Buenas, amigos. I’ve now been in Medellín for a solid ten days. It’s safe to say I know the city fairly well.
Some highlights:
-Went to a museum dedicated to the victims of Colombia’s prolonged conflicts
-Went through the daunting process of registering for the city’s free bike share
-Used the city’s free bike share, and loved it
-Got a 5-day ban from the city’s free bike share, on my first day
-Hit the movies (The Big Short, with Spanish subtitles, it was good)
-Had random ladies on the metro swoon over my “ojos tan lindos”
-Witnessed a number of hilariously incoherent and vulgar t-shirts, in English, whose text I will not reproduce here
-Tried (and failed) to avoid as much US election news as possible
-Went to a top-notch planetarium
-Started using Uber
-Watched the Super Bowl, in Spanish, with boring, regular commercials
-Already got flaked by a Colombian girl (the lawyer from the plane)
-Realized, too late, that you actually have to remove the (plastic) casing from sausages here prior to consumption
If you were to ask me ¿cómo van las cosas?, I would say that things are going quite well. Today and yesterday I handed out flyers for English conversation practice at two universities. Something very telling about the culture here, is that EVERYONE said “thank you” when I handed out my paper. Only one person of ~200 didn’t take one. It goes to show that the culture here, especially with respect to strangers, is very, very different. I don’t think I’ve ever thanked anyone for passing me a flyer. Ever. And they hadn’t even read it yet! What if I were advertising hitman services? I’d still get the “gracciass” and respond “con guusto.”
I will end today’s post with this delightful public service announcement from Administration. It kindly alerts us to the devastating effects of eating while working.
Aventuras Argentinas 