We had a really fun day! This morning we swam for a while at the beach. Then we spent some time studying Spanish, and Bill fixed ham sandwiches for lunch. Classes went really well. I’m learning a lot, and I love my class! I wish I had more time to spend in Spanish-speaking countries.

After class, we did a salsa class offered by the school. It was a blast! We had a fun teacher who’s Afro-Colombian who could really move! There were several students who did salsa with us. Most of us had little or no experience with salsa, so we were mostly equally bad, but everybody had fun. My new French friend, Dominique, came. She can’t do the steps at all, and doesn’t seem that interested in learning them, but she loves to dance and just did her own thing the whole time! She swiveled and shook all over the dance floor. It was hilarious! She’s living life to the fullest! Bill and I are not going to make Dancing with the Stars any time soon, but I think we have potential! He thinks he might be better at waltz. I love salsa! I would love to find a class in Cedar Falls, but I don’t think there is one.

Bill traded me in for a beautiful African woman during our dance session. See picture below. (That’s not exactly what happened, but he has been listening to a Spanish CD that teaches you how to ask women to dance.) I have video of them dancing together, but my blog doesn’t allow videos. Bummer! Maybe we can get more pictures next week.

Yesterday, I had lunch with Dominique, the French woman. I spent all morning listening to the French news and reading in French so I’d be prepared for an hour long conversation in French. It’s really hard for me to switch back and forth between French and Spanish. I did relatively well with the conversation. She seemed impressed but that’s probably because I had tried and failed to speak to her in French the day before. It was a good conversation. She lived in the US for a couple of years and in Africa for a few years. She’s been divorced for years and decided to travel around by herself in Colombia for a month. She worked as a secretary in some big international businesses before she retired. One of them was owned by Ross Perot.

I met a woman from California today. She’s also a student at the school. She decided she didn’t like her job, had some unspecified family drama that she didn’t want to deal with, so she quit her job and is spending the next year touring around South America. She’s doing 6 weeks at the language school here then she’s headed to Peru and Argentina. Maybe some other places too. She’s the second woman I’ve met at a language school with that kind of story. I wish I was that kind of person, but I mostly like my job so I guess it’s not quite the same.

After salsa, Bill and I stopped at this little open-air restaurant around the corner. It’s a local place. We got good food, super cheap! There was a TV with a telenovela playing behind us.

Our washing machine was leaking a bit when we got home. Bill is washing a load of towels now and put me on washing machine patrol while he’s in the shower. He gave me very specific instructions about how to start mopping up the floor if it floods!

That’s all I have for tonight! Pictures are below. Bill will have an update soon.

This is Bill’s post from yesterday. I spent all morning studying French in preparation for my conversation with Dominique then had three hours of Spanish. I was wiped out by the end of the day! I’ll have a post tonight or tomorrow morning after our salsa lessons.

We made a run to the market this morning after breakfast to get a few things. It’s very nice to have the store so close. The bigger Walmart type store is close to the school so it is easy to stop at before coming back to our apartment. We will have to swing through tonight so we can get the rest of our list. They have a bigger selection and bigger sizes. 

I was a good student and did some studying and made a list of questions in Spanish I will ask Karen. Karen is not a very Spanish sounding name. 
We couldn’t use the pool because the guy was painting, my guess they don’t want people in the pool area as it is where the painter’s ropes terminate and so if he lost equipment or he himself was to fall it could be a traumatic day of swimming. So studying was the next choice as we did not want to commit to going to the beach and dealing with the sand. 
Emily was not studying Spanish though, she was refreshing her French for her lunch with Dominique. 

It is Wednesday and at some point the cleaning lady will come. They introduced us to her when we arrived but I don’t remember her name, I will have to ask Emily to chat with her and get it again. I am studying but after asking her name I would be out of conversation since I also know she lives in Colombia already. Everything after that would be one or two word sentences. Karen tells me not to translate what is being said, instead I am supposed to get the meaning of what is being said. I have a hard time with that. I can get whether or not the person’s mood is good or bad but after that I need to know some of what the person is saying to get what they are talking about. 

