanca, Santander, Colombia
The next day was an odd one at school, since we had just had a day off (that for me and Colleen felt less like a 4-hour party and more like a 3-day weekend). We had a half day at school because the students had to finish preparing for their Christmas show that evening.
Kindergarten, elementary school, middle/high school band, and the senior class had been working hard for the past month on their dancing, singing, and musical performances. The seniors had been taken out of class for much of the previous week to finalize their choreography (their dance was superhero themed...not sure how that relates to Christmas). It was quite a to-do. On top of all these performances, we were also treated to a mini-concert by Ivanna, winner of La Voz Kids Colombia, a 7th grader at our school. Man that girl's got pipes. Here's a video posted by the school about the event:
In addition to the performances, the school was also hosting a silent auction of paintings made by students and their parents, with all proceeds benefiting a foundation that helps underprivileged children. I put my name down on several cool pieces of art, and I got a text a few days later that I had won one! Plus, it was painted by one of my seniors, Camila, so that was extra exciting. They also threw in another painting that they had forgotten to display (a 9th grader named Maria Jose), so now I have two beautiful pieces of art by Colegio Panamericano students.
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| On the left is Maria Jose's, and the right is Camila's. |
10 de diciembre 2017
Mesa de los Santos, Santander, Colombia
On our last weekend before we all left for Christmas break, Rosa and I jumped on a bus and headed up to Mercado Campesino in Mesa de los Santos for a bit of Christmas shopping. The bus from Piedecuesta made a bunch of stops to pick up and drop off people, sometimes seemingly in the middle of nowhere on the side of a mountain.
We finally got there and got some breakfast of arepas de choclo, platanos con guava y queso, y cafe.
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| These are likely my favorite food in Colombia. |
We wandered around, looking at everything from homemade pasta to salves made from marijuana and coco leaves.
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| All these meats just out in the open air...the stray dogs and the flies really liked this aisle. |
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| Market buddies! |
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| Baby chiva! |
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| Spending some time with the local wildlife |
We made several lists of more things we need to eat next time we're there, including fried quail eggs on a stick. Unfortunately, our first meal filled us up too much to have anything other than Colombian-made German beer and fresh coffee that was roasted and ground specifically for our cups.
 |
| And the man roasting the coffee wasn't too hard on the eyes either. |
As we waited almost an hour for our bus that was supposedly supposed to come every half hour, a trio of young people came up to us and asked if we knew the name of God. Rosa said she didn't think of God as having a name, and I guessed Yahweh. Apparently we were wrong, and they dug out the bible passage to tell us his name was Jehovah. We were trapped waiting for the bus and did our best to seem uninterested, but they kept telling us about their church in Bucaramanga and how we should look them up. The bus eventually (finally) came and we hopped on to head home.
11 de diciembre 2017
Bucaramanga, Santander, Colombia
The next evening, after hanging out with Dan, Colleen, and Kelsey, Rosa and I went to Parque San Pio to look at the lights and shop a bit more. Bucaramanga went above and beyond in its Christmas decorations (starting in October). Lights everywhere, especially in the parks. Of course, Bucaramanga is known as the City of Parks, so, really, everywhere. Luckily, most of the light displays are made from recycled materials like plastic cups, so it's actually pretty green.
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| Happy as a sunflower! |
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| Botero's lady is admiring the tree |
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| Cheesy Christmas-card-esque photo |
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| It's like a fairy forest |
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| Of course I needed a photo of this... #mathnerd |
Sunday, January 29, 2017
Marvelous Mountainous Medellin
28 de enero 2017
Bucaramanga, Santander, Colombia writing about Medellin, Antioquia, Colombia
This might be a new record for late posts. Over two months ago, from 11 de noviembre 2016 to 14 de noviembre 2016, I went on a trip to Medellin with Kelsey, Andrea, and Kismeth.
11 de noviembre
Bucaramanga, Santander and Medellin, Antioquia, Colombia
Luckily for me (and everyone else), I wasn't sick for this trip! We had an evening flight, pretty uneventful, and took quite a long cab ride to where we were staying: The Black Sheep Hostel. The hostel was pretty nice - we had a private 4-bed room (2nd weekend in a row I slept on the bottom of a bunk bed!), shared bathroom with the room next door, common spaces (with lots of hammocks!), and drinks (including beer) and snacks you could get from the front desk and have added onto your tab. They also had a bunch of activities, but the ones we were interested in filled up too quickly. The neighborhood we stayed in was El Poblado, which was close to the metro and a short walk to all the nightlife.
