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!

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).

All dolled up

After dinner

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.

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!

Another Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

All these meats just out in the open air...the stray dogs and the flies really liked this aisle.

Market buddies!

Baby chiva!

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.

Happy as a sunflower!

Botero's lady is admiring the tree

Cheesy Christmas-card-esque photo

It's like a fairy forest

Of course I needed a photo of this... #mathnerd

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.

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

Heavenly.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

This picture has so much going on.  I'm not even sure what's exactly happening here.

Even his still life is voluminous

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

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"

Marvelous Mountainous Medellin!

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.

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

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.