One week.

I have one week left in Gainesville (eight days to be exact, I suppose).

Tonight=last night at the atlantic

It's crazy how quickly everything is approaching. I am *very* slowly cleaning out my room. The problem is that as I get rid of things, I also continue to acquire more things that just complicate the moving out procedure. Slow but steady progress. That's where I'm at now. I've passed on some old frisbee stuff. Closet cleaning time is quickly approaching. I have cleats in there that are 3+ years old, which is gross. I have all sorts of things that I simply don't wear or don't like or forgot I had.

My motto is: if it hasn't been worn in the last 8 months (thusly, my winter clothers stay, otherwise it'd be three months), I don't need it.

We'll see how far I get with that. haha

xoxo,
A

Lightning and Thunder

Today some good things happened. Today some bad things happened.

Good things:
1. My mom called to tell me that my visa came back in the mail today! This means that so long as I get my diploma by the first week of August, I can actually officially go to South Korea.
2. I got to play lots of frisbee today at Huevos en Fuego, a savage nines tournament in Gainesville.
3. My team is really fun.
4. I got this sweet wristband that has blue sequins all over it, and everyone on my team has a matching one, a la Laura.
5. I got to eat a really good pita from pita pit, mochi, and Flacos today.

Bad things:
1. My team only went 1-4 today, which is not good.
2. There was a terribly bad rain delay because there was lightning everywhere.
3. Regarding the lightning, it hit a girl at the tournament I was just at.

Yes, you did read that right. A girl got struck by lightning. It was not a direct hit, and so she survived. She was playing on the team that my team was playing against when the rain delay was called. We were all standing under this big tree for a couple minutes and then a big group of us when to a house really close by. Shortly after I got to the house, I found out that one of the girls in the group I was standing with only minutes earlier got struck by lightning while standing under that very tree. I guess what happened was lightning struck the tree and traveled down it and then up a metal shade tent they had set up and then jumped and hit her. She fell immediately to the ground and was unconscious, not breathing, and had no pulse. They did a couple chest compressions and then she finally came to and started breathing again.

She ended up going to the hospital and coming to there, but it is a crazy situation. She is still in the hospital now, as far as I know.

Anyways, that's all I've got over here. On another note, my first day of teaching is in exactly one month. Also, I leave Gainesville in less than two weeks.

bbq wings...

Mailed my visa application.

Bought my plane ticket for Korea. I leave August 17th at 2:25 p.m. out of Miami.

If you are in Gainesville or Wellington, please hang out with me and do American things for the next 2.5 weeks that I am still here.

I would like to officially begin the countdown to Korea: 28 days!!

xoxo,
A

p.s. Sarah, can you ask Matt how I can include a countdown? You guys had one on your Hawaii blog, and I want one toooooo!

Tomorrow I mail my visa application. This week I book my ONE-WAY flight to Incheon, South Korea. Two and a half weeks left in Gainesville.

This weekend was wonderful. I went home and got to see ALI! We caught up on a lot of what's been going on in each others' lives. It was great to see her. Plus, Eric and Kate were visiting too, so I got to see them.

The family and I went to this great restaurant in Lake Worth called Bizaare Avenue Cafe, which was delicious. I had gnocchi alla vodka, which was spicy and delicious. Also, I got to do lots of shopping for new work-type clothes. It's so weird that I'm going to sort of be a "professional" or at least that I have to dress as though I were. I got a new skirt (so cute) a little purple shrug sweater, a blue cardigan, and a couple tops (purple french cuff, wine colored button down, etc).

Got back today. Had mochi with work (froyo talk instead of coffee talk, haha).

Once I mail this application off, I'll just get to focus on packing and preparing and maybe squeezing in a couple korean lessons? Who knows.

xoxo,
A

Nerves

So, I'm a bit nervous about Korea. The biggest reason? No, not because I don't speak the langauge. No, not because I leave in one month. No, not because I'm moving halfway across the world.

Because I'm clueless about applying for my Visa. It's only been a week since I've gotten my contract, but I leave in precisely one month, and I have about a dozen questions about the visa application process. I e-mailed my EPIK contact at the Consulate in Atlanta on Tuesday, but haven't gotten a response. I called her today to check, but no answer.

I have no idea how long a Visa application can take, and I'm nervous that I'll have to drive up to Atlanta to apply, which I don't really have the time to do.

