christmas in colombia

well lets see i left you guys off at the end of my first trip with the other exchangers and just about to head out to my new house and family that awaited me. and now two months later i can say that i greatly enjoy this new fam. i have a brother who is just turned 19 in jan and a sister who just turned 22 and a mother whos age i have no idea and i probably will never ask. my host bro is kinda like me which is cool were both super relaxed people and like to have fun when the time calls for it... and he talks slowly so i can actually understand him. in contrast my host sister talks a mile a minute and seems to always be full of bubbley energy so we have a very interesting sibling dynamic in this house. my host mom is just a super sweet person, always looking out for me and cleaning my stuff when im taking a shower so i cant stop her, she wont even let me wash the dishes i have to do it secret. to say the least its been a very fun time in this house.

now its time to tell you what ive been up to for the month of december. so i went back to school and we had a week of boring school in which i did very little, but then the following week was Semana Berchmans which was one week of intense competitions. one class from each grade 6-11 was placed in one of the four teams: Black white orange and blue. i was on black. these competitions ranged far beyond the simple sports games there were academic competions like math physics and english, there were artistic competions like poetry, dance and music, and of course the sports competions. so i wasnt planning on doing much this week just because it didnt seem necesary for me to participate but as i was sitting in the cafeteria one day reading myself some much ado about nothing a group of girls came up to me speaking spanish faster than ive ever heard before so after i gave them my signature blank stare look they realized that they needed to slow down a bit and then i finally understood that they wanted help for this thing called fonomimica (lipsync)... fantastic. turns out they had a rap in this thing and it was in english and it was too hard for them to learn... liars. but i accepted it anyway i just viewed it as me doing another show, i needed a character, a walk, and all that and it was fine. so that was my first event. then another friend came up to me and asked me to help in playing music for the interpretes competition, this is where we need to compose a piece and then perform it, cool so i whipped out my uke and got to work, two events. then i was goin to participate in waterpolo, 3, and volleyball, 4, and that was all that in the end i planned on doing, but then my friend came up to me one morning during the week and asked me to play my uke as backround music for the poetry comp., 5. so it was a busy week. unfortunately after two days of the sports i decided that it was probably better for my finger and knee if i stopped which was a bummer, but it didnt really matter if i played or not we kinda sucked in the first place we lost every game of those two sports... but we did ok in soccer. but in interpretes we got third which wasnt so bad considering that the other teams utilized a teacher to play an instrument for their band when we didnt, so we found comfort in that. but the cool thing was we got first in the fonomimica which i was told was coolest event to win in. we also won the dance competions which were just super cool to watch... all in all we got third. that doesnt sound too bad right? well when you hold it up against the fact that two teams tied for first... it kinda sucks. but really after it i didnt really care because it was now vacations!
so just letting you guys know i started this blog at the very beginning of jan. and i was super proud that i was writing it early but... i got lazy and didnt finish. so i just went through it and corrected all the things that would have sounded weird now that its feb. the unfortunate part except for the fact that my parents are getting on my butt to write a new one is that ive forgotten a lot that has happened in dec. during my vacations. so there probably wont be as many stories anymore and i need to keep this one short so you guys dont go blind from staring at the screen for 5 hours. anyway the rest of december.... well we had christmas party for the group of us exchange students here in cali which was a great time. i wrote my first song on my uke as a christmas present and performed it. i was a little nervous so i screwed up a bit but they said it sounded good. sometimes its nice knowing people are lying to make you feel better. and we made this crazy good drink from austria, but since it was in german i have no idea what the name is. the next day was the 24th now why am i talking of christmas eve? because it was christmas day for us. confused? so was i. yup christmas is the night of the 24th. i guess you could say it went into the 25th because it went till three in the morning but ya all the presents dinner and the whole shabang was the 24th. i had a good time that night, we danced (of course), ate delicious food, did a catholic tradition, wrote letters not to santa but niño dios. who is niño dios? really before this i wouldnt have been able to say but i guess kid God is like their santa, just a little bit more religious. it was a different but cool christmas. the next week was called feria... and this week was a never ending party unless your a kill joy like me and cant stay up late till 3 every day. it was a week full of dancing, parties, booze (not for me), food and more dancing. it was crazy, but i had a good time my mom and i were the ones who always wanted to leave the party at a decent hour... which is like 1 30, but as i said before that was the hour of the kill joys. so we partied and partied and partied some more. by the end of this week i wasnt able to go to sleep before 2 am im still recovering i got it down to 11 30, that doesnt sound bad but the the two austrians im with are out before 10 and are nice and refreshed for their schools the next day. (that might be a lie cuz who really is nice and refreshed waking up at 5 15 to go to SCHOOL that just doesnt happen, what i mean to say is that theyre in better condition for school than me). so although i liked feria it screwed me over big time. and that brings this blog to an end, ill be starting my next one now for jan. so if you would like to give your eyes a break for a bit go for it, it may be necessary ill try to keep the next one short...ish. well until later friend

PELICANO!!

well i need to prepare myself to get some arthritis after i write this beast of a blog. Im only somewhat sorry that i havent written for the past month. that may seem kinda insensitive cuz im writing this blog to inform you all of whats goin on down here and all the crazy things that im experiencing. but let this be somewhat of an encouragement, ive become quite comfortable here, not as many things are quite as crazy as when i first arrived, and things have gotten into a nice little routine... but... all that is going to be changing very soon. and i mean very soon. i change families tomorrow, so this routine of wake up at 5, shower, breakfast already made, walk wearily to the bus, school, bus, home, read, watch tv- is all gonna be tossed out the window and the new adventure starts. im moving to the other side of the city so its gonna be a different environment entirely. nevertheless im looking forward to it.

so now is when the real writing starts up: quick background on what ive been doin this past month- school, church, went to a couple parties, did a rotary thing, and hung out with friends. as ¡ said nothing interesting has happened lately. many of you ask if im still having girl problems. for a while it was a no but apparently ive upset her again, for a while i thought it was a joke but after a week i began to think otherwise, so i tried to fix it, didnt know how, like most men, so i just kept on apologizing and asking her to help me fix it, she refused. so i stopped trying... really i had no idea what to do. I then went out on a trip (which will be what the majority of this blog will be about) and i came back and she greeted me with a hug (good sign) and then she asked me if a brought her anything (bad sign) how the heck was i supposed to know to bring her something i replied ¨a hug?¨ guess that wasnt good enough so were back on not so good ground. thats the latest on that front.

And now to the trip, are you ready to read all of this? cuz im not ready to write all of it, whatever here we go. So last tuesday we headed out on an epic journey to the atlantic coast, the other foreign exchange students and me. I took the monday before it off to ¨pack my things¨ so i had a nice break from school, anyway i arrived at the airport in the morning with my austrian friend and we were met by the majority of the other FES which was nice. we get through security quickly, which was a nice change from the US, and our trip began. we flew to Bogota where we were met by even more FES, some of which i had never met, our friends from Cucuta, which was a nice surprise. we now had a chance to relax for a couple hours, and my german friend and i were a little hungry, so we started looking around for a good food place and then the place came into sight. all the other fast food places dimmed in comparison and it shined out before us, the sign showed brilliantly over the rest and it said... Dunkin Donuts. i havent had a donut since ive come here and im pretty much writing all of this for Gunner McQuerry so if he´s not reading this ive just wasted 5 min of my time. anyway the donut was cheap and delicious just like donuts should be, and we enjoyed them greatly. and then i played my uke for a long time trying to learn how to play some songs, since i pretty much only knew In 5 years time, and after a while even that song can get boring. and we were quite bored sitting there in the airport with nothing to do, finally our plane came and we were on our way to Monteria, where we would be met by our bus. the bus we would have to learn to live in for the next week. not really live in because we had hotels and all that but at the end of the week it smelt like a bunch of stinky teenagers have been living in it.

