Week 2: Working our minds, bodies, and tastebuds

Day 13
After our fun weekend in Cali, we were ready to get back to (vacation) business in Medellin.  Sunday night we were craving to have something, anything, that resembled a vegetable.  Since many portions of this city take the day of rest quite literally, we were having a little bit of a hard time finding a place that was open.  We ended up wandering over to Parque Lleras again, mostly because we knew how to walk to it and that it was going to be our best bet for having a restaurant with the lights on.  Ironically, we discovered a great steakhouse that had exactly what we were craving:  a huge, ginormous, heap of vegetables salad.  Yum yum.  Also, they had some fresh fruit juices available, and I could practically feel my body hanging the "welcome back" sign up for all the fresh fruit and vegetables we ate.

Day 14

Our morning started with a kind of hilarious but effective work out.  Both Jay and I are people who like to exercise, and although we have been walking a lot, doing salsa lessons, and taking the stairs as much as possible, we both felt like we needed a little more to make our bodies feel goooooood.  Especially since much of my "walking a lot" involves walking to the chocolate shop. Our friend Bobby from Cali had told us about his little fitness routine he was doing over there in his studio apartment, and Jay googled it and it seemed like something we could handle.  So we did our little circuit training routine, and were actually a little sore from it the next day!  Success!  We took our endorphin filled bodies to spanish class, and Yadi was proud of us for doing our homework in Cali.  Then she blew our minds with a super tough lesson.

After we left class in a daze, I convinced Jay that we needed to go check out another park area of Medellin, Parque de Pies Descalzos (Barefoot Park).  This place was fascinating to me for some reason.  And Lonely Planet said it was a must-see, so we needed to go!  We got to the park and ate some lunch while we observed the park in action.  Basically, it is a huge park with lots of little sections that are meant to be a different sensory experience for your feet.  In most of the sections you are not allowed to wear shoes.  There was a little reflection pond to splash your feet in, a huge sand/gravel area to walk in, some crazy stones sticking out of the ground to climb on, and a bamboo forest.  Being there, we also discovered where all the Medellin families take their kids to play.  There were kids everywhere!  They were being pretty cute in the water and sand pit thing, but neither of us much felt like competing with them to get our feet in, so we opted to go through the relatively kid free bamboo forest.  

sand area with stone things to walk on

reflection pond and some of the park

mystical bamboo forest, ha!

  

After our journey through the bamboo forest, we decided we needed a change of scenery and headed up to Laurales.  We had only seen Laurales at night, and we had apparently missed out on what an adorable neighborhood of Medellin it actually is.  We took a cerveza break at a restaurant, then decided to walk a little bit to see the 'hood before we took a taxi back.  Our walk was going so nicely that we actually ended up walking all the way back to our apartment!  Luckily, our long stroll took us right to the chocolate shop by our place, and it would have been rude not to stop in and say hello and perhaps pick up a few things while we were there.

Day 15

More spanish class, more spanish learned!  Our friend Angela had invited us over to her apartment for some lunch and afternoon swimming, so we headed over there after class.  She had told us that she had a good view, but we had no idea how serious she was about this till we got there. Her apartment is located way up a hill/mountain in Laurales, and you can really see a lot of Medellin from her apartment building. We splashed around in the pool, admired the vista, and hung out for awhile. Angela speaks about as much English as we speak Spanish, so our conversations are probably pretty hilarious to an outside observer with all the hand gestures and wild explanations going on. She had made us a tasty chicken pasta dish.  It was a really great afternoon and it was really sweet of her to go through all that trouble for us.  Before we left that night, she took us to the top of her building so we could see more of Medellin by night.  It was gorgeous and I wish had taken some fancy point and shoot camera training so I could better capture how pretty all this stuff is.

