fotos!

the following links are to pictures for the past couple months...

the first one is Bogota at it's finest during the week of it's 469th birthday celebration! my friend jaime is in them, she loves to travel latin america and we actually meet through a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend:)small world eh? we had fun doing touristy things in Bogota.

the second link takes place in Soata, Colombia. We traveled there about 10 hours on bus (it sucked a bit) for the wedding of my dad's coworker and friend. He was asked to be the padrino, so he was one of the few who signed the wedding license as a witness. Soata is a very beautiful place, it's a small town but the countryside of Bogota is great.

Enjoy!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3488&l=2dd0c&id=501246877

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3756&l=aacfe&id=501246877

Colombia is Passion!

this video says it all, the beauty of Colombia and all the reason people who are here or who come here fall in love...

...come visit and spread the news about the beauty of Colombia, it's not dangerous as people say so let's experience the beauty before we judge it.

don’t talk to strangers

Current mood: disappointed

so i made a friend in my french class, actually everyone in my french class is really cool...that's beyond the point but pretty exciting for me:)

my friend yessica and i always meet an hour before class starts, and today she didn't arrive until 10 minutes before class...only with a scary story to tell us all.

she was walking to the library in central bogota, when she was stopped by a lady who needed directions. yessica tried to tell her where to go but then she suddenly got really sick. within a few minutes she stared coughing horribly and sneezing uncontrollably. within those few minutes a man approached her as well and the lady and the man got a cab and pushed yessica into it. they made her take them to her house and proceeded to rob her. they yelled at her to get all jewelry, money or whatever was valuable out for them...she didn't although when they said laptop, she brought out her brand new laptop and they took it. they grabbed her and put her back in a different cab and drove off. they ditched her up town and took her bag, with everything in it and her laptop. soo you're wondering why would she do all that...here's the scary catch when they lady went up to her to ask her for directions she must have thrown something in yessica's face that made her sick and makes you loose common sense. she remembers little parts of the whole thing. she eventually gained consiousness when she was ditched. when she did, she just sat on the sidewalk and cried, luckily a very nice man lent her money to call her mom, and she got home. she said that the rest of the afternoon she had been throwing up and had a massive headache. she considered not coming to class but she did. her bag that was stolen had her cell phone, her waller which contained her cedula (a very important colombian id), all her school ids and her school books including her notes from the whole semester.
i'm still stunned, but her experience has made me realize that i can't just talk to everyone and anyone on the streets. i don't live in ames anymore eh? in ames i could somewhat trust most of the 50,000 people while in bogota i can only trust a fraction of the 8,000,000. i mean poor people come up to one all the time to ask for money, i always try to give them a couple pesos or so...but now i just have to keep walking. that makes me sad, but i'd rather do so than to get robbed or even worse hurt in anyway. it's scary to think what they can do to people just to rob them...

it's an embarassment to humanity that people are lazy and so selfish to steal from others because they don't want or don't have a job. my sense of compassion has always told me that everyone, even if they're bad or do bad things, have some good inside. I have always felt that everyone has a good heart, some people just have to realize it. then things like this happen and i question my sense of compassion although i know that i won't change it...however, i do know that i will watch myself more and tell myself that this isn't ames, this is bogota. people are clever robbers in a city, i wish i was a bad ass and could punch them and run. :) i guess i'll work on that.

things like this happen in a city, i can't imagine living here my whole life. although my desires want to sent me to much more dangerous places, i hope to find more kindness that will change my world for the good and continue to keep my faith in humanity. that's all i can really do, i look forward to all the people i'll get to meet in my life but until then i think i will follow the first rule every kid learns, don't talk to strangers.

los andes y mas!

I made contact with Ames, Iowa this past week and I was told that school was going to start Monday for all in Ames…I then realized wow it’s the end of the summer. I feel like I just left Ames yesterday but I have been here for about four months. Time goes by fast eh? I can’t imagine how fast the next five years are going to go by, since the last five years went by in the blink of an eye, Jimi Hendrix was clever fella for saying that.

Anyways, I started school last week and ever since I have been overwhelmed with it all. I have found that teaching is actually a lot more time consuming that expected but it is something I look forward to in the mornings. My classes are good, both political lectures and I lucked out that both of my professors speak english! Plus for one of my classes, my professor assigned most of the reading assignments in english. Oh heck yeah! I also take french classes at night and it’s kicking my butt! I find myself incredibly grateful for having been brought up with two languages, because I never had to really learn them from the beginning, it was just normal for me to speak english and spanish. Now I’m learning a language from scratch! Well, I did take french classes when I was a youngin but I don’t think that counts. It’s funny all my french notes are in spanish and english…pretty much which ever comes to mind first and is easier to remember. It makes me laugh, because I will think in spanish and out of nowhere I will respond or react in english.

La Universidad de Los Andes’ campus is beautiful. I mean it sucks that my building is pretty much at the top of the mountain that the campus sits on. I have to climb so many stairs to get to class that I have formed a strong dislike to stairs of any kind, haha. I guess it’s a work out though. It’s a pretty upscale school, so the students who go seem to think about one thing, money. Well, that’s the jist that I have gotten so far from everyone, but who knows I bet everyone will warm up eh? It’s funny because I feel like the new kid for the first time since…well the younger years. I don’t know a whole lot of people on my campus yet but I don’t feel at all lonely, I actually am fairly happy with the circumstances. And no one really smiles as they walk by so I think I might be considered be weird because I smile at everyone I walk by. Everyone has a grunge/hippie style going, it’s cool to see the individuals stick out…although are they really individuals if they all look the same? Another thing I have realized is that A LOT and I mean that just about everyone smokes. I mean I can’t walk to campus or to class without standing next to a smoker. It has become a pet peeve of mine…well not really, I don’t care who smokes, it’s not my problem right? But I just feel they could respect the direction they blow their smoke! boooo them a bit. I love the university although it takes me an hour to get to there and an hour to get home…yeah that does suck a bit but I don’t really mind. I think I’m adapting to the city life, I love being in the down town of Bogota.

I hear ames is super hot and aw man I can’t believe I’m missing out. I love it when it’s super hot. And although I’m far south, I’m in Bogota where the weather is always a bit mild due to the altitude.I’m actually adjusting it though, it doesn’t feel too cold anymore! Although it’s strange, the way it randomly rains and such…I might as well be in Scotland eh? J For example, today…it wasn’t raining, it was misting…and then it began to mist heavily. Which you would think is rain but it really just was heavy mist. It was so weird!

Yesterday, I was walking to lunch and I passed this old lady in her 80s sitting on a park bench smoking a fat cigar! Seriously, I wish I would’ve brought my camera, it was such a priceless sight. She was just sitting on the bench puffing away, it made me smile a lot.

I was walking along one of the many plazas looking at things to possibly buy and I ran into a fortune teller…I’ve always been terrified of going to anything like that because who knows what they will tell you, eh? But this day I was like whats there to lose, I’ll get my palm read. I sat down with this guy and I was floored by the things he told me. He knew everything about me, things about me as a person, how I felt or have felt…so either he was a really good guesser or is good. It scared me a bit to think that he could know so much about me. He told somethings about the future too that was pretty cool. He said I would fall in love with guy that’s not in Colombia, so I guess I’ll wait and see who I meet along my travels. Yowser!

I’m adjusting well to the life here. I miss Ames and a lot of things from Ames but it feels right to be here. I enjoy making calls to all the people back in Ames randomly, it’s fun. Especially when they don’t answer once they see a crazy or unknown number show up on their incoming calls and don’t answer…but don’t worry I always call back!

come visit!

links to fotos!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3108&l=d4da4&id=501246877

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3112&l=2486f&id=501246877

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3112&l=2486f&id=501246877

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3357&l=3ccf5&id=501246877

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3412&l=12bc5&id=501246877

hola! these are the links to my uploaded pictures of colombia from the past months i spent traveling to see my family. enjoy!

a nice update

bonjour! i had my first french class last night and i loved it. it’s funny because my mentality is working in english and spanish, so i write notes down in both languages…as long as it makes sense to me.

i finally got out all last week to see bogota and all the sights, it was awesome. i falling in love with bogota a little bit more each time. i made a few friends, i had a friend of a friend of my friend andy who is here in bogota, and then he had a friend of a friend who arrived wed. night. she and i ended up seeing every inch we could of bogota.

thursday, on my way to meet up with them, i found myself at the plaza bolivar, which is the plaza down in central bogota and the president was actually speaking at the time. there were a lot of people there to hear him speak but not all cheering him on. Professor Moncayo was there to speak as well..Professor Moncayo has become a pretty popular man in Colombia. his son was kidnapped about 10 years ago and is still in captivity. he speaks out and the people listen to him, he hopes to talk some sense into the president and the farc. it’s a really sad story but at the same time he has never given up to get his son back to freedom. most of the people in the plaza were actually there to greet the professor, rather than the president. that was a nice treat to see downtown…

walking around bogota, we found so many cute little places to eat, to shop, to hang out at…i love it. and there’s a good variety of restaurants or coffee shops that serve foods and such from different countries. i'm continued to be amazed at the beauty of bogota, it's jaw dropping.

i got to go to the museo de Botero. Fernando Botero is an amazing artist from Medillin, Colombia, he created an imaginative world with every object with a chubby appearance. it’s really cute! the museo was huge and everytime we turned a corner, there was another part of the museo to see.

this past weekend started the celebration of Bogota’s 469th birthday. and like every other holiday here, it is celebrated for days. a major street downtown was closed off for most of the time. friday night, the street was full performers and sellers. it shows city life, and it’s crazy fun.
the next day, we went up to Monserrate, which is the coolest church ever! the church sits on top of the Andes mountains, some people climb up the mountain to get there but the mountain is super steep and the second i saw how steep it was i changed my mind about walking up…ha i might be lazy sometimes. so we ended up taking the cable car up, it was so awesome. the view at the top was unbelievable. of course it gets colder on the way up and it was misting while we were up there but the mist made it more dramatic. then the sun came out and made a rainbow! it was beautiful. now that i’ve seen Monserrate, and i’m living in bogota, i want to go up there all the time. it’s so peaceful and beautiful, a bit chilly but it was awesome.

so this week, i start my life in bogota. not too shabby of a life, it’s funny to start my day teaching a language and to end my day learning a language. and somedays inbetween i learn about politics. i never would have guessed that when i was thinking about leaving or when i left, i would be happy so soon in colombia. but it feels right and life goes on and i want to go on with it.

i miss ames so much and can’t wait for my visits back but life is good.

come visitJ i can’t say it enough.