Afterwards we walked around a little bit more in the city, and then caught our bus home to relax there. We met Andrea and went out with her, to have dinner at crepes & waffles. This is a really nice restaurant, where one can eat crepes filled with many different things, like stroganof, chicken, beef in different sauces and flavors and it tastes really good ... and at the end, for sure, we needed a big ice cream ;)
The next day, Carol and me again did some sightseeing. First we took the metro to get to the University of Antioquia. And we were a bit jealous, because in Medellin they have a big big pool in the middle of the university area. From this university we started walking and passed by the point zero in Medellin. This is the point from where all geographical measurements start. For example to measure the distance from Medellin to Bogotá, the distance between their point zeros is measured.
After passing by the point zero, we reached the national university of Medellin (The counterpart of the university we were studying in Bogotá). We walked around, had a little bit to eat, and because of being tired of all the walking this day and the days before we relaxed and lay down in the grass.
This evening I had a meeting with a German friend (Christian, I met him in Bogotá during my first classes of Spanish, I think I also already wrote about him about a year ago) and another German leading the economy faculty at a university in Medellin. That meeting was the trigger to go to Medellin by the way. Christian offered me to come with him to the meeting, and I thought it is a good possibility to get more work contacts in Colombia. And when I told Carol, we decided to go together and make some days of vacations and meet her little sister ;)
The plan was to take a bus home to Bogotá that Tuesday evening, but when I arrived home, there were no more buses driving that late to Bogotá, so we had to go early the next morning. What a bad idea ... During the night one can sleep in the bus, and it does not matter that much to spend the time driving, but during the day it's lost time and it really was awful, because the bus had no or no good air condition, and we had to drive between the two ranges of the Andes. There in the valley it had about 40 degree, there was almost no shadow, no air condition, and then we got into a traffic jam... At least I learned not to drive there again in the bus during the day. But in the end we made it alive to Bogotá that Wednesday evening.
As I told in the second last entry, on Friday ,the 23rd of February started our (Carol's and mine) trip to Medellin... Thus we arrived at about 10 p.m. at the bus terminal in Bogotá, searching for the cheapest bus to Medellin, and found an enterprise taking us for a ride for 30.000 Pesos (converted about 10€). At 10:30 the bus left the terminal an we were excited about our trip, but regardless of that, we slept almost all the ride...
We arrived at about 6:30 in Medellin and Carol's father picked us up and drove us to the flat of his ex-wife and his daughter, Carol's half sister. This was especially why we, particularly Carol, have been excited: She has never met her 11 year old sister before!
It was really early on that Saturday morning, so we all, especially Carol's sister (Andrea) were really sleepy ;) And after the first contact, we went to sleep a little bit more. The apartment was not that big, and had only one bedroom, but Carol and me were "forced" to use it all the stay, and Andrea's mum (Consuela) were sleeping on a mattress in the living room. That day we 4 went at about noon to a shopping mall. I think that is always a little bit more fun for girls than for boys, but it was ok. Only unfortunately I did not find anything nice to buy. In the afternoon then, we met some cousins and aunts and other relatives of Andrea (so also kind of relatives of Carol), and had dinner together. In the evening then, Carol and me went out with one of the cousins to the Parque Lleras, which is like the nightclub district in Medellin. The first pub was kind of loud, and strange, with weird people ... so we went to a Scottish pub and had some Paulaner Weizen there ;) The next day Andrea, Carol and me went to their father's home and had lunch there. He initially wanted to join us and do something together, but sneaked out of that. Thus, we 3 went alone to a shopping center, walked around, and went with Andrea to an amusement park inside the mall (which was kind of an expensive leisure ...).
On Monday Consuela had to work, and Andrea had to go to school, so Carol and me went into the city for a little bit of sightseeing. After finding out which bus to take and after burning my lips with a hot pineapple, we arrived in the city center, where it was really hot. There we walked to the museum of Antioquia (which is a department of Colombia, with Medellin as capital). In front of the museum is a place of Botero, with some statues from his work.
After we got a little bit tired, we made a stop in a nice cafeteria in the middle of the museum. There also my mum called me to the cellphone, and I told her, that Carol and me are now a couple :). This made us really happy, because my mum then also finally knew it, and was ok with it.
After finishing our coffees, we kept on walking through the city center, to get some more impressions, and found a shopping center, which looked more like a palace, not only from the inside, like you can see on the photo to the right, but also from the outside. We walked through a weird park, which had a lot of really long stone spikes on the ground, and then passed by some government buildings to reach our goal, the intelligent building (which is like a museum of modern technical stuff). But unfortunately, the museum was closed that day :( So we just sat down to have another cup of coffee in a cafeteria under some palms ;)
And the rest of our trip I will describe in the next post, in a couple of hours, or a couple of days.
Yes, for everybody who does not know, I am back in Germany since more than a month. So last weekend a gave a "welcome and finished study" party at my house. What to tell about the party ... Everybody who knows my parties, and has not been there this weekend, knows what he/she missed, and the ones who don't know my parties, let's tell you: "You missed something". I did not take a lot of pictures, but at least some, so take a look yourselves.
Finally, after a break of 2 months I find the time to report you some more things about my stay in Colombia. So let's travel back in time almost 2 weeks ... Friday 23rd of February 2007:
Fortunately we noticed that in that week there is a WTA tennis championship in Bogotá! So for sure I wanted to go there (especially because I almost never played tennis here, so at least I wanted to watch some matches...). So Carol an me went to the north north north part of Bogotá to the fancy fancy club "El Rancho" to see the championship (did I mention the club was in the north part of the city ... far away? And that its a really fancy high society jet-set club?)
After arriving, the first what happend was that one of the Italian girls got hurt while playing, but fortunately it seemed to be nothing really serious. Thus we went to watch the match between an Italian and a Czech girl on the other court (there were only 2 were they played). Substitutional for playing tennis, after the match I indulged myself in having an icecream like so often these days ;). The icecream of crepes&waffles is really delicious!!!
Afterwards we went to see a double match, but had to leave after the first set, because that night we also were headed to leave to Medellin, and before we went to meet some friends and deliver them gifts for my parents, because some of them were going to Germany on that weekend...
Besides, there is a lot more to tell (for example about Medellin) and I hope the next days I have the time to write one or more new entries to the blog.
Da steht man morgens extra früh um 7 auf um zur Uni zu gehen, macht sich Frühstück und dann gleich auf den Weg. Kaum auf der Strasse wundert man sich: Heute ist aber wenig los? Dann wartet man 20 Minuten auf den Bus, was sonst keine 5 dauert, ist ein paar Minuten später an der Uni und stellt fest, dass sie geschlossen ist... Da fällt einem ein, achja, in Kolumbien werden die Feiertage der vergangenen Woche immer auf den Montag der nächsten verschoben, also ist heute ja Heilige drei Könige. Aber war normalerweise an Feiertagen die Uni nicht auch auf? Hm, nunja, hier sind momentan ja auch noch Ferien, aber da ist die Uni normalerweise ja auch auf. Nun anscheinend nicht wenn beides zusammenfällt (oder mal Unruhen sind) ... Ganz großes Kino, da hätte ich auch noch weiterschlafen können!
I just uploaded a new bunch of pictures, all about my Christmas vacations. You will find them in the folder vueltas/Xmas_Eve. Altogether there are now 700 photos available. Have fun!
I knew that the decision to spend Xmas and New Year´s Eve in Colombia for sure would also result in celebrating these days in a for me unusual way. But I did not expect this vacations to be like they were and to be that great: My initial plan to spend Christmas in Santa Martha did not work out, but fortunately Carol invited me to her home in Socorro. So first I went to Bucaramanga in the night of the 20th December to visit Pipe and Diego Silva and their family and chill a little bit with them. (The man next to me snored horribly and when he once finished snoring his baby started shouting - great - anyway I got some sleep) So I arrived at the 21th in the early morning to Floridablanca, Bucaramanga
and went to the house of the Silvas. We relaxed that day, played XBox and in the night some rounds of Poker. The next day in the morning I played golf for the first time in my life. Or lets better say I did not really play, more watched and hit the ball sometimes.
The rest of the day I was cruising around with Diego to visit some family members and friends. At the evening we first went to a reunion of his college (with beer and whiskey) and then to a kind of "high-society"-club with Pipe and some friends of his, Juliana and her sister Mari, played bowling there (had more beers) and just talked. The 23rd in the morning the Silvas left to Santa Martha, but I could stay a little while more in their home and then in the evening I met Daniel (my apartment mate). We went to pick up some other friends of ours and then partied into Christmas in a discotheque disco called Mr.Babilla in Bucaramanga with Salsa, Merengueand electronic music until the early hours of the 24th. Because it was already 6:30 in the morning and we did not want to wake up Daniel´s aunt, we decided to sleep in the car for 2 hours. After that unbelievably recreating sleep we then had Flautas for breakfast and Daniel drove me to the bus terminal so I could take the bus to Socorro (This time no crying babies or snoring adults - or I just did not realize it because I was fucking tired).
Arriving in Socorro I was welcomed by Carol and two of her (millions of) cousins, Kati and Laura. We had lunch and yet were on the way to Carol´s aunt´s and uncle´s finca to celebrate Xmas with her family and have a great dinner (buffet). After midnight then we went to the Tercena, a Bar/Disco to party with some other friends. Generally in the evenings we went to the Tercena or other pubs to enjoy ourselves ;).
I don't remember how long we were there the 24th, but I remember really good the next day: at the early afternoon we went to the sports point in Socorro to do rafting. Unfortunately I have no photos of that, but the people from the sports point are going to send me some the next days I will then put into the gallery. But it was really great to feel the power of the water in strong tides and to be shaken around.
The next day we drove in two cars (Carol+cousins+uncles+aunts+me) to the Parque Nacional de Chicamocha, which is more or less a viewpoint in the canyon south of Bucaramanga. From there one really has a great view!
On the 27th we went to the river where we also did the Rafting, to bath in the sun, swim a little and jump off some rocks into the water. And of course ... to eat ... a lot. For the information of my German friends, the people here eat as much as we do during the days of Christmas and New Year´s Eve ;)
For the next day some more action was planned again ;) Carol, Lili, Daniel and me were going to do Rappel (or better, we three without Carol were doing it and Carol was our adorable company). Rappel is about roping down from a big height, in this case from about 80 meters off a cascade, and I can say its really fun, but also scaring at the beginning when you are hanging there in the height of 80 meters at the edge ...
And again, we could not get enough of the action ;) The 29th Juliana and Mari arrived and again we went to the river, but this time to do a kind of bungee jumping from a bridge. Again an exciting experience (only I felt the Guarrapo I had to chug before while swinging around). When I stood at the edge of the bridge I thought, you're crazy jumping off from here. But when the instructor tells you he is now counting to 3 and then you jump, you just do it ... but see yourself (Unfortunately there are existing only photos of my jump and no video, so this is the video of Carol):
That evening we went to San Gil, the next town to go out, but it was a bit weird, because half of the town was without power and we did not really find a nice place to stay. So afterwards we went to a friend´s apartment with bottle of Aguardiente and the evening had a really nice ending. We slept long, were really lazy that day, ate lunch, hung around in the park and in the evening this time I got to bed really early, at least I want to be recovered for New Year´s Eve ;)
The 31th we walked a little bit through the town, but it was really hot so we spent a lot of the time in the house, played grass, and for sure ate a lot. In the evening from about 10 to midnight. The new year then started with a Colombian custom: We took some baggage, money and ran around the block. This shall signify luck with money and a lot of traveling in the just beginning year. After the run Carol and me made the way to the Tercena, to meet other friends, talk, party and dance:
After relaxing on the first day in the new year, including a visit at the finca, on the 2nd Carol, Lili and me went to Curití to do paragliding. Or better I did it and had a great company, but see yourself:
This was the first time I have done this, but again like the other sports we did, it was really great. And when I flew it is really relaxing, I could enjoy the nature, the view, the wind and of course, the flying. But unfortunately I had to leave yesterday in the morning with the bus to Bogotá (This times two babies crying, shouting and vomiting ...). I will always remember this great vacations because of the great time I had, the nice new people I met and my great friends! And big THX to Carol that she invited me!!!
