Katie Visits Colombia!

When I hugged Katie goodbye and sent her on the way to the airport last Tuesday night I thought to myself how hard it will be to wait another 7-8 months to see her. While her and I became close friends during junior year of college, it has only really been since Katie left La Crosse to transfer to Milwaukee that we have become closest.    Our friendship began in a unique way that found us both crushing on the same boy. However, lucky for us it took all of 24 hours after our initial meeting to figure out that he wasn't worth anyone's time and we should just be friends instead. Three years later and she was visiting me in Colombia!

Her visit lasted a week and we had a chance to explore my city, Cali, at the front and back end of her time here. In between we traveled to the cities of Salento and Santa Rosa, but let's save that for another blog post.

Here is what went down in Cali...

Katie arrived on a Wednesday morning after flying all night, so she went straight to my apartment for a shower, nap and food. Luckily, Kelsi was coming home from a conference in Medellin and was there to let Katie in and take her on a lunch date!

I arrived home from school in the afternoon and we set out to explore the neighborhood of San Antonio. As one of Cali's oldest and prettiest neighborhoods, San Antonio is one of my favorite places to show people. The church is adorable, the houses are unique, the view from the church is stunning....aaaaand you know, my favorite coffee shop is there ;)

 Her first Colombian coffee at Macondo in San Antonio! So delicious.

After coffee we met up with my friends Cassie and David, who also had friends visiting, for dinner at Bourbon Street pub. Yes, we did go to a hamburger sports bar and watch baseball on Katie's first night in Colombia. So much for a cultural introduction. Oops? We ended the night with some other friends on their San Antonio rooftop before heading home early for our travels the next day! 

San Antonio rooftop get together :)

After our travels we arrived home with one day of vacation to spare, giving us some time to rest up and also spend time with Kelsi. Sunday night we got a chance to stop by the Festival Mundial de Salsa, a world salsa competition held every year in Cali. Salsa is such a pervasive part of Colombian culture and I love that Katie got to see some of the very best while she was here! 

Monday we explored the mall scene of Colombia while Katie found some souvenirs for friends & family and I introduced her to my two favorite Colombian chains, Juan Valdez Coffee and Crepes & Waffles. Coffee all around! We finished the day with a movie with friends. Katie was nice enough to go along with the whole movie idea even before I told her that no, the movie is not in Spanish, but rather English with Spanish subtitles. What a trooper! :)

 Juan Valdez lovin'.

On to Crepes & Waffles for more coffee...and crepes...and waffles, naturally.

Katie's time in Colombia finished with a day at my school. While going to work with anyone can get boring at times (spoiler alert: the life of a teacher isn't exactly fascinating), I absolutely love taking visitors to my school. I think it helps people see why I am here and why I like it enough to have stayed for three years so far. And it doesn't hurt that our school campus is absolutely gorgeous. And for how much of our lives we spend working, how much we really ever know about our friends' jobs? I think it's pretty cool when we can share something that in such a part of our lives with each other.

Katie and I outside my classroom!

Tuesday night I sent Katie back to the airport for another overnight flight to Chicago and each day since has been a bit of an adjustment to her not being here. Life is funny sometimes, how you meet these amazing people, connect with them over relationships, travel, interests, and yet you see them only a few times a year. I look back on the year Katie and I spent as friends in the same city and realize now that we were only beginning to scratch the surface of our friendship. I can't help but dream that life finds us living much closer to each other someday in the future...

Until then, thank goodness Katie likes travel and adventures as much as I do. Let's start planning a summer 2012 reunion....

The Time I Ran Down the Quinta at 6:50 AM

Puh puh puh. {break}Puh puh puh. {break} Puh puh puh. {break}

Puh puh puh. {break}Puh puh puh. {break} Puh puh puh. {break}

"Well, what do you want to do?", Kelsi asked me.

"I guess we have no choice", I responded.

And we didn't really. The sound of an engine trying unsuccessfully to catch and turn over still ringing in our ears, we exited to cab to a flurry of honking, yelling and the general chaos that is morning rush hour traffic on Cali's busiest north-south throughfare, the Quinta. The taxi cab that Kelsi, my friend Katie (who was visiting from Wisconsin) and I had gotten into 20 minutes earlier to take us to school was sitting there, holding up traffic amidst a slew of unhappy cars behind it.