That first night after we arrived and freshened up, we decided we didn't want to waste any time and we headed out to Parque Lleras, the home of Zona Rosa, hub of the Medellin nightlife. We wandered about and took in the scenery (lots of street art!) and hopped into and out of a few bars. We even found a bar that played American club music (rap, hip hop, etc), and we payed a cover to get in and everything, but it turned out to be packed full of high schoolers and felt like a school dance, so we got our free shot included in the cover and left.
As we were walking around, we found a place that served FALAFEL! It was so exciting. Bucaramanga doesn't really have food from most of anywhere else in the world, and it had been quite a while (probably since June or July) since I had eaten Middle-Eastern food. Falafel Time was Subway-style, where you got to choose what to add on your sandwich, and damn was it good.
Towards the end of our night we found a pretty cool discoteca called La Ruana de Juana, finally the atmosphere we were looking for. We had some fun dancing, until this waiter started practically chasing us around the club because we hadn't bought any drinks. After a while of dancing and dodging, we made our way back to our hostel to sleep.
12 de noviembre
Medellin, Antioquia, Colombia
On Saturday, we woke up and headed to Al Alma Café for brunch. Brunch! Brunch is such an American thing and so not a Colombian thing. It was SO GOOD. I got an eggs benedict, which was tasty, but the real star of the show was Kismeth's french toast.
The food and the coffee was beyond good. Once we finished stuffing ourselves with brunchy goodness, we headed over to the metro stop. Medellin is the only city in Colombia with a train system, and they are very proud of it and take excellent care of it. We got yelled at and almost thrown off the train platform for eating a bag of chips. This was probably the cleanest public transportation I have ever been on. The train was spotless and looked brand new.
The coolest thing about the metro to me was that they had a teleférico (cable car) as part of their daily commuter system! Medellin is in the mountains, and cable cars just make much more sense to ascend a mountain. We took the train to the cable car and rode it up as far as it went.
When we got to the end of the line, we paid an extra fare to take another cable car even further - up to Parque Arvi. We had heard from our coworkers Ryan and Kate that there was a cool park if you rode the cable cars all the way to the top. We were dressed cute in sandals and sundresses for a nice day at the park.
Joke's on us.
It's a national park. With hiking and horses and zip-lining and lots of cool stuff that you should be dressed differently for. Oh, and it's raining. We were so not prepared.
Parque Arvi seemed really neat though, just know what you're getting into. There's several parks within the main park, and each has TONS of outdoorsy activities. I'd like to go back with hiking boots and pants and a jacket. (It's pretty chilly up at the top of the mountain.) We walked around a bit, and then explored a little craft/farmer's market, shopping and snacking.
After we had our fill, we headed back down the mountain, admiring the view and laughing at our misfortunes. And what a view it was! Everything looks so beautiful from up there.
I've never really been in such a mountainous city before, so the concept was pretty fascinating to me. From below, the city just looked like stacks on stacks on stacks of buildings.
We took the metro back to our hostel, where we freshened up and rested a bit before our next adventure. Kismeth had made a friend on another trip she had made a few weeks prior - a Canadian that teaches Physics in Medellin. Sam invited us over for dinner, and we made some pasta and garlic bread (though it turned out his oven didn't work and he had never noticed, so we had to improvise on the stove top). We had some pretty deep conversations about philosophy and politics and more over our dinner and wine. He was a pretty cool dude.
After dinner we headed back to Parque Lleras to meet up some of Sam's friends at a club, but Andrea and I didn't feel like paying cover to party that night, so the two of us slowly meandered back to the hostel and chilled in the hammocks on the roof. We were originally going to try to make some hostel friends and play a game or something, but no one was really around, so we just chatted about life, our journey to/in Colombia so far, and our lives back home. Andrea asks some hard-hitting heavy-thinking questions, which leads to some really deep conversations. It was a really nice evening.