Hopefully all this will be sorted out soon.

One month from today I will be in an airplane en route to Incheon, South Korea.

We interrupt regularly scheduled Colombia programming for this Special Announcement:

I'm going to South Korea!!!!!!

I got my contract in the mail yesterday, and I will be leaving for orientation on August 19th, and will be teaching in Incheon city for one full year, until August 25, 2010.

I am so so excited, but also incredibly intimidated by the prospect of moving to South Korea and starting my "real" life in a country so far away and different from everything I've known.

Packing and ticket purchasing, E-2 visa getting and Korean learning will be occupying most of my time for the next month. Be warned.

xoxo,
A

Last post about Colombia? Doubtful.

So after dinner Friday night, we went back to the apartment we were staying at and talked to some of the guys that were on the men's team. The men's team had a ton of people, quite unlike the women's team and just like players here, everyone had a nickname. We went to bed not too much later because we had a game bright and early the next day, at 7 a.m. Yes, it was as bad as it sounds.

I set my alarm for 6 a.m. to give us plenty of time to change and hit the beach. Unfortunately Marta and I were woken up prompty at 5:15 to everyone else in the apartment yelling excessively about nothing. No one realized how loud they were being, so Marta and just rubbed our bleary eyes and started getting ready. At least it was nice and lesiurely getting ready. That morning, we played a team called Arenosa which basically translates to sandy. Anyways, they pretty much wrecked us, given that they had a full line of subs and we had no subs. The positive thing is that this game was early enough in the day that we didn't have to deal with the sand/air/temperature being crazy hot. The sand was easily the worst part. It was burning hot, like nothing I've felt. I played our afternoon game in socks, and it was still unbearable.

Anyways, here are some pictures of the beach. The beach was beautiful, and there were quite a few of very pretty hotels and whatnot located right on the beach. There are lots of shade tents everywhere because the sun really is so harsh and there is pretty much no shade anywhere otherwise. There were lots of boats out on the ocean everyday we were there, and tons of people in the water, trying to escape from the sun. From the beach, looking inland, you could see the Sierra Nevada mountains which extend all the way to the northern coast on the Atlantic Ocean side and all the way south to the Andes. In some ways you might say I saw a little bit of the Andes, although it's technically an outcropping of montains that aren't really the Andes. Whatevs, one day I'll see them.

After that game, Marta and I went to this little stand where they had arepa con huevo, which is a fried egg arepa, and is delicious. I wasn't hungry (I had Froot Loops for breakfast) and so I just hung out, but there were two younger guys there who were talking to me and Marta. They kept saying I was beautiful and whatnot, and were really surprised to hear that I spoke Spanish. They were kind of hard for me to understand, because they weren't very close to me and did not speak slowly at all. By the end of the snack, one of them was telling me that he liked me very much and that he would watch me at a later game.

After our morning snack, we watched the boys play (they lost) and then headed back to the apartment. I changed into my bathing suit and headed to the pool for a bit. Then back to the apartment for leftovers from the night before. There, everyone got into a nice healthy discussion about frisbee, led by Marta, who was explaining a bunch of different plays, including Swedish/Johnson and horizontal stacks. Then, we had to head back out into the sweltering summer heat for our second game. For this game, the sand was really hot and we had to wear socks, which still wasn't anywhere near enough protection from the heat. On the line before we pulled, everyone would dig little holes to stick their feet so they could keep their feet from getting too hot. Later in the weekend, we would see teams sit down and pull their feet up when a disc went O.B. or if there was a discussion about a foul call. It was that hot. We won our second game pretty easily. We had two subs, but didn't use them much at all. I think each of us sat maybe one point.

After that game, Marta's cousin Rey came and visited from Barranquilla. We went to get some fish to eat from a little stand near the beach. Marta and I ended up splitting a whole fish (head and bones and fins and all) which was fried and absolutely delicious. The meal also came with patacones, which a flattened, fried green plantains, and arroz con coco, which is coconut rice. Patacones are freakin' delicious, one of the best things I ate in Colombia (although everything was fantastic) and the coconut rice was really sweet, like desert. We also had fresh lemonade poured out of this ridiculous big jug (it was like those plastic containers/barrels of pretzels you get from BJs or Costco haha) and it was AMAZING. SOOOOOