So I have been in Colombia – in the city of external spring (Medellin) – for 3 weeks now. Colombia is the first stop on my one year travel across Latin America. Before coming here, I assumed the country was going to be similar to Guatemala. Boy, was I wrong! The city am in -Medellin- is way more developed than Xela (the city I stayed in Guatemala) – it can easily be compared to the states. The water is safe to drink, the transportation system is very easy to navigate and is hard to pin point who is a tourist and who is not.

Well, when I arrived on the 14th of August, I stayed in this very cool hostel – it’s my first time staying in a hostel. The hostel is called -Hostal Tamarindo – I shared a room with 9 other strangers, the room had its own bathroom and a patio. The hostel had its own kitchen (to cook your meals), a reading room, a TV room and another patio downstairs. The owner – a Colombian-American is very cool, nice and helpful with information, plus the hostel is only 5 mins walk to Parque Lleras (the IT place for young people) in Zona Rosa area.

Also I started Spanish class at a university here a week after I arrived – Universidad EAFIT- this school has a very good reputation especially with its language program and International Business program. By the way, I’m in level 4 (they use the common European framework -so level 4 is the last level in the beginner’s stage). The teacher is good and speaks only Spanish in class – which is great I suppose. With the Spanish program, we get to sit in two undergraduate classes to help with listening skills, have a conversation partner and do sports if you want. Anyways, I tried ‘tae kwan do’ and decided it’s not for me. I like the geopolitical class I sit in, I understand most of what the professor teaches – last Wednesday, they were talking about Fukuyama, Kissinger and economic routes.

So the first friend I met is Lexie, she is from Scotland – we met at the university when I went to take a placement exam. Together we met Steve (from Austin) and others frds. These other frds are Colombians -they are very nice, cool and fun (I know that because we hung out with them this past weekend). They also speak English and 98% of them lived in the USA at some point in their lives.