Villa de Leyva + Friends + Medellin = Fun week!

Thank you for being patient with me. If you aren't constantly seeing blog updates, it probably means I've been having a fun, busy time. This is true for the time spent between my last blog and this one. Where to start?

Juli and I had a 3 hour bus ride from Bogota to Villa de Leyva, but it wasn't too bad. One thing you all should know about Colombia is the landscape, flora, and climate all change from one place to another. As the bus rolled on, we started seeing more cacti and desert landscape, and the temperature climbed.

It's cool to think that in Minnesota there's snow, when it's like 70's here :-)

Anyways, when we got to Villa de Leyva.This place has such an old-fashioned feel to it that makes it really interesting to be in. We ate at a great restaurant, had freshly-squeezed Passion Fruit juice and a wok, all for like 5 bucks each. It was a great deal.

We spent the rest of the day visiting little shops, walking around the town, and witnessing the Colombian soap opera "La Pola" being filmed there! There were a lot of people who volunteered to be an extra soldier in it.

The following morning, we had a fresh breakfast at a small cafe and Juli brought along a grenadilla which is a South American fruit that looks like an orange on the outside and like a lot of fish eggs on the inside. Despite its appearance, you just swallow the seeds and its really good.

We biked to these Blue Pools and dipped our feet in there. They are natural, turquoise ponds that have sulfuric sand that is good for the skin.

We met up with a nice couple from Ibague and Medellin and had lunch and waffles together. They rode there on a motorcycle, and were a few years older than me and Juli. We ended up having dinner with them as well and having a good time. A town local gave us a lift to a thermal pool in which we went in the pouring rain.

Later that night, we got to meet up with Casey's friends from Yellowstone, Diego and Luis. We are meeting up with them again this Thursday.

The very next morning, me, Juli, Felipe and Manuela headed for Medellin. It's about an 8-hour drive away from Bogota through windy, tropical mountains. Many reckless drivers here made the trip adventurous :-P. We got to stay in Felipe's cousin's farmhouse, right outside of the city.

We met up with Andres, Juli and Manuela's second cousin, and he spent the night with us there.

The next morning we went to a sweet botanic garden, where we saw a bunch of cool plants, butterflies (in a butterfly house) and other animals. We also had an amazing lunch in an outdoor cafe there.

Medellin is the city in which the famous Colombian artist Fernando Botero was born. We took a train to the Botero art museum. . I've already mentioned him in previous blogs because some of his works are in Bogota, but most of them are in his birthplace.

After this, we hung out in Andres' apartment and went out to a bar that night. It was really cool to compare the accents between how he talks and Juli. Not to mention, the weather was perfect throughout or time there.

Today (23 February) Juli and I are going to meet up with Londra, a friend who worked with me last summer at Good Earth Village. She lives in Bogota, and we're going to have a dessert with her at Crepes and Waffles.

Thanks for reading!


R.A.P.

Trip to Villa de Leyva...Coming Soon!

Hello followers. Tomorrow morning Juli and I are travelling to Villa de Leyva, a beautiful little town a few hours away from Bogota. We'll be staying in a nice hostel, possibly visiting a vineyard, riding horses, and hopefully a eating a lot of good food! Will be returning Thursday of this week with a ton of great memories and photos.

thanks for reading!


R.A.P.



p.s. if you wanna take a look at some pictures, here's the official site

http://www.villadeleyva.net/


p.s.s. here are some photos of us at the Lagoon of Guatalvita.

This lagoon was so amazing to see. The indigenous people that lived in this area threw tons of gold artifacts and creations into it as sacrifice to their gods.

Museum Visits, Universities and Good Food (of course)

Yesterday we went to five museums and we only had to pay for two of them. Felipe drove us across the city near Montserrate, a tall peak that we can take a gondola up to and see all of Bogotá. As we drove through certain neighborhoods, Felipe pointed out that many buildings in one neighborhood had a lot of English influence, and there was one that a bunch of old people lived in, which converted to a lot of office buildings.

When we got dropped off, we went to the Botero Museum. I remember studying a painting of this guy in my senior year humanities English class! It was awesome to see the real painting of what I studied. He painted a lot of fat people. If I remember right, he criticized and mocked the bourgeoisie through doing this. In this museum was also some Picasso paintings and a sculpture by Salvador Dali. Wow, it was cool to see those!

I've always wanted to see how Mona Lisa would look as morbidly obese.

A drawing from Picasso 

After the Botero Museum, we went to La Casa de Florero, which had a lot of stuff about how Colombia won its independence from Spain. This was a really cool museum, but not quite as cool as the Museum of Regional Suits, which was founded by Juli's paternal grandmother Edith Jimenez, who was the first Colombian woman anthropologist, and her research to bring a lot of these indigenous dresses and artifacts was some of the first anthropological work to be recognized. We went here a couple days earlier, and had a free tour as her aunt works there. The building that its in used to be one of the places that Manuelita Sanz, Simon Bolivar's girlfriend lived. Simon Bolivar was the leader of the Colombian revolution against the Spanish. He is considered the liberator of the country and is very famous. Here are some photos from the Museum of Regional Suits.

All clothing was sewn by the women. In these outfits one can see the African influence in the designs of the female handbag.

Suits worn by the indigenous men to supposedly scare off enemies and animals.

 Anyways back to February 11, we went to the National Museum, Colonial Museum and Gold Museum. All were so interesting and contained a lot of golden artifacts from the indigenous people in the Pre-Colombian eras. Sadly, my camera died and I was unable to take photos of them.

We ate at a cool restaurant called Dos Gatos y Simone. It served Mexican food, and we had fresh-squeezed lemonade. I got to meet Caro Gomez, one of Juli's good friends. She, her boyfriend and another friend stopped by to visit us. The restaurant is close to the Universidad de los Andes, which is the school Manuela goes to.  Here are a few pictures of the campus.