Medellin by night

Angela y Jay (or Jake, as Colombians keep calling him, haha!  It is hard for Colombians to say just the "Jay" part)

Day 16

Jay and I completed our little work out routine in our apartment again, and then headed over to Spanish class.  Today's class was slightly easier on our brains, and we left feeling pretty good about it.  We did a little grocery shopping, relaxed and did our homework, and then met up with Angela at Calle 33 for a little while.  Angela took us to a "rock" bar where they played a mix of American rock songs with a lot of Spanish songs.  I was telling Angela about my deeeeeeeep love for Spanish music, and told me she would put together a little compilation for me.  I practically jumped out of my seat from excitement.  I apologize in advance to anyone that is going to be riding in my car or hanging out at my house when I get back.  It's going to be all Spanish all the time for awhile, haha!

Day 17

Jay and I started our day off with another salsa lesson.  Mr. Owwwwwwwch Andres was all booked up, so we had a different instructor, the very handsome and very entertaining German.  German taught us some new moves, and had Jay twirling me all over the place.  German would count/dance and yell "Chufla! Doble! Triple! Yeeeeeessss, verrrryyyyyyyyyy gooooood" each time we went through the routine.  It was awesome.

After salsa we hurried up and made ourselves presentable for Yadi.  We went to class, and got to learn a other verb tense!  Hooray!  After class, we decided to cross a restaurant off of our Medellin bucket list, Crepes y Waffles.  We have seen this place all over, and at first I thought it was just a cheesy chain restaurant, but then both Yadi and Bobby gushed about how delicious it is.  They did not lead us astray, Crepes y Waffles is indeed quite yummy. 

After lunch we made a half-hearted attempt to shop for some stuff, and then headed home.  Jay was just wanting to relax, and I thought this might be the perfect opportunity to go check out the Museo D Antioquia in the Plaza Botero we had run into the other day. I hadn't really ventured out on my own very much, as it is a little intimidating being the only blonde/tallest girl around, not speaking the language all that well, and not really knowing where I am.  But I did know exactly how to to get to the museum, so I thought it might be nice to give Jay a break from me check out more of Medellin.  

The Museo D Antiquia is awesome.  The building itself is beautiful, and very peaceful inside, giving a stark contrast to all the hustle of downtown Medellin outside.  It also houses many works from the artist Botero, who is a very famous contemporary artist and is from Medellin.  All of his paintings and sculptures are done in such a way where the subjects are projected to be very voluminous, and they are pretty interesting to look at.  He has also dedicated a lot of his more recent work in the past 15 years to display the way that Medellin has changed and grown from it's less than desirable past.

Museo D Antioquia

Botero Sculptures

Marie Antoinette and Luis XV1

Famous Pablo Escobar Dead painting

From the museum I had been able to see some interesting side street off of the plaza, so I decided to go check those out before going back to the apartment.  One street was about 500 yards of fruit stands, and it was difficult to not just grab a grape off of the vines they were hanging from.  I bought myself another guanabana juice, and walked around a little more, taking in the sights from Plaza Botero.

fruit as far as the eye can see

Plaza Botero

Medellin knows how to do dessert.  How anyone is skinny here I will never know.

This weekend we are leaving Medellin again and going to check out the (from what we hear) gorgeous Cartagena.  I'm so excited for some beaches, shorts, and Caribbean fun in the sun!

What I have learned about Medellin so far....

Now that we have been here for a little while, I feel like I can describe some generalizations about Medellin. And there are a lot. Jay and I talk about them all the time.

1.  The weather here cannot be beat, and it ties with San Diego as being a perfect climate.  Except in Medellin it really is perfect all the time.  It stays 75-80 degrees 24 hours a day. Apparently there is a rainy season, but we are not here for it, so I am just going to believe that everyone here enjoys this perfection year round.  And thanks to the perfect weather, the plant life here is like a tropical oasis everywhere.  Since Medellin is almost 5000 feet above sea level, the city doesn't have the bugs that usually come with a tropical oasis.  Win!

