Mi Corazon es Paisa

I love Medellin. I love Colombia.
Cynthia left today which made me start thinking about when I'm going to leave.
I feel like it's my duty to convince other people to love Colombia, too.
As much as I feel like it's going to be a whirlwind from the time I get back to when I start school and I wish I had more time, I also wish I had more time here. After two and half monthes I still feel like I have so much to learn about this place and the people here. I guess that just makes me know for sure that I'll be back here in the future.

I guess it's not my job to convince everyone to love Medellin if the New York Times can do a little bit of the work for me:
"A Drug-Runners’ Stronghold Finds a New Life":
http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/travel/12nextstop.html?ex=1344571200&en=c0d855a9e50ad873&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
(Thanks Ariane for heads up)

A nice article about Medellin-- make sure you click through the photo slide show, too.
"...An eagerly anticipated three-day weekend was about to turn into a four-day party. A cluster of young clubgoers ordered rum-and-coke cocktails as the rhythms of reggaetón and vallenato shook the foggy dance floor."
The article was mainly accurate: minus the fact that they don't drink rum and coke COCKTAILS here, cocktail would imply that the rum and coke were at some point mixed together in a cup. They swig straight from the bottle here; or if you're lucky they'll give you a cup with ice.

Besides that, Ben and I got awesome seats for the Silletero parade on Sunday. People come down from the surrounding mountains with their silleteros (flower arrangements, designs--some made into statues, figures, words, it's crazy!) carried on their backs. It was amazing to see these old women carrying these massive flower arrangements on their back in the really hot weather! It's normally really difficult to get seats, so we lucked out. I'm also not normally one for flower arrangements, but this blew my mind.

Not to mention that the two hour waiting period before the parade was an accurate representation of Medellin in my mind. First, people talked and laughed about how tall Ben was and how they couldn't see over him (It's nice to have a little of the pressure taken off me, but I told him not to worry since I have hands and feet on permanent display at the freak show of Medellin) Then, people stared at us as we spoke in English and the woman next to us gave us her paper fans because she insisted we looked much hotter than she was (in both senses, haha jk). Then, I answered my cell phone and was talking with one of my Colombian friends, which caused people to stare a whole lot more as thoughts of: what is this Gringa doing speaking Spanish, I can't believe it! Soon enough, we were chatting with all of our neighbors, and the woman who had given us the fans also wanted to give me a yellow rose. I'm not exactly sure why she had it with her: woke up that morning thought: "I think I'm going to meet a nice foreigner today" but I took it happily none the less. People were surprised to find out that I was here for more than just the parade, and that I had actually been working here all summer. Then these complete strangers offered us water from their bottles because we seemed pretty thirsty. haha, things like this happen literally ALL the time, it's lovely.

We're leaving on Thursday for the coast, it's considered the Caribbean, how cool is that?