FIRST-HALF WEEK IN REVIEW

Thursday 9/26
I made it! My brain is somewhat affected by Colombia's altitude... We drove to a city up on a hill, and everything went blurry and slurred.  I feel a little sick (maybe the cow's leg gelatin that Mauricio gave me upon arrival? haha!) but I'm so excited to be here and sooo tired.  My Spanish is not where I wish it were...  My brain's really mush, though.  So I'll evaluate tomorrow because I barely understand myself right now haha.


Friday 9/27
I woke up at 5:30AM to get ready and go to work with Nathalie at a ceramic manufacturing plant.  I videoed a tour and interviewed 2 supervisors (but had to delete the tour because the Internet is too slow to upload it).  I did an hour of French while I waited for Nathalie, and then we went to her former university to get something for her grad school application.

We went to have lunch there, and I saw someone with small salt potatoes that looked delicious... I ordered a 'pita con maiz y papitas' (pita with corn and potatoes) thinking that those small potatoes were called 'papitas' (the ending 'ita usually means 'small').  Turns out that in Colombia, 'papitas' means potato chips... so I got a pita with corn and a ton of french onion potato chips on top, haha!  I laughed so hard when what they brought out was not what I had been expecting... Nathalie said, 'oh, did you think they were French fries?' and I said, 'no, I thought they were potatoes!'  Haha, oh to be a foreigner...

It's exhausting to be in a new place in a foreign language.  I thought my Spanish would not be a factor, but it is.  New accent, new vocab, and the women speak too quietly for me to hear clearly (I understand the men a lot better).  Very clear, though, when I can hear them.

I followed Nathalie and her mom around the mall like a ZOMBIE because I'm not one to get 5 hours of sleep for 2 nights in a row and survive.  5:00PM hit me like a sedative.  I did make it through, though, and also took out 80,000 pesos from the 3rd ATM I tried -- I was nervous for a while there, because no ATMs would work with my card.  I have NO IDEA how much 80,000 pesos is, but I think it's around $40-50, which is what I want to spend per week.


Saturday 9/28
Time flies, and it's hard to keep track of it.  I went to the temple at the 11:30AM session, and then I talked with a guy my age named William; I interviewed him and did a tour of the Bogota, Colombia temple.  The REST of the day was spent trying to upload videos to youtube, which took 1 hour per minute of video...


Sunday 9/29
I went to church and met 2 people, Javier (a police officer, age 26) and I forget the girl's name... I'm hanging out with Javier tomorrow.

I tried a new fruit today!  Granadilla (means 'grenade').  Looks like a hard orange, but inside it looks like an alien and/or eyeballs.

Best moment of the day: I was telling a story to Nathalie, and her boyfriend Mauricio came over... he came in the room and said, 'Oh, I thought you were the TV! You sound exactly like someone on television.' Haha!