We started to walk. There would be no cabs to be found until we walked at least four more blocks to the south, for no cab would be sitting in this traffic if it did not already have passengers. Looking at our watches our walk turned into more of a run. Backpack on my back, coffee cup in one hand, lunch bag in the other and there I am running down the Quinta at 6:50 AM on a Tuesday. At the end of those four blocks we came to a cross street which I foolishly thought held empty-cab potential. It didn't. No cabs to be found and it's starting to look like we should just stand on the side of the street until we beg our way onto a passing school bus in about 15 minutes time. Great. Cannot wait for the stories of "The time my bus picked up Ms. R and her friends on the side of the road on the way to school."

Welcome to Cali, Colombia, Katie. I promise getting to school is not always this much of a struggle.

I looked over to Kelsi with a look of what now? Then I saw it. Rushing past on the Quinta was an unmistakable beige Renault car with our coworker and friend Daniel at the wheel.

"Daniel!" "Daniel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" "Where is my phone?!?!?!?!?!?"

Running down the sidewalk in the direction of his car and he picks up his phone after three rings.

"STOP. STOP. STOP. We're {deep breath due to all the running} on the Quinta. We saw you. We need a ride."

I could tell he was immediately confused about why I was calling him at close to 7:00 AM screaming about needing a ride and panting out of breath, but thank goodness he understood he needed to stop. Stop he did and we ran the next block laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation. Five minutes later we were back in a moving vehicle on the way to school. Taking off the sweatshirts we foolishly put on that morning to keep out the morning chill in the air. Laughing at how ridiculous I must have sounded screaming into my phone for Daniel to stop for us. Discussing the fact that we have never once in 1.5 years of taking a cab to school in the morning had this happen. And then it happens on the one day Katie comes to school with me.

But hey, we still made it to school by 7:15 AM, with 15 minutes to spare until the start of the first class. I would call that a win. And an excellent story (blog post?).  

I don't really know if I can continue to claim I have a full-time job.

Between now and Christmas I will teach exactly one (count it!) full week of school. WHAT???

No really...one week. Needless to say things will be busy. Hashtag understatement. Here's what I have to look forward to outside of the classroom:

• Week of October 10 - Three days of curriculum development then no class Thursday or Friday as I spend time with Katie (who arrives here on Wednesday morning!!! YAY VISITORS!!!) in the coffee region of Colombia
• Week of October 17 - No school on Monday to celebrate Dia de La Raza aka Columbus Day except in South America we call it "Day of the Race" as we commemorate all the people who died when Columbus "found" America, then Katie comes to school on Tuesday
• Week of October 24 - Two days of parent-student-teacher conferences (hello two days of speaking almost exclusively in Spanish!)
• Week of October 31 - Three days of the annual 8th Grade Field Trip to the hot springs of San Vicente. Attempt to balance my love of adventure and getting to know my students outside the classroom with my extreme dislike of feeling like the mother of 105 adolescents for three days straight. 
• Week of November 7 - No school on Monday (hooray for one extra day to recover from working 24-7 on the field trip!), then the boy gets here Thursday night, just in time to check out school on Friday and then celebrate Kelsi's 29th birthday on 11-11-11 with an 80s themed party 
• Week of November 14 - No school on Monday 
• Week of Novemebr 21 - The mother gets here on Monday night, just in time for the annual faculty Thanksgiving dinner at school on Tuesday night, and then we are off to the Caribbean island of San Andres for four days of sun, sand and surf with Kelsi
• Week of November 28 - Teach. For five days in a row. THE HORROR.
• Week of December 5 - Teach. For three days. Have a random Thursday off for the Immaculate Conception. Go to school on Friday. 
• Week of December 13 - FINALS. Then one day of returning finals. Then one half day of school. 

AND THEN. AND THEN. AND THEN....

Winter break 2010 - 2011 in Argentina! The tickets are booked! We have a loose itinerary! Hello Patagonian hiking to awesome glaciers, hello biking tours of wineries with Mr. Hugo (Merry Christmas to us!), hello exciting Sunday markets in artsy Buenos Aires neighborhoods!

It's a crazy, beautiful, wonderful, busy, full life, no? Hooray for upcoming adventures, visitors and vacations. Happy fall :)