2.  Colombians know how to make coffee.  It really is that good.  Juan Valdez is a genius.

3.  Guess what is better than the coffee?  The chocolate.  Words cannot describe my surprise, then elation when I tasted my first piece of Colombian chocolate.  I researched it, and yes, apparently the chocolate here is just as good as the coffee.  Who knew?  Our apartment is located right next to a chocolate/coffee shop, which we have been to three times already.  Every day it is a mental battle debating on whether or not to stop in and show the owner how my Spanish is improving get more chocolate.

4.  Surprisingly not that good?  The food.  It's not bad, it's just not good either.  And Colombians really love themselves a deep fryer.  Sooooo many things are fried.  There is also so much pork!  Which is good every once in awhile, but I was afraid that by the end of this trip I might actually turn into a pig.  They also cannot get enough of ham (yes, I know it is a form of pork) and cheese.  Instead of living on a diet of chocolate and coffee though, we have found some good restaurants and they do have a wide variety of different international foods to choose from in Medellin.  We still like to try the different kinds of Colombian food, but at least we can find some other options too.

5.  The women in Medellin are gorgeous.  I have to give Jay some props for not getting whiplash yet from the parade of beautiful women that walk by every day.  Our first few days were spent where all the beautiful people gather, but now that we have seen some other parts of Medellin (with more, ahem, natural women), it is still safe to say men have it pretty easy here.

6.  They are not shy about the plastic surgery here.  Like I said before, our first few days here we were staying in a part of  Medellin where the beautiful people seemed to congregate.  I had read and read that many woman get breast implants, so I am not surprised by the amount of boob jobs, but it is crazy how many butt implants there seem to be.  It's like every woman took a picture of J. Lo's butt to the doctor and, well, that is what you see.    

7.  Colombians know how to dance.  And they do dance, a lot and anywhere where there is music. It is obvious that everyone here has been dancing from a young age, moving those hips with their mom, dad, grandma, cousin, until it is time to go out into the world and show what you got.  Here in Medellin they really like salsa, rumba, and reggaeton.  Some crossover stuff too.  

8.  Malls are somewhat of a big deal here.  Every place we looked at to live in usually had a description that ended with "and it's so close to _____ mall!"  They are kinda like malls in the US, but they also have grocery stores, a soccer field, CASINOS, gyms, and many other things.  So far I have managed not to go to a casino yet, but I am sure it is only a manner of time before I am yelling double down in Spanish.

9. No one speaks English. No one.  Our real estate guy was one of the first people we ran into that was Colombian and spoke English.  Then we learned that he spent K-8 in New York. We have also heard some English in the airport, and our hotel guys had a limited amount of phrases he knew.  But if you are out and about, it is Spanish only.  Which is good for us, it makes us practice more.  

10.  No one has blonde hair.  Especially blonde curly hair.  Sticking out like a sore thumb does not even begin to describe it.  I have heard from a few that I look Argentine though, weirdly enough.

11.  No one wears shorts or flip flops in Medellin, and if you do it looks weird.  The ironic thing is that every window in the mall has a mannequin wearing shorts and flip flops.  I am baffled by this, but apparently the people of Medellin refuse to fall for the propaganda the mannequins are displaying. I should have brought more jeans.

12.  Guanabana juice is the best.  

13.   No matter the time of day, it is ok to eat an empanada and have a Club Colombia (Colombian beer) in your hand.

Cali- Not THAT Cali, but Cali, Colombia

Although Medellin is amazing, Jay and I decided that we needed to see some of the other cities that Colombia has to offer.  We booked a flight to Cali, Colombia, and arrived there on Friday.

Upon arrival, we could tell Cali was going to be different.  Once again, the airport is pretty far outside the city, but this time we took a funny little bus where Jay and I were squeezed into the front seat and rode our way into Cali.  After the bus dropped us off at the bus terminal, we got a taxi and our driver drove to our hostel.  One thing I noticed right away was that although it was the middle of the day, no one was out. Once we got out the taxi, we realized why:  it is VERY hot in Cali.  I wouldn't leave the house either.  They should call it Cali Caliente.  (Sorry, I couldn't help the joke!)

We checked into our funny little french hostel and ate some delicious lunch.  Then we went up to the room and were hit with another heatwave.  Not really knowing what to do, we took a little rest and then headed out to the large park across the street.  I called our friend Bobby (well, my friend Jeff's friend Bobby, but now is our friend too) and we made plans to meet up later.

El Gato de Rio

Still too hot to walk around, we went back to the hostel and hung out until Bobby showed up.  He showed us around a little bit and we ate some empanadas at this patio restaurant down by the river.  We had a great time and saw some of the culture Cali had to offer.  We were in San Antonio, which is the bohemian artsy district of Cali.  The buildings are painted in bright colors and have a unique character to them.  There is also a lot of art graffiti on the walls, adding interesting pictures to every turn you make.

Not my idea, a colombian made me pose like this!

Jay on the streets of Cali (his shorts adding more color to the city, ha!)

After Bobby led us back to the hostel Jay and I got ready for the night. We ate dinner at a pizza place where you choose from a very long list of pizzas you would like and they bring you little mini pizzas of all your choices.  Afterwards we went to a cuban restaurant and listened to some live cuban salsa music and drank some mojitos.

The next day  we went to a little art park and perused the little shops and park. It started to get hot again, so we decided to check into a hotel with air conditioning.  We found one in the downtown area, headed over there, and checked in.  We did a little spanish homework, rested up, and started the night.

Checking out the park by our hostel, where we ran into a comedy show

After taxiing to a restaurant that looked promising online but turned to out to be out of business in person, we ended up near our old hostel again and had dinner at a restaurant with some more live music.  After that, we headed over to Tin Tin Deo, which is where some of Cali's best salsa dancers go to get their salsa on.  Bobby had told us this was a very fun place to go, and since Jay and I were obviously salsa masters from our one lesson, I was pretty pumped to see the famous Cali salsa dancers doing what they do best.

Man, these people can dance.  It was amazing.  I should have been moving a lot because there was some great salsa music and it was a dancing bar, but I could not take my eyes off all these incredible dancers.  My eyes got a slight break when we started talking to some British and Irish people, which led to us talking to some other British people.  The bars in Cali have to close at 3, but there are several options for after the bars.  One set of our new British friends invited us to a house party with some other Colombianos, so we went along for the ride.

House party this wasn't. There was a DJ playing more salsa, all kinds of people dancing, other playing musical instruments to go with the music, empanadas being sold, some sort of indoor garden, and everyone just having a good time.  We even got to play some of the instruments, I got to dance and show off my extreme gringo salsa, and we left thinking "What just happened?"

our british friends adding to the music

Hanging out with the Brits and Colombians

Sunday was spent laying in the shade at the park reading and doing spanish homework, trying to stay cool before our flight back to the perfect weather of Medellin.  We said good bye to Bobby, and were very appreciative of our friend for telling us about some great spots in Cali!

Final thoughts about Cali:

1.  I can appreciate that much of the city unites in the belief that if it is too hot, it's best just to stay inside and blast salsa music.

2.  People here can, and want to, dance like nobody's watching.  But they know everyone is watching.

3.  Cali is a little, for lack of a better term, rougher than Medellin.  It has it's own beauty to it, but it is not as obvious as Medellin's.

4.  Not as much plastic surgery as I expected to see.

5.  Dogs were everywhere!! Including this adorable little guy:

  

Days 1-9: Warning loooong post!

I didn't write anything down for the first 9 days, so this is just a short, badly written summary of what our first  9 days were like here.


Day 1
Our flight to Medellin was peacefully (thank you Xanax) uneventful.  We had three 2 1/2 -3 hour legs with hardly any layover time in between. We arrived in Medellin, promptly got a taxi, and began our roller coaster of a ride to the hotel.  After what seemed like 2 bajillion hours (really 45 minutes) we came upon our hotel, The Hotel Plaza Rosa.  We were very impressed with the hotel, checked in, got to our room, and promptly looked at each other with "What now??" written all over our faces.  We decided to venture out and explore the area of Medellin called Plaza Rosa.  We found a phone place, walked around, and took in our surroundings.  After drinking a refreshing cerveza, we decided to go back the hotel and get a little rest before we went out that night.  As far as the night went, we checked out a few places in Parque Lleras, a spot near our hotel. Parque Lleras is kind of like Old Town Scottsdale, Latino style.  It was Wednesday night and raining, which apparently means that it is more of a quiet night.

Hotel room in Hotel Plaza Rosa

Day 2
Ok!  This was going to be the day we were going to make things happen.  After eating what was the most delicious free breakfast a hotel could offer (seriously, they were not joking around with the breakfast) we wandered out of the hotel in search of more permanent housing and a spanish school.

Many hours later, we still had not found a spanish school or a place to live.  We went to an area called Patio Bonito, where we found a nice hostel run by a new zealander.  We told him we were looking for a room and that we were going to be in Medellin for almost a month.  His immediate reaction was "No, you need to get a furnished apartment if you are going to be here that long.  You do not want to stay in a hostel for that length of time." What?!? A furnished apartment! Why didn't we think of that sooner!?  So we left the Black Sheep Hostel and began a new search for an apartment.

Many discouraging hours later we found ourselves back at our hotel with no apartment and no spanish classes.  We hit the internets to see what we could find in terms of an apartment.  We emailed a few promising choices, emailed a few spanish class choices, considered it a day, and went out that night to walk around Parque Lleras again.

Day 3:
We were most determined to find an apartment today.  We found one, but after a lot of broken spanish later it was not meant to be.  Walking back to the hotel to see if anyone had emailed us back yet, a glorious sight appeared before our eyes:  one the real estate companies we had emailed!  And it looked legit!  We went up, met John, a smooth talking Colombian that had grown up in NYC, which meant that he spoke english.  Great news for us!  He gave us an apartment to check out, we did, and then we signed on the dotted line. We moved into our apartment, nailed down some spanish classes to start on Monday, and considered it a very successful Friday. Until we made an epic fail to find a grocery store, which mostly resulted in us coming back with a few beers, soda water, and the local Colombian delicacy Aquardiente (an alcohol that is basically like a Good n Plenty melted down-it's not that good but it is made here so that's what they like to drink!)  Although we did find an amazing chocolate shop around the corner from us, so we also came back with some chocolate, which led to the discovery that Colombia has the most incredible chocolate on earth.

Results of epic fail of a trip to the grocery store

Day 4:
Our apartment is sweet.  Two bedrooms, two baths, pool, spa, great views, some ridiculous stairs that are going to keep us in shape, and our adorable guard Antony who I am almost positive sleeps only once every three days.  He is at the gate all.the.time.  We were able to find a grocery store, so we bought some food.  Hooray!  Something other than fried food!  After another long walk we found what appears to be the AJ's of Medellin.  Our lack of finding grocery stores the day before led us find two in one day, which was exciting for us.  We decided that tonight we would celebrate our first weekend in Medellin by going to a restaurant on Calle Buena Mesa, which is known for its delicious and wide variety of food.  Off we went, bellies rumbling, and we couldn't find it. It started to rain, so we stumbled into a hipster/punk area of the Poblado, found an interesting pizza place, and ate there instead.  We went out to Parque Lleras again, had some drinks, and Jay admired the never ending parade of beautiful women and their also seemingly never ending, um, assets.  I admired the good dancers, which is every Colombian.

view from our balcony

my bedroom

Day 5
Sunday in Medellin is very, very peaceful.  It is also very, very closed.  Our trusty realtor John had told us about a very popular breakfast restaurant for locals that is in a park where all the paisas spend their Sundays. We took a taxi to Parque Saboneta.  The restaurant had a very long, unorganized line out the door and around the corner, which was an unfamilar site to us so far in Medellin.  We were starving, so we went to another restaurant nearby and ordered the most Medellin-est breakfast of all, the bandeja paisa.  It is be rice, a fried egg, some delicious bun thing, some chicharron, plantains, arepas, a half of an avocado (YES!) a salad, and some bean soup on the side in case you are still hungry.  The restaurant was filled with rancher looking memorablia, which was funny in a charming way.  After, we walked/rolled ourselves around Saboneta, found a nice spot to watch the Euro, and had a few cervezas while we watched the game and people in the park.  It was really nice to be in a more neighborhoody section of Medellin for a change.

bandeja paisa

Parque Saboneta

Day 6
Yay!  Spanish lessons started today!  We ended up deciding to take lessons with Yadi, the wife of the guy that ran the Black Sheep Hostel.  She is adorable and nice and quickly got us working on our spanish.  We spent two hours with her, and both of us left a little dizzy after being pumped with so much information.  We also have homework to do.  We spent the rest of the day hanging out, doing homework, and booking our trips for the next couple of weekends.  We also wandered over to Palmitas, a Colombian restaurant that has an incredible view of Medellin, and it turned out to be delicious.

Day 7
More spanish class, more information.  After class we decided to go explore a little bit of Medellin, and went over to Parque Berrio.  It is located right in the center of downtown and is very different than the other areas of Medellin we have been in. People are everywhere, vendors are everywhere, and it is busier than anywhere else we have been. Before we found Parque Berrio, we accidently ran into Plaza Botero, which has many, many Botero sculptures just hanging out.  The Botero Museum is here too, and I make a mental note to return.  After wandering back over to Parque Berrio, we decide to head back, but not before getting some delicious guanabana juices first.

Plaza Botero

Parque Berrio

Day 8
Today we became truly Colombian and took a salsa class.  Our adorable, and muy guapo, instructor Andres taught us the basics of salsa.  I realized as a girl how easy I have it because all I have to do is follow Jay as Jay is trying to learn everything else.  Andres is constantly counting "1,2,3,5,6,7" and every time we mess up he smiles and says "Owwwwwch!" Every time we wants Jay to spin me he yells something that sounds like "Chuflo!" which is usually followed by an "Owwwwch!" until we finally have it down.  Andres whirls me around a few times and I have a slight daydream of being on So You Think You Can Dance. We have signed up for four classes, and it looks like this is going to be a lot of fun.

More spanish class, more and more and more information.  Yadi slows down for no one.  After class we went to the mall and did homework there, where I also decided to start my love for ice cream.  Jay and I get hungry and decide to get a "snack" of nachos.  Turns out to be the biggest plate of nachos ever, and while it is no AZ nacho plate, it is still pretty good, although hilarious.  Obviously, a great day of food choices, haha.

colombian nachos-sadly that guacamole looks bigger than it was

Day 9
Our last day of Spanish class for the week, and again Yadi shows us no mercy.  We leave with big homework assignments for the weekend, and go to a panderia down the street to do our work.  When we are done, we check out another mall, the San Diego Mall, which is not quite as nice as the Premium Plaza by us.  We head over to Palmitas again and have a great dinner looking out over Medellin.

Later than night we hang out with Jay's feisty Colombian friend, Angela. We were pretty excited to A)go out with someone from Colombia, and B)go out somewhere in Medellin we haven't been yet. We go out to Calle 33, which is a little more low key than Parque Lleras but still is lined with fun bars and clubs, and meet Angela for some drinks. After taking in some Ron, we head across the street to a bar/dance club and hang out there for awhile.  We danced and drank some more Ron and had a great time till the place closed.  I wish I had taken some pictures tonight, but I was too busy either dancing or gaping at the good (and by good I mean amazing) dancing by Colombians.

I wish I had more pictures.  Colombia isn't exactly what you would call a tourist destination yet, so there is not the usual crowd of people taking pictures of all the sights.  Or any crowd of non-colombians really.  I am starting to not care as much though if I am the only one taking pictures, so hopefully from now on there will be more.