We love us some public transportation!

One and a half years in the making and finally they opened the Metroplus, a new bus line in Medellin. What makes this bus line so special is that it's state-owned, unlike the other bus lines that are run by a handful of private organizations. It was also constructed to give support to the neighborhoods around the metro and has its own lanes, like Bogota's Transmilenio. So on our 2nd to last weekend in Medellin, Gio and I took to the buses!

One of the Metroplus stops

Entering the metroplus platform

Yay, we love public transportation!

Very similar to the Transmilenio and European 2-car buses

Metroplus platform from the outside

Packing

I leave Medellin (for good, as in relocating, not coming back for a while) on Monday. I still can't believe it, it hasn't really hit me. Oh yeah, except when I started packing this evening because I was getting anxious that it all wasn't going to fit in 2 suitcases. So far so good, somewhat. It doesn't look like much (or well, it looks like I've still got a lot left to pack) but I somehow feel better. I'll have to check 3 pieces of luggage (damn my big desktop iMac) and bring on two substancial size carry-ons, which is going to make for a fun time going through customs. Oh and to top it all off I still haven't figured out where I'm staying where I get there yet, oy.

My bare bookshelves

Why does my closet still look pretty full?

One suitcase packed to the brim

Photos of my digs

Curiously, it wasn't until just a few days ago that I noticed the huge poster of Jesus looking down over me while I was on the toilet in the bathroom in the apartment.
Here are some photos of the patio outside of the apartment, the living room, and kitchen. It's a pretty sweet deal, this is the only unit in the building that has the patio. Not a terribly great view, but a nice garden.

When I stepped out onto the streets Thursday during Semana Santa (Holy Week before Easter) in Medellin it was ridiculously dead! I ran back inside and grabbed my camera. I have yet to take contrasting pictures of what the streets normally look like, but just image Grand Central during at 5:30 p.m. all the time!

Not Quite the Typical Colombian Household

Ok so before this blog goes any farther, I need to give a brief overview of the five guys who I am living with here in Medellin, so my stories that follow won't seem quite so strange:

First we've got Jimmy, who is in his mid 20s, stays in his room all day (he currently has sequestered his younger sister who is visiting for a...week? and I've seen her for all of five minutes when she makes brief trips to the kitchen to help her brother cook), and after I left in December had been pestering me via MSN messenger with requests of bringing another gringa with me when I came back to Medellin. Sorry Jimmy. Since he never really leaves his room, he's become pretty good at maintaining relationships with women via the telephone. He currently is unemployed and lives off the little money his mother supplies him with and the 200,000 pesos he charges 2 other roommates a month to be their personal chef.

That leads me to the other 2 foreigners living here, a Dutch guy named Adrian illegally residing here for over a year who I have never seen go without a cigarette for more than 20 minutes, and Patrick, an English guy in his 40s who was living in Spain but wanted a change in scenery so picked Medellin, Colombia as his destination with no knowledge of any other place in Latin America. Not bad if you ask me, but if that doesn't seem a bit strange well how about these other clues: fluttering about the room when we play any kind of music, demonstrating his ballet poses that just weren't good enough for a real ballet company as he sadly found out as a teenager after years of classes; apart from the one meal a day Jimmy cooks him, only eats arepas (these tortilla-like Colombian staple) that he heats up on the stove and then forgets about, so he only ever gets to eat half of the pack after burning the other half; never leaves the apartment, working from his laptop in his room for the Spanish company and when he does leave, it is only go to pick up his ahem, 18 year-old Colombian girlfriend (!!) who got whisked away to Bogota by her mother, but who Patrick tries to whisk right back to Medellin every weekend, until she gets her passport so they can whisk off together to the Canary Islands.

The other two Colombians are pretty normal compared to these other characters. Giovanni is in his late 20s, has a 6 year old (the norm here) and works with Adrian on Colombia Reports, an English language Colombia news web site for expats living in or out of Colombia. And then there's Checho, who wears a different pair of tinted prescription lenses every day, goes to his job at a bank in a corduroy blazer and t-shirt underneath, and is very tranquilo with lots of "amiguitas" instead of having any one serious relationship after getting his heart broken by his wife when they went to the US on vacation to repair their relationship and she ended up staying there, marrying an American, and moving to Norwalk, CT.

Three Colombians, a Dutch guy, an English guy, add a loca gringa to the mix, yep, sounds about right.

Have I been here before...?

*precursor*
After 2 months at home in Chester, CT substitute teaching and interpreting at various medical appointments around the state, after taking weekend getaways to Ithaca, NYC, Boston, and DC, after experiencing the horror that is the US economy and job market, I was left with only one option: get out. fast. My only dilemma was where. I considered returning to my first Latin American love: Mexico, but decided against it as I had already dedicated 6 months of my time (3 years if you count a certain Latin love affair) there and wanted to be fair to the other Latin American countries (and other potential Latin love affairs). So after debating it, going back and forth way too much and having too many restless nights, I made my decision: Medellin. I came here back in December for a week and loved it-perfect climate, pretty clean city, easy to use public transportation, and very friendly people. So I bought my ticket, one-way. What was I going to do in Medellin for who knows how many months? Ni idea. But I had somewhere to stay and some random Colombian friends who I'd met back in December for all of one week so, why not?

I arrived two days ago and not much has changed, which is nice. The same crazies are still there, people are still selling cell phone calls for 8 cents on the street, and rain pours down from clouds that emerged out of nowhere for an hour followed by blissful sunshine, like in December. But apparently I missed some things when I was here last time. My first day while walking around with my friend Giovanni, we kept running into his friends and he would introduce us. I would proceed to do the kiss on the cheek, but after a few of these meet and greets, Giovanni turns to me and states: "oye eso no se hace aqui." Apparently if I do not know the person I am supposed to just shake their hand and ya, no beso. Boy did I feel silly after that. Nonetheless, I was struck with recollections of walking with Miguel into a bar or room in Mexico full of all of his friends who were strangers to me and having to make the rounds and kiss all ten of 2o of them on the cheek. I distincly remember getting tired of it that by the end I would lean my head into theirs and end up slamming my cheek into theirs. Well, glad we cleared that up.

Another thing that has managed to slip my mind which astounds me after having to ingrain it into the brains of 16 year-old teenagers the entire summer in Costa Rica is: Don't put toilet paper in the toilet! AHHHH. Luckily I've managed to realize my mistake now (after 48 hours here!) without any embarassing toilet clogs and having to figure out how to say plunger in Spanish.