We were not able to get a swim in today at all. The security guard that mans the front desk said the pool was closed all day because of the painter. Painter was gone, the guy that was cleaning the pool had told we could swim after two. Maybe two o’clock, maybe two hours, could be two days. He was not specific. It was to dark after class and dinner to swim in the ocean. 

Class went well for me. The math I was allowed to do in English, I just had to pronounce all the math in Spanish. Tomorrow it’s going to be about money. Karen thinks I am improving. I think she’s paid to say that. I’m still not sure I could communicate effectively very much. It is going to be a process. One nice thing is all my DouLingo has given me some vocabulary and my CDs have given me some phrases that are starting to appear in class. I made it to the second section today! I’m not sure if that’s exciting or not. I’m not sure I remember section one. I do still have my materials and can continue to use them to study. 

We at dinner at the apartment tonight, so no restaurant stories. We are going to work on getting a photo of the front of the restaurants we go to and the name. Some of our readers may end up here and want to know where to and where not to eat! 

The lady who was supposed to clean today didn’t show up. We have been keeping things tidy and doing some laundry but we need to take the garbage out since the notice in the elevator says we are not supposed to toss it out the windows. I will have to find where it goes in the morning. 

Speaking of garbage, when we first got here we were noticing a lot of garbage in the streets and along where we walk. Emily and I had conversations about how they need to do some campaign about not littering. The last couple days our route to school has been getting cleaned up some. They probably still need a campaign so people don’t litter and dump waste all over. They also need to push cleaning up after pets. Though there are some random dogs that seem homeless, they may be following San Francisco rules. In Peru dogs wondered alone, but since they were dressed and don’t have thumbs we assumed they had owners, here they are not dressed. 

It’s hard to believe it’s already been 5 days!! This two weeks is going to go fast. We will be trying to get in some sights yet. We did spend a little time on the wall, we will have to get some pictures. 

We are looking at Salsa lessons tomorrow and possibly an island excursion this weekend! There are a couple museums and a church we are probably going to visit. 

Bill got up before me and had a delicious omelet with toast, peanut butter and honey ready when I got up. Here is his post below! He wrote it yesterday evening, but I was too tired to post it last night.

We went down to the beach for a couple hours this morning before lunch and class. I tried out my snorkel gear, not really to see anything as the water in this area is rough and has a lot of fine sand and sparkling ground shell. It seemed to work well. The brand is Cressi, it is a frameless free diving mask and snorkel set. It made it easier to just swim. We are going to try and find a snorkeling tour and hopefully I will get good use of it. 

When the tide comes in it brings debris. After there was a guy that was raking and cleaning up along the beach. 

The apartment is getting more comfortable. Well not the furniture, the couch and the other main area furnishings remind me of IKEA. The bedrooms have beds and closets. It’s probably closer to Walmart put together stuff than IKEA. The humidity and the salt air takes a toll on everything, but it’s clean and functional. 

There are a couple tvs here and some sort of cable but we’re not completely sure how the system works. We did watch some news and a show kind of like Survivor. If we watch something it is usually the ocean. I think we’ve stayed fairly busy without over doing it or getting bored, Emily may think otherwise. I still don’t have enough knowledge to speak Spanish with Emily. Occasionally I will throw a Spanish word out when we are talking in English though. I definitely need more practice. 

Today was my second class and Karen is a very patient person. The first part of class seems to take a while, hour and forty minutes and then the last hour flies by!! I do get to practice my pronunciations a lot. I get to repeat words until Karen has deemed what I said to be satisfactory, or perfecto! It’s probably good I am in a private lesson. If others at my level have to repeat things as much as me, we would only learn a couple words a day. 

After class today we went to look for a Waffles and Crepes place but it was no longer where the map said it should be. So we were walking and talking about what else sounded good when some guy with a laminated sheet held it up and started talking, I seen food and said let’s go! We had to follow the guy a ways down the street before getting to the restaurant. It was probably good they sent him way down to the corner because there wasn’t much else on that section of street. It was a good choice. It was a nice place and the food was excellent!! My rice was flavored with cocoa, very good! The fish was excellent, perfectly fried outside and moist inside! 