we arrive in Monteria and were struck with a wall of humidity. i started sweating in the first 5 min we got off the plane and i realized that i would need to do a lot of reapplying of my deodorant. we then headed off to Tolu a little costal city where we would spend the next two days. we took a boat to this island where they had a sort of zoo and we were walking along and we saw a lot of cool animals but the funny thing was that the tour guide for the zoo thought we knew zero spanish so he only said like 3 words to us at a time very slowly and called out the names of each animal and wouldnt move on until we repeated it, so we would be walking and he would say Arbol and we would repeat Arbol, and he did it over and over again but the one that we remembered the most is when he called out Pelicano and we all repeated Pelicano. so our actual guide for the entire trip made fun of him a lot by over anunciating words and having us repeat them, and the one he liked the most was Pelicano, it means pelican if you didnt know, so we kinda got into a habit of yelling at the top of lungs PELICANO where ever we went. so thats the story of the title. we also took a cool little tour of the city on some bike taxis and we tried to race them.... mine lost. but when we got back it was pouring down rain so we were all huddled underneath the overhang of our hotel. And then me and my friend look out to the beach and we see this little kid having the best time of his life running on the beach and rolling in the wet sand i turn to my friend and i said that we should join him, she didnt want to so i went out alone and started jumping around with him and enjoying the rain and then she finally came out, not to play, but to take pictures of me making a fool of myself luckly my camara wouldnt work for her so there wasnt evidence, however soon enough our guide came out with a volleyball and we started playing soccer (leave it to a colombian) and then everyone came out and we were having a great time in the rain but it soon passed and we started up a bonfire with some damp wood and a lot of gasoline. and then came this little band it reminded me of a mariachi band minus the tight pants and giant sombreros, and they had different instruments, in fact there werent very many things in common except that they sang in spanish and people danced to it. and it was a crazy dance party not because we were good but because we had absolutely no idea what we were doing except for a couple people who knew a little how to dance. but the coolest part was when we were all just sitting down and a song came up that some of us knew and my austrian friend asked if i wanted to dance, thinking that others would join in i said of course, and of course no one else joined in. So at first i felt a little awkward because i had no idea what i was doing we were all alone in front of everyone, but after a while i said to myself screw it im just gonna have fun, and as it turns out i did so Monika if youre reading this, gracias it was one of the coolest dances ever. so that was tolu, we did more things there but that was my highlight. im pretty much gonna give you guys the highlight of each place and then move on unless you guys want a giboondous blog, but the thing is i dont so sorry.

Next was cartagena, and let me tell you this city is beautiful. everyone before hand was telling me that cartagena was magical, beautiful, romantic, and various other flowery adjectives, and i only somewhat believed them but believe me all the rumors are true, it was beautiful... except for the hotel. I guess the hotel was actually pretty nice according to the other students, but my room was far from nice. this is going to be a time for complaining im sorry but its not that im a pampered little boy its that this hotel was a 4 star hotel and it was supposed to have very high standards and here is what me and my roomates dealt with: bathroom light didnt work, no hot water, no toilet paper, toliet didnt flush (which was a major problem one night...) they didnt clean our room... at all. Yea 4 star hotels... but other than that cartagena was amazing we went to the beaches a lot, to some islands, to the old part of the city, to the castle/fortress that was there. the highlight of this trip was this one day where we went snorkling. now snorkling is always fun and it was super cool to swim in the reefs my friend and i even chased after a school of fish. we tried to be sneaky and get super close but we couldnt... bummer. so ya that was fun but after that we went to this other island to eat lunch. as we were pulling in the driver told us that nothing here is free that the venders will tell you that its a gift especially with the Oysters, dont believe them its a trick they´ll take all your money just say that youre allergic and run away. well this caught my attention, because i actually really like oysters (thank you uncle lee) so i wanted to try one. we get off the boat and it was just as the driver said the swarmed us like bees to honey and started yelling things at us and this guy stops me with oysters and he said hey try one it my gift to you, i said no im good thanks, and then he asked where i was from i said the US and he said aw man then youre my brother take one its my gift to you i dont offer this to those europeans. I laughed at that. so i said ok and i tried one and then the next thing i knew he shoved another into my face, saying it was another gift, ok so i took it not really believing him its just that it was so good and he kept doing this 3 more times and then i said i had to go,ok he said 25 mil, 5 for each oyster.... ive been had. i said ill give you 20, ok he said. and then i left, satisfied but 20 mil less. fool me once shame on me. and then we had a game. our guides i guess always play a set of games for each trip that they do, so on our next trips we´ll have them again but with different teams but anyway they split us up into the two ¨tribes¨ and we would be competing for the rest of the trip and this was our first game. so the game was that we had these 4 sticks and we would all hold the sticks while someone ran across the tops of them and we had to run the length of this little, i guess a road, there and back. and it was fun very competitive, high adreneline and all that, the team i was on won, so that was good and we were waiting for the other team to arrive when all of the sudden like 4 steps from the finish, my friend biffs, and she biffed hard. we all kinda laughed at first because it was a funny fall but that laughter turned into concern when she didnt get up. so we all ran over and she was lying on the group just staring at her foot saying that she couldnt get up, that it hurt too much... oh no. so people are scrambling around trying to fix it and bandage it up. the students went to the beach to play. and for the rest of the trip she couldnt walk... why is this a highlight this sucks Cody? because as it turns out she broke her big toe... again that sucks Cody why are you telling us this? because she is from the city from me were both from Cali. so Teresa and Monika if you guys are reading this you guys are next. some debilitating thing is gonna happen to you guys just like what happened to me and Jenny... suckers. anyway cartagena was fun we serenaded in a plaza and we bought a lot of things, and just chilled a lot.