13 de noviembre
Medellin, Antioquia, Colombia
On Sunday, we decided to try and do some research after our mishap yesterday. I looked at Trip Advisor at where we should eat and what we should do. We decided D'Andre Gourmet sounded pretty tasty, so we headed up that way. Unfortunately, we walked all the way there to find that it was closed. Trip Advisor did not warn us of this. We were near Parque Lleras, so we decided to amble around and find somewhere to eat.
We found a place that seemed cool, and we were hungry, and they advertised Mimosa Party, so we had a seat at Botanika Lounge. The waitress initially told us that if we ordered an entree, we received unlimited mimosas, so we got super excited. Then another waitress told us that was incorrect, and told us the actual price of the unlimited mimosas, and we decided to just have coffee instead. It was an interesting place.
After we were nearly done eating, the waitress brought us a round ofggggy mimosas on the house and apologized for the earlier confusion. They were damn good, and if we had ordered the unlimited mimosas after all, we probably would not have gotten much done that day.
After brunch, we grabbed a taxi to the center of the city. We had seen some of it from the train the previous day and there were some cool-looking things we wanted to check out.
We walked out into a big square and were about to choose a street to walk down and observe, when a HUGE crack of thunder struck out right above us and the heavens opened up in a downpour. We ran back underneath the roof of the expressway where all the street vendors were hiding their wares from the rain. We looked at some of their wares, and I haggled a man selling Colombian jerseys down to $30.000 from $50.000, but then I remembered I was out of cash (plus I realized the jersey had buttons and I didn't like the buttons). Still felt accomplished.
When the rain died down to more of a drizzle, we hazarded out and took some photos of the Palacio de la Cultura and the sculptures in the Botero Plaza on our way to the Museo de Antioquia.
When we got to the museum, we found that there was a special price if you were part of a group. Unfortunately, you needed more than 5 people to qualify and we were only 4. So, we grabbed a few lone rangers to make our "group" and everyone came out happy. One of our new group members stuck with us to tour the museum. He was a German named Joshy who was volunteering for a year at a finca an hour or two out of Medellin that took in underprivileged youths and helped them to develop skills and get on their feet to become productive young members of society. He was pretty cool.
The main attraction at the museum was the Fernando Botero exhibit. Botero is best known for his voluptuous figures in his paintings and sculptures. We learned from the exhibit that his uncle enrolled him in bullfighting school at 12 years old, and though he didn't end up pursuing bullfighting as a career, the environment inspired his first works of art. He traveled to Europe and studied the Italian and Spanish masters, especially the Renaissance painters. The Abstract Expressionists of New York taught him his loose, visible brushstrokes. He donated many of his works to the museum of his hometown, Medellin. I was surprised to learn that he is still alive, as I usually think of famous painters as being long dead from centuries ago (which I know is usually not the case; I had the same kind of realization when I realized Picasso only died not too long ago).
Botero's got a very particular style, and though he's got a bunch of historical figures in his paintings (Jesus, Marie Antoinette, King Louis XVI, Paul Cézanne, and Pablo Escobar), he's also got a lot of weird risque figures as well. The one thing they all have in common is that they are very round (but not fat, Botero claims that his figures are simply voluminous, not fat).
After the Botero exhibit, we wandered around a few of the other exhibits until the museum closed. There was some interesting stuff, mostly pretty modern. We also had a nice view of the plaza below.
After the museum closed and kicked us out, we looked again on Trip Advisor to find something to do that was open on a Sunday afternoon/evening. We found El Pueblito Paisa, which we remembered Sam mentioning the night before, so we decided to grab a cab and head over. Pueblito Paisa is a fake little town in the style of an old Spanish settlement in Antioquia at the turn of the century. Think Renaissance Faire. It's touristy and kitschy, but I like that kind of stuff. We had heard it has a great panoramic view of the city, and we wanted to have a good view of our last Medellin sunset.
In addition to the kitschy little town, they also had a craft market there! We looked around at all the booths and got a few cool little things. I got a pendant for my mom and a necklace for myself from a woman who made things out of watch fixings. My mom's pendant has a cat made of watch gears. It's super cute.
All weekend Kismeth had been wanting to try the traditional Antioquian dish Bandeja Paisa, and she finally got to at the Pueblito! Bandeja means plate or platter, and Paisa is someone from the region Medellin is a part of. This dish is full of comfort food from the region - rice, beans, chorizo, chicharron, egg, avocado, arepa, ground meat, blood sausage, and plantain, all sharing the plate together. It was so much food and looked good, but I wasn't hungry enough to order my own. I did have a bite though, and it was yummy!
To end our last day in Medellin, we wanted to get some food we couldn't get in Bucaramanga, so we traveled over to an Indian/Middle Eastern restaurant, Tabun. The food there was so tasty, and no matter what you order, you are treated to an appetizer spread of naan with several dips and salads. We stuffed ourselves full!
We rolled ourselves out of the restaurant, and on our way home decided to pop in to get something else we couldn't easily get in Bucaramanga - good craft beer. We sat down at Bogota Beer Company for a drink, and we got really excited at the selection of fancy craft beers! (In Bucaramanga, you have your choice of Aguila Light, Poker, or if you want to kick it up a notch, Club Colombia in types of dorada, roja, or negra. As comparison, Aguila Light and Poker are like your Bud Lites, and Club Colombia is probably equivalent to Miller.)
We read the whole menu and picked out our tasty treats, only to hear from the waiter that they were out of most of the choices. We selected our beers from the few that they actually had in stock, and were still pretty happy! I may have snuck out with a glass...that Lulo pushed off a table and broke a week or two later.
We headed home for a few hours of nap at our hostel, full of food, beer, and memories. We then woke up as many were just getting home from the bars to take the long cab ride back to the airport to catch our out-before-the-sun flight home to Bucaramanga.
Bucaramanga, Santander, Colombia writing about Medellin, Antioquia, Colombia
This might be a new record for late posts. Over two months ago, from 11 de noviembre 2016 to 14 de noviembre 2016, I went on a trip to Medellin with Kelsey, Andrea, and Kismeth.
11 de noviembre
Bucaramanga, Santander and Medellin, Antioquia, Colombia
Luckily for me (and everyone else), I wasn't sick for this trip! We had an evening flight, pretty uneventful, and took quite a long cab ride to where we were staying: The Black Sheep Hostel. The hostel was pretty nice - we had a private 4-bed room (2nd weekend in a row I slept on the bottom of a bunk bed!), shared bathroom with the room next door, common spaces (with lots of hammocks!), and drinks (including beer) and snacks you could get from the front desk and have added onto your tab. They also had a bunch of activities, but the ones we were interested in filled up too quickly. The neighborhood we stayed in was El Poblado, which was close to the metro and a short walk to all the nightlife.
 |
| Plus they had a HUGE bunch of fresh bananas you could pick and snack on whenever you wanted! |
That first night after we arrived and freshened up, we decided we didn't want to waste any time and we headed out to Parque Lleras, the home of Zona Rosa, hub of the Medellin nightlife. We wandered about and took in the scenery (lots of street art!) and hopped into and out of a few bars. We even found a bar that played American club music (rap, hip hop, etc), and we payed a cover to get in and everything, but it turned out to be packed full of high schoolers and felt like a school dance, so we got our free shot included in the cover and left.
 |
| Such a cool atmosphere! |
As we were walking around, we found a place that served FALAFEL! It was so exciting. Bucaramanga doesn't really have food from most of anywhere else in the world, and it had been quite a while (probably since June or July) since I had eaten Middle-Eastern food. Falafel Time was Subway-style, where you got to choose what to add on your sandwich, and damn was it good.
 |
| Just look at it. Doesn't it make your mouth water? |
Towards the end of our night we found a pretty cool discoteca called La Ruana de Juana, finally the atmosphere we were looking for. We had some fun dancing, until this waiter started practically chasing us around the club because we hadn't bought any drinks. After a while of dancing and dodging, we made our way back to our hostel to sleep.
12 de noviembre
Medellin, Antioquia, Colombia
On Saturday, we woke up and headed to Al Alma Café for brunch. Brunch! Brunch is such an American thing and so not a Colombian thing. It was SO GOOD. I got an eggs benedict, which was tasty, but the real star of the show was Kismeth's french toast.
 |
| Yum |
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| Heavenly. |
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| Medellin Metro Map. Our hostel was near the Poblado stop. |
The coolest thing about the metro to me was that they had a teleférico (cable car) as part of their daily commuter system! Medellin is in the mountains, and cable cars just make much more sense to ascend a mountain. We took the train to the cable car and rode it up as far as it went.
Public transportation at its finest.
Joke's on us.
It's a national park. With hiking and horses and zip-lining and lots of cool stuff that you should be dressed differently for. Oh, and it's raining. We were so not prepared.
 |
| We should've done some research! |
Parque Arvi seemed really neat though, just know what you're getting into. There's several parks within the main park, and each has TONS of outdoorsy activities. I'd like to go back with hiking boots and pants and a jacket. (It's pretty chilly up at the top of the mountain.) We walked around a bit, and then explored a little craft/farmer's market, shopping and snacking.
 |
| Oh deer. |
After we had our fill, we headed back down the mountain, admiring the view and laughing at our misfortunes. And what a view it was! Everything looks so beautiful from up there.
 |
| Far o'er the misty mountains cold... |
I've never really been in such a mountainous city before, so the concept was pretty fascinating to me. From below, the city just looked like stacks on stacks on stacks of buildings.
 |
| So many! |
We took the metro back to our hostel, where we freshened up and rested a bit before our next adventure. Kismeth had made a friend on another trip she had made a few weeks prior - a Canadian that teaches Physics in Medellin. Sam invited us over for dinner, and we made some pasta and garlic bread (though it turned out his oven didn't work and he had never noticed, so we had to improvise on the stove top). We had some pretty deep conversations about philosophy and politics and more over our dinner and wine. He was a pretty cool dude.
After dinner we headed back to Parque Lleras to meet up some of Sam's friends at a club, but Andrea and I didn't feel like paying cover to party that night, so the two of us slowly meandered back to the hostel and chilled in the hammocks on the roof. We were originally going to try to make some hostel friends and play a game or something, but no one was really around, so we just chatted about life, our journey to/in Colombia so far, and our lives back home. Andrea asks some hard-hitting heavy-thinking questions, which leads to some really deep conversations. It was a really nice evening.
13 de noviembre
Medellin, Antioquia, Colombia
On Sunday, we decided to try and do some research after our mishap yesterday. I looked at Trip Advisor at where we should eat and what we should do. We decided D'Andre Gourmet sounded pretty tasty, so we headed up that way. Unfortunately, we walked all the way there to find that it was closed. Trip Advisor did not warn us of this. We were near Parque Lleras, so we decided to amble around and find somewhere to eat.
We found a place that seemed cool, and we were hungry, and they advertised Mimosa Party, so we had a seat at Botanika Lounge. The waitress initially told us that if we ordered an entree, we received unlimited mimosas, so we got super excited. Then another waitress told us that was incorrect, and told us the actual price of the unlimited mimosas, and we decided to just have coffee instead. It was an interesting place.
 |
| I ordered the ginger hash browns. They were extremely gingery. |
 |
| Kelsey's eggs had a bunch of flowers on them. |
After we were nearly done eating, the waitress brought us a round ofggggy mimosas on the house and apologized for the earlier confusion. They were damn good, and if we had ordered the unlimited mimosas after all, we probably would not have gotten much done that day.
After brunch, we grabbed a taxi to the center of the city. We had seen some of it from the train the previous day and there were some cool-looking things we wanted to check out.
We walked out into a big square and were about to choose a street to walk down and observe, when a HUGE crack of thunder struck out right above us and the heavens opened up in a downpour. We ran back underneath the roof of the expressway where all the street vendors were hiding their wares from the rain. We looked at some of their wares, and I haggled a man selling Colombian jerseys down to $30.000 from $50.000, but then I remembered I was out of cash (plus I realized the jersey had buttons and I didn't like the buttons). Still felt accomplished.
When the rain died down to more of a drizzle, we hazarded out and took some photos of the Palacio de la Cultura and the sculptures in the Botero Plaza on our way to the Museo de Antioquia.
 |
| What a gorgeous building. We didn't get to go inside, but I'd like to someday. |
 |
| Butts. |
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| Guardian cat to the museum. |
When we got to the museum, we found that there was a special price if you were part of a group. Unfortunately, you needed more than 5 people to qualify and we were only 4. So, we grabbed a few lone rangers to make our "group" and everyone came out happy. One of our new group members stuck with us to tour the museum. He was a German named Joshy who was volunteering for a year at a finca an hour or two out of Medellin that took in underprivileged youths and helped them to develop skills and get on their feet to become productive young members of society. He was pretty cool.
The main attraction at the museum was the Fernando Botero exhibit. Botero is best known for his voluptuous figures in his paintings and sculptures. We learned from the exhibit that his uncle enrolled him in bullfighting school at 12 years old, and though he didn't end up pursuing bullfighting as a career, the environment inspired his first works of art. He traveled to Europe and studied the Italian and Spanish masters, especially the Renaissance painters. The Abstract Expressionists of New York taught him his loose, visible brushstrokes. He donated many of his works to the museum of his hometown, Medellin. I was surprised to learn that he is still alive, as I usually think of famous painters as being long dead from centuries ago (which I know is usually not the case; I had the same kind of realization when I realized Picasso only died not too long ago).
Botero's got a very particular style, and though he's got a bunch of historical figures in his paintings (Jesus, Marie Antoinette, King Louis XVI, Paul Cézanne, and Pablo Escobar), he's also got a lot of weird risque figures as well. The one thing they all have in common is that they are very round (but not fat, Botero claims that his figures are simply voluminous, not fat).
 |
| Marie Antoinette and King Louis XVI, in all their voluminous glory |
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| This picture has so much going on. I'm not even sure what's exactly happening here. |
 |
| Even his still life is voluminous |
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| The Death of Pablo Escobar, 1999 |
After the Botero exhibit, we wandered around a few of the other exhibits until the museum closed. There was some interesting stuff, mostly pretty modern. We also had a nice view of the plaza below.
 |
| Hey, it stopped raining! |
 |
| A study of Botero's hand |
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| This was one of my favorites in the whole museum |
 |
| Ain't that the truth! |
 |
| What a fascinating collage of the baby Jesus. |
After the museum closed and kicked us out, we looked again on Trip Advisor to find something to do that was open on a Sunday afternoon/evening. We found El Pueblito Paisa, which we remembered Sam mentioning the night before, so we decided to grab a cab and head over. Pueblito Paisa is a fake little town in the style of an old Spanish settlement in Antioquia at the turn of the century. Think Renaissance Faire. It's touristy and kitschy, but I like that kind of stuff. We had heard it has a great panoramic view of the city, and we wanted to have a good view of our last Medellin sunset.
 |
| "The Little Town" |
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| Marvelous Mountainous Medellin! |
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| Night view of the market and the Pueblito |
All weekend Kismeth had been wanting to try the traditional Antioquian dish Bandeja Paisa, and she finally got to at the Pueblito! Bandeja means plate or platter, and Paisa is someone from the region Medellin is a part of. This dish is full of comfort food from the region - rice, beans, chorizo, chicharron, egg, avocado, arepa, ground meat, blood sausage, and plantain, all sharing the plate together. It was so much food and looked good, but I wasn't hungry enough to order my own. I did have a bite though, and it was yummy!
 |
| Bandeja Paisa |
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| We didn't find the big 360° panorama mirador for our sunset, but we did find it after the sun went down. |
To end our last day in Medellin, we wanted to get some food we couldn't get in Bucaramanga, so we traveled over to an Indian/Middle Eastern restaurant, Tabun. The food there was so tasty, and no matter what you order, you are treated to an appetizer spread of naan with several dips and salads. We stuffed ourselves full!
 |
| Dayum. |
We rolled ourselves out of the restaurant, and on our way home decided to pop in to get something else we couldn't easily get in Bucaramanga - good craft beer. We sat down at Bogota Beer Company for a drink, and we got really excited at the selection of fancy craft beers! (In Bucaramanga, you have your choice of Aguila Light, Poker, or if you want to kick it up a notch, Club Colombia in types of dorada, roja, or negra. As comparison, Aguila Light and Poker are like your Bud Lites, and Club Colombia is probably equivalent to Miller.)
 |
| LOOK AT ALL THESE CHOICES |
We read the whole menu and picked out our tasty treats, only to hear from the waiter that they were out of most of the choices. We selected our beers from the few that they actually had in stock, and were still pretty happy! I may have snuck out with a glass...that Lulo pushed off a table and broke a week or two later.
We headed home for a few hours of nap at our hostel, full of food, beer, and memories. We then woke up as many were just getting home from the bars to take the long cab ride back to the airport to catch our out-before-the-sun flight home to Bucaramanga.
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