We had a very tranquil day! No flooding, no power outages, not problems with the air conditioner. Bill and I went swimming this morning. He tried out his new snorkel gear, I swam and bounced in the waves then soaked up sun on the beach. It was lovely. We fixed some mediocre pasta for lunch then headed off for our second day of classes. I really enjoy conversation with my teacher. She’s very young, energetic and fun to talk to. The second half of my three hour class was all grammar. That’s not fun! We worked on some verb forms that I’ve had a hard time with and I didn’t do all that well with them today. But, it’s an important concept that I need to learn.

There’s a French student here who I mentioned earlier. I think she’s probably in her 60s and she’s traveling alone. She asked me to go to lunch with her tomorrow for a conversation in French. I’m going to watch French news for a while tomorrow morning to remind myself what that language sounds like! I think it will be an interesting conversation, but it takes my brain some time to switch to French, especially after several days of Spanish.

After class this evening, Bill found a neat little restaurant where we had another good meal. I have pictures below. Bill had fried fish, and I had shrimp risotto. It was delicious!

We’re back at our apartment now and I’m completely exhausted. I have pretty good pictures to post below though so this will be a more colorful post. I had a cute video of Bill speaking Spanish in class, but WordPress doesn’t give me video options with this blog.

Hola! 

We are getting settled into our apartment. I’m getting more accustomed to how some of the things work here. The windows are single paned and have aluminum frames so sound comes right though and there isn’t much of an insulating factor to them. Most people where we are staying keep their windows open so it probably doesn’t matter much. 12 floors up and the sounds of the city are still on the loud side. We may have to visit Boca Grande (big mouth) and see how the construction is over there. It’s a ritzy area. Ours is probably working class. 

The temps here are upper 80s but the humidity is also close to 80% so I walk outside and if there isn’t much of a breeze I seem to bead up with moisture. The locals and Emily do not. There is a breeze fairly often though here on the coast so it isn’t bad. 

Yesterday we went and did our testing in the morning, I should have skipped mine and just automatically said “I know nothing!” (Old time reference who knows from what show?) the test did not ask much of what I already learned on DouLingo. Our lessons are at 2pm until 5. Mine were very basic, they may have given me the most qualified person to teach me. Her name is Karen and she speaks several languages and is a linguist. She must’ve started early, guessing she is under 30 y/o. She said she was born in the US but also says she is Colombian. 
I was definitely on the struggle bus yesterday! The second worksheet I did went a lot better than the first. I’m going to have to study before class today because I’m sure she is going to ask me who I am, where I am from and what my nationality is. Bill is the only word I am fairly certain I pronounce correctly! 

A big storm rolled though here yesterday while we were in class, lots of rain. Karen said that the Caribbean gets the back side of the storm hitting New Orleans. The rain was over by the time we got out of class and went to pick up some things at the Exito (Walmart type place). After that we walked around some trying to get back to where we had been the night before but never did find it. We stopped and ate dinner by the light of Emily’s phone since the power went out after we got our lemonades. The food was good and it was interesting to have dinner by phone light. It was quiet. 
After dinner we walked to get a taxi and there were few buildings with generators. In the walled part of the city I was surprised there were so few as it is a popular place. Things did not seem to be affected by no power, people were still out and about. As it was getting dark the street sales people were closing up though. I think they probably would have been anyway. 

We got a taxi relatively easy, they are all over the place. Some have better A/C than others. They are also well used. They don’t have meters and you are supposed set a price with the driver before you take off. They also don’t like to make change. 

We were wondering if we were going to be so lucky as to have a building with a generator, we are. I’m not sure how often the power goes out here. I’m sure it was related to all the rain in a short time yesterday. I think at one time our building may have been pretty high end. Currently they are working on a new coat of paint which will help a lot. There was a guy out swinging from some ropes yesterday and again this morning. It’s going to take him a while to paint a 18 story building! Job security!! There was a group of guys down at ground level doing some work with the stucco by the garage. They must not like rope work. 

We are going to go do some swimming this morning in the ocean. The ocean is nice to listen to, interesting to swim in. 

Yesterday morning, Bill and I went in for our Spanish placement test. This wasn’t as useful for as as for the other students because we have private lesson rather than a class, so we don’t need to test into a specific class. But, it gave us a chance to finalize our enrollment with the school and go through orientation. There are a couple other American students but also some Dutch students and a woman from France. I tried to speak to her in French, but I couldn’t remember any French words! I have a very hard time switching back and forth between French and Spanish. I can do one or the other but not both at the same time! Dominique, the French woman, is probably in her 60s, she lives outside of Paris, and seems really nice. She said she had a hard time switching between English, Spanish and French here. Almost all of the students speak English.

When Bill and I got back, there was a plumber named Alejandro in the apartment fixing our washing machine. We have clean clothes now! He had partially flooded the apartment, and Bill helped him mop up the floor. Alejandro stayed until the washing machine cycled to make sure there weren’t any problems. We had an interesting conversation with him in Spanish. He seemed happy people were talking to him and asking questions about Colombia. He’s a working class guy who speaks informal Spanish so it was a very difficult conversation for me to understand, but we did okay and learned some interesting things about Colombia.

Our first class was yesterday at 2pm. Bill and I both have good teachers and we enjoyed our lessons. Bill has suggested that we speak Spanish as much as possible together. We sit silently most of the time! After class, we found a money exchange place in a sketchy-looking tourist shop and got some more Colombian pesos. We ate at a nice restaurant with an English menu and a good Trip Advisor rating. I had really good fish, and Bill got St. Louis-style ribs. While we were waiting for our food, there was a major power outage that cut off power to part of the city. We ate with my phone propped up on two menu cards with the light on. It worked pretty well. We were concerned that power in our building would be out. We are on the 12th floor, and that would have been a long walk up the stairs in the dark plus no lights and no air in the apartment. Fortunately, we had power, and we only lost internet for a while last night. As we were coming up the elevator last night, it stopped at the 10th floor, and this little white dog came in all by itself. It was very cute. We were trying to figure out what to do when it’s owner (an 11 year old girl) came running to retrieved it!

We have class again at 2pm today so we are headed to the beach to swim in just a little while. Bill is working on his update now. The beach is mostly empty on weekdays, especially in the morning.

In a fun side note, mom says my little dog Lucy will only take her allergy pills if they are hidden inside hamburger meat balls that have been seasoned with garlic salt. It’s a rough life she’s living! I don’t have pictures from yesterday, but I’ll try to get more for my next post.

I started the first leg of the trip to Colombia yesterday with a drive to St. Louis. The night was short with an early morning flight, at least this was our choice for this trip. With luck or on time flights we will be in Cartagena about 1:00 pm. 

Getting through STL was rather quick, I did get flagged for my snacks. Must be a thing about snacks, the guy in front of us did as well. 

Atlanta was easy, we had a short layover but it was enough time to get to where we needed to be and use the facilities. 

We are going to be in Colombia for 2 weeks and from the way it sounds Emily was able to pack almost a change of clothes for everyday there in her new Hynes Eagle 44L carry on. I only brought a weeks worth so my outfit will reappear in photos. 
I highly recommend this carry on bag! You should get one if you travel. Get the inserts if you really like to be organized. No checked bags means in and out of the airport on both ends. You can get you tickets at the automatic kiosks and go right to security checkpoint. On the way out there is no waiting for the luggage at the carousel. When we went to Peru I packed enough for the two weeks with my personal bag.  Emily packed about everything she had in her giant suitcase . 

We made it to Colombia! I was a little tired and cranky. I’m okay with 5-5:30, not so much  4am. It’s hot and humid, but from looking at the weather back home there’s not a lot of difference this week. Here there is an ocean breeze that’s not too bad. The buildings are not as rough here. In the better neighborhoods they look like Miami from what other tourists say. I believe it. Surprisingly I’ve only been to the airport there. The airport was fairly easy to get through, short wait getting our passports stamped. We exchanged money and our driver was waiting for us as we exited. He was friendly and works for the school. We met up with a couple more people from the school who helped us to our apartment. 

