Catching Up

So, yes, it's been a long time since I've written, but that can only mean that I've been dedicating ALL of my time to teaching. Right. Not exactly the case, but it has been hard lately to find time at school to dedicate towards blogging. Bad news for my friends and family, good news for the administration and kids! Rest assured, things here are going well. All of the girls are still driving me a little crazy, but I've pretty much gotten used to it. School has been pretty hectic, and a lot of the teachers, myself included, are in a sort of slump. February has been going by very quickly, which is good and bad (mostly good), but I think March will be a different story. However, I do have "Semana Santa" to look forward to (our equivalent of Spring Break). I'll be heading out to Orlando to spend some quality time with Kelly, Alain, Paige, Colby, and my mom. We're going to do the typical things, like Disneyworld and maybe a water park or two, but mostly this is an opportunity to help me remember what my niece and nephew look like, and to also remind them who "Unkie Ben" is. It's going to be a lot of fun and I'm really looking forward to it.

Speaking of family, I recently had my mom and Mike here. They came on Wednesday the 14th and left this past Tuesday morning. We had a really good time together and did lots of things. I went to pick them up at the airport at 9ish, and waited nervously until virtually every passenger had exited the terminal. Finally, after asking the guard to go look for the confused looking Gringos, they came out. We went back to the apartment where I had a freshly cooked meal (by the maid of course!), a big bottle of red wine, and another bottle of Aguardiente in the freezer. I had initially though that we'd have a glass of wine, but it turned into somewhat of a party. Considering that we started at 11 PM, 1:30 AM was a good stopping point. My mom asked me, "Aren't you tired? Shouldn't you get to sleep?" to which I replied, "Nah, I'm not tired." Big mistake, and one you'd think that I had previously learned, but no. I woke up 5 hours later wishing I had put just a little more thought into the night before. They took off on a tour of Santa Fe de Antioquia, which was the former capital of this region. They were gone all day, and had a great time with their tour guides, two women who used to work at the school. We met up that night and went over to my neighbors' apartment, where we had "Fondue Night", which is always a treat. There was, of course, plenty of red wine and aguardiente being passed around which always makes for good times, but once again, the next morning was a little rough.

Friday, they both came up to school with me to hang out with the kids. As I've mentioned previously, the kids love visitors. They know that I won't bore my friends and family with a bunch of teaching that day, but rather group dance competitions, kickball matches, candy eating, and the like. I asked them to find some books that they could read to the class, and Mike chose The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, as well as Pirates of the Caribbean. They both did a great job of reading to the class, and the kids enjoyed not having to listen to me for once. For lunch, we headed down to a restaurant called, "Sancho Paisa" which has great typical food. We headed back up to the school and finished out the day.

On Saturday, we jumped on the City Tour bus and drove around town. We were out for about 5 hours, and saw lots of parts of the city that were previously unknown to me. Later that night, we went to a very happy Happy Hour, that led to a great steak dinner at "San Carbon", which ultimately led to an entertaining night at "Mango's", which I think needs no explanation. I had left it up to them whether or not they wanted to do something that intense, but both were up for a little adventure. Adventure is exactly what they got. My mom, and she's tired of hearing this I'm sure, became a little infatuated with one of the dancers, while Mike also found his own little fantasy. I was, as usual, obsessed with the midgets. My mom got a little kiss on the cheek from the guy, Mike stole some pictures of the dancer's sidekicks, and I got handshakes from all the midgets. They are hilarious. As the night progressed, my mom and I got up from the table and did a little dancing. We have the most hilarious video clip of it all, but unfortunately, I can't upload videos onto this thing. Then again, maybe it's better if I don't show that clip to the world. I might later regret it.

On Sunday, we rode the Metrocable up to the barrios, where my mom teased the local vendors into thinking that she was actually going to buy something. They both seemed to enjoy their time up there, and I'm glad we went because it's a part of the city that tourists are typically afraid of. We pretty much farted around the rest of the day, walking through downtown, visiting the Walmart-esque grocery store, and finally, eating an XL Domino's pizza. Yum. I could eat that crap every day. I'd be 800 lbs, but I think it'd all be worth it.

On Monday, I took a personal day to go with them on another tour to a town called El Pinol. This time, we contracted with a local tour company and found out why their prices were lower. We got picked up in a little "Busetica", which is a miniature bus. I felt absolutely ridiculous in this thing and was only slightly concerned for our lives. Our driver was very socially awkward in the beginning stages. We were told that he spoke English, but it turned out to be very limited. Once he found out that he could speak Spanish to me and that communication was slightly easier in this mode, things got better. We toured a bunch of little towns and finally got to El Pinol itself, which is a MASSIVE rock that sits in the middle of an amazing series of lakes. We debated climbing the 700+ stairs that led up to the top, and then decided to give it a shot. It was quite a trek up there, but the view was one of the most amazing that I've ever seen. They left early Tuesday morning, which made it a pretty quick trip, but I don't think we missed a thing.

Other than that, things have been pretty tame. Oh, actually, last Thursday night wasn't tame at all. My Colombian friend, Jeff, and I went out to a club called "Babylon", which was a blast. Instead of hanging out in ultra-fake Parque Lleras, where a certain percentage of the women are made of plastic and silicone, we decided on this club in another part of town that I have not personally frequented. Needless to say, I got a hell of a lot more attention than usual. We enjoyed the situation until about 4 in the morning. Then, being the geniuses we are, we headed downtown to another sort of "clothing optional club", where I had nice conversations with some lovely ladies sitting out on the sidewalk. I'm not quite sure what they were doing there at that hour, or why they kept asking me for money, but they seemed nice enough...

I'm going to have Kelly post some of the better pics from the trip to help with the visuals. I'll try to do a better job in the future with the blog. Sometimes I feel like there's so much I have to tell, that I just don't bother. I'll try to keep them more frequent and a little more to-the-point. Don't give up on me!

Ben