I arrived in Colombia a little apprehensive. For one thing I was supposed to get a student visa through my school but I forgot to do so. I gave the address of the school but said that it was a hostel and I was just here as a tourist. No problem, of course.
When I got outside of the airport in Barranquilla, there was a very pretty girl giving information to travelers. She told me I needed to take a taxi the bus to Cartagena, which is about 2 hours away. But first I needed cash, because the taxis don't take US dollars. I headed toward the ATM that I had passed by before because of the punk kid that was hanging out next to it. Well, I figured, what's the chance that this kid is trouble at an airport? No trouble, of course.
Apparently the cities in Colombia typically have nice neighborhoods to the north and slums to the south. Also, the bus terminals are typically in the south. So my taxi took me to the slums of Barraquilla where I caught a bus to the slums of Cartagena.
The slums melted into forests after a few minutes. After about an hour we were boarded by soldiers who made us stand with our hands against the bus while they checked us for weapons. I figured that they were either government troops, in which case I was happy to see security measures, or they were paramilitary, in which case there wasn't much I could do. (They were, obviously, the former.) After that the forest became more populated by makeshift houses and children running around barefoot as we arrived at the bus terminal in Cartagena.
The taxi in Cartagena went into progressively more substantial housing, starting with scraps of metal and ending in an ancient, weathered neighborhood called Getsemaní, where my school is.
The school, where I'd be living and taking classes, is a converted house with some largish rooms in the front, and open ceiling over the center, and a half dozen smaller rooms in the back. There's also a family that lives here - a mother, father and a teenage girl and boy. (Plus a random short dude that sleeps in one of the classrooms some days.) They were the first people I met. They are super nice, but they're not really in charge or anything, so they just showed me my room, gave me a key to the padlock for the door, and then went about their business.
I put my stuff and asked where I could get some food. The father showed me a decent restaurant not far up the street. When I returned I checked and found no internet, and it was still early, so I figured I'd have to find some way to spend the next couple of hours. I was a little intimidated about going for a walk, but I wanted to see the walled city of Cartagena so I asked for some directions and headed out with a copy of my address in my pocket alongside a few tens of thousand of pesos. No problems getting there or back, of course.
The old city is about as beautiful as a city could be. It's in an exquisite state of decay, with ancient streets beneath open balconies and flowering vines. The walls are fully intact, including a few rusting canons, several open-air restaurants, and warm caribbean breezes.
The next morning classes started. They gave us a placement test which is unpleasant and not terribly helpful, just as they had done in Mexico. There are only a few classes being taught, anyway, and they don't have students of even levels anyway. Nevertheless, My teacher, Eliecer, is excellent. Unlike my classes in Mexico, the conversation and grammar are all mixed together, so you get to practice the things you just learned in conversation, which I like much better.
The first week I had just one classmate, a girl from Switzerland. The next week I had two more students, an Australian and an Israeli-American. Most of the other 5-10 students are European. The largest number are from Switzerland, for some reason. I made quick friends with the other guy living in the school - Kim from Norway, as well as many of the other students. Like Mexico, much of the socializing I've been doing is in english. I like hanging out with the other students a lot, but I am looking forward to practicing my spanish more in the future. I end up hanging out with the other students most afternoons and nights, only venturing out on my own occasionally.
I'm taking dancing classes here too, and going out typically means trying out the dance moves that we learned earlier in the day. This is a lot of fun despite the oppressive heat and humidity which leaves me soaked in sweat.
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