Our apartment isn’t too bad. I was a little concerned about it and the school I picked due to some hiccups. I also need to lower my standards some. The A/C works and we have security in the building all the time so those are pluses. Hot water is iffy but Emily says that’s how it is here in South America. 
They put us on the 12th floor and we look out over the ocean. The beach is across the street, went there today and though I’ve been in the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific I have never swam in the ocean until today. 

The walled part of town where the school is, is interesting. We spent some time down there today, found our school and looked at the shops. We found a American style pub that was nice. They played excellent music, 60s, 70s and 80s. The food was good as well. 

I’m interested in classes. I’m not sure how well I will do. I’ve been doing Doulingo for a while now and they seem to think I know about 3000 words. Reading them, I do okay but when I am listening to people talk that number seems to go down. I think it will be good to get to the point where I can have a conversation. It would have been handy last week when We had two patients that didn’t speak English. Next time I should be more prepared! 

This trip is more relaxed than Peru. The schedule is much more open with the exception of classes. And other than our choice to take the early flight here we shouldn’t have to many days were we, or at least  I, have to set and early alarm. 

It’s nice we have a kitchenette. Should save on food costs and  no hotel breakfasts. We have a little store down the block from us that has a fair selection of things. I could go pretty basic with ham sandwiches and eggs but we are going to cook some actual meals. We will have to go to a bigger market to see about some seasonings, our little one was limited in that area. 

It’s 7 million pesos to take a cab to the walled part of the city. That’s about $2. They say 2 and mean 2 million even though they have some 200 peso coins. I’m not sure the coins are worth getting. It’s interesting they can technically price things to such a fraction of what dollars are worth. 

Speaking of buying things, I bought myself a Juan Valdez hat today. You can roll them up and the bounce right back. Not sure how long it will last but for now it’s nice to keep my face in the shade and not burn my scalp, my hair is not as thick as it once was! 

The city is big! Not as big at Lima, 10 million people, here is around 1 million. Emily said it’s made up of 4 islands. We are going to try and see a couple of museums and maybe do some tours. I have a guide book so we may just take some of those multi million peso cab rides and see what we want. We may just end up hanging at the beach. 

Tomorrow morning we go in for testing. Should be interesting how they do it. I’m hoping they don’t go by just reading. For them to understand how much help I need they will need to try and have a conversation with me! 

Well, we flooded our apartment today. Bill tried to wash a load of laundry and the entire tub of water leaked all over the floor. It flooded half of the apartment with about a quarter inch of water. It took us about an hour to get all the water mopped up. It was an experience!

Otherwise though, we had a good day. This morning, we walked along the beach down to the old, historic, colonial part of the city. It was scorching hot, but the beach, which is gray, volcanic sand, sparkles. It’s very pretty. Bill thinks that an erosion of oyster shells created natural glitter. The old part of the city is very pretty. We found our school and some neat restaurants and Bill bought a “Juan Valdez”- style Colombian hat. It’s in the pictures below. We walked along the wall that fortified the old city. We were melting by the time we finished, so we got a taxi home! We bought roasted chicken form the grocery store for lunch and some delicious mangos. This afternoon, we swam in the ocean. Bill doesn’t think he’s ever been swimming in an ocean, and he had fun body surfing on the waves. We aren’t in a touristy part of the city at all and there aren’t many English speakers here in general. There were lots of Colombian families on the beach with adorable little kids. We think it’s mostly people who live in the neighborhood and walk over to the beach. There are probably some Colombian tourists as well. It’s much nicer that way than being surrounded by drunk tourists.

We just got back from dinner at an Irish pub. We took a taxi back to the old city and found a pub with hamburgers, coconut chicken and good music. It wasn’t very Colombian but it was a fun evening. We got a taxi back when it started to rain.

We go take our Spanish placement test at 8am tomorrow morning. I hope classes go well and we have good teachers. It will be 3 hours of Spanish every afternoon! I think Bill is working on his update, so I should be able to post that soon. Pictures are below.