Santa marta! now this was a cool place we pretty much only went to the beaches in this city it was beautiful and fun. ok so our second night here was the best night of trip for me and some of my friends, but it was also some peoples worst night. So that night i went out to the beach with my friends Maria, Monika, and Teresa and we just kinda wanted to walk around and get away from all of the other students for a while so were walking down the beach and this guy calls out to us, well mainly to our friend monika ¨Mona Mona¨ which means ¨blondie blondie¨ come here, so we walk over and hes with a group of people and theyre all dancing and he asks her if she wants to dance we all kinda look at each other thinking that this looks kinda of shifty but we said hey why not so we joined them Monika with a colombian teresa with a colombian and Maria with a mexican (me) and we had a lot fun with it but then we decided to leave, we said goodbye and then left. we were walking a little bit further down and these two colombians stop us again seeing that we had a volleyball and asked to play a game with us, and we said sure we each got a colombian and started playing... my team kicked butt thanks maria. and then we continued onward down the beach we passed this huge party goin on and kept on walking and we kept on seeing these love notes written in the sand, slowly being washed away by the tide, and we decided to make our own, so that was cool. we walked a little further and then we realized that there was a crab on the shore where we were going to walk and we got really close to it and it raised its claws, as if it were asking for a fight, so out of little desire to do something cool in front of these girls and also to prove to myself that i can do something dangerous and that i havent lost my edge ( that was for chris and ryan) i foolishly tried to pick it up. i was always told to pick it up from behind because then it cant pinch you so i tried that, thank you Mom for the advice... that was completely false!!! i pick it up from behind and then fast as lightning it reaches underneath itself and grabs hold of my middle finger, and shoot did that hurt, i flung it up into the air where it chilled for about 4 secs and then plopped into the water. i made a fool of myself true but i gave us a memory we wouldnt forget. and after that whole event we decided to turn back and this time we did stop to see what kind of party was goin on. in fact it wasnt a party it was just two very talented street dancers dancing in the beach with partners that they chose randomly from the crowd and since everyone in colombia knows how to dance it was fine. they were dressed up in crazy costumes and were just dancing their hearts out, i tried to take pictures but they were moving so fast i couldnt catch them. the dances also kinda symbolized sex so that was kinda weird and by kinda symbolized i mean that they did symbolize but it was crazy indeed. and then we finally headed back to the hotel where we found our friends having their own ¨fun¨that night... i like ours better.

now to Tyrona, the final stop on this journey. im gonna say the coolest part of this place was how we entered it. Tyrona is kinda like one of their national parks located in the jungle right next to the ocean. and the only way to get into it is by horse or by foot... and we entered by foot. now one would think that they would need boots for such a trek, but oh no not us, we did things the old fashioned way good ole barefoot. this was one of those moments when you could really connect with your true self like when you go on a hike through the mountains and then you decide to slip off the trail a bit just to see if you could work your way through the heart of the woods without any help. it was kinda like that for me. it would have been even better if people werent sing showtunes and german drinking songs while we walked and a person banging on a drum, but we have to make due with what we have and shoot it was such a refreshing walk, and when the mud slips through your toes, theres no feeling quite like it. unfortunately i had another incident with a rock again... we were hiking through and there were these two rock and my friend asked me to climb through the rocks, and you guys all know how big of a sucker i am when a girl asks me to do something so i went for it not testing to rocks to see if they were safe or not. so im running and then leap towards the rock waiting for my foot to find some traction to push myself up yet again, but... that traction never came, my foot made contact but it didnt stay because there was a good amount of moss/algae on it. so as soon as i step my foot flys underneath me and then first my knee hits ( not my bad one so thats good but now i have two bad knees so thats not good) and then my chest and then i turn around and my elbow hits and then i slide down the crack between the two rocks... once again i made a fool of myself. i was beat up by an inanimate object, pretty badly too. i know have this scrape on my knee that wont scab up completely so im just waiting for that now. the ocean hurt after that accident but it was super fun and i had a good time.

so thats all folks. really a lot more things happened and im sure these stories will pop up in our conversations back home but for the moment thats all you get. well its almost midnight here and i have school tomorrow and im switching fams so big day i need some rest but then again i could just sleep in school... just kidding Mom (maybe). Ok love you all and miss you guys. until later.