It's a very dynamic university, as one can see. A little later on in the day, we met up with Natis Bernal and Manuela. Natis went to Viterbo for a year and was Juli's roommate, but now she goes to the Universidad de los Andes as well. We went to a cool cafe called Brot where I had Freijoa Juice which is a South American fruit that tastes like angel food cake. We also had a chocolate baguette. Here is Natis and Juli.

Overall it was a fun day filled with a lot of cool paintings and artifacts and good food. Oh yeah, we went to a Planetarium too, but that didn't have that much in it. Very cool day.

A Change in Course

I've decided to post most of my pictures on facebook and try to maintain this blog as a written one. Thanks for following me this far, and I have been having a great time!


R.A.P.

"Una mirada a Usaquen"

Here is the first picture of when Juli and I got dropped off at Usaquen, a part of Bogota that used to be its own colonial town. But because Bogota kept expanding, it eventually took in Usaquen. Here I am in front of the Hacienda, a really cool mall with outside bars with live music.

The Hacienda has a lot of fountains because its very old architecture.  The fountain reminded us of our friend Bernadine because she has a cool facebook profile picture by a fountain. However, her was actually working.

A really cool shop with artwork from local artists. Usaquen is full of hand-made crafts and pieces of art. It really adds an authentic vibe to the city.

Eating some almojava, its like a biscuit but has a cheesy taste and was really good.

A lot of cool alleways in this area.

The food court in the Hacienda. The mall was seriously huge and they have a lot of ritzy stores there. In the center of the circular complex in this part they have different things throughout the year. Ice-skating, concerts, and in this case, mini-golf.

Banks and some industrial businesses. Bogota doesn't have a whole lot of giant skyscrapers though, as I expected. However, I like that about it, because instead it has a lot more restaurants and little shops that truly give zest to the community

We had warm wine at a really good restaurant called Crepes and Waffles

"Cajita de sorpresas" 03 Feb

Hey everybody! Sorry I have been a little behind on my blog, but I truly have been having a great time in Bogotá with Juli and her family! I have decided (for now) to make this more of a picture blog, relying on the cliche saying that "a picture is worth a thousand words". All I can say now is: it is only my 3rd night here, and I'm already in love with this city. The house is gorgeous, the people are laid back and chill and the temperature is like a nice summer day! Thank you all for following me, and I promise to keep trying to update you!

Each seat on the plane had DirectTV, and they let you watch it as people were getting settled in, but you had to pay six dollars to continue watching it throughout the flight. I wasn't going to do that. Even though Walker Texas Ranger may be worth it.

I arrived in Houston to find out that my flight may be cancelled or delayed due to freezing rain or ice or w/e.

After having some fast food Chinese and killing the rest of the 4 hours and 47 minutes left of waiting, I finally found out that the flight was on schedule!

Your typical airplane food. Although the salad and caroteenies weren't too bad. I always make a point to drink ginger ale while aboard airplanes. I don't know why. Anyways, the flight was about 4 1/2 hours long. and I was getting so excited/nervous to land in Bogota!

When we landed, I went through customs and had to show the guy my passport and tell him Juli's phone number and tell him why i'm visiting Colombia. It didn't take long to get my luggage and find my way out of the airport and I saw Juli's mom, Silvia smiling and waving at me among a crowd. Soon I saw Manuela, Juli's twin sister, and Juli. Her dad, Felipe as well greeted me with the others. IT WAS SO NICE TO FINALLY MEET MY GIRLFRIENDS FAMILY!! Also great to see her again. Everything was so surreal. The temperature was like high 70s and Bogotá has like a rustic smell that is very nice and different. We got into their jeep and started driving to their house. Of course everyone's speaking in  Spanish and its taking me some time to take it all in! Still could not believe I was actually here!!

We stopped at a really cool market (well its the norm for them here) that had tons of organic stuff, and fruits i've never heard of in my life. It was a lot like a Co-Op in the states. Really cool. When we reached the house, we talked for a little bit, Silvia was so kind to make us dinner, and I told them next I wanted them to open their gifts that I brought them. A little while later we opened gifts. I got her dad Felipe a cool sweater and some nice chocolates, Silvia some pajama pants, a candle, and chai tea, and Manuela a thermos, necklace and some gum. Just some little gifts to show my appreciation of their hospitality. Anyways, the first night went really well, and I was so glad to be in Colombia with these wonderful people.

"Ready or Not": Leaving for Minneapolis

It's like Christmas Eve. Everything is packed and wrapped up for the events tomorrow, and my parents and I are leaving in about 2 hours for the cities. I'm so excited, but sad a little bit that Juli has laryngitis. She will hopefully be getting better in no time with rest and drinking liquids. I am just really anxious to finally meet her parents and sister in person and get to know them better. I'm especially excited to see her again!

My parents and I are staying in a Mariott tonight, (sadly, with no pool), and will have to wake up around 4 am tomorrow for a 6:30 flight. I'm going to miss my family! And also my cats (especially Wiley, who follows me around wherever I go). But I'm glad that my parents are going to Cancun a couple days after I leave. Callen is staying with some friends throughout the week.

I cannot wait to speak Spanish all the time! And to just see the Colombian culture and people. I cannot begin to even comprehend how this time abroad is going to change me. I will try to be as diligent as possible taking pictures and occasionally recording footage of the trip and will be posting them on here.

I'm thankful to you, who takes the time to read and see how I'm doing!

Anyways, my flight has a layover in Houston tomorrow, and its the first time I've travelled alone. Oh well, it's just going to be one of the many things I will be getting accustomed to on this upcoming journey!

Quote of the day: "Do something great for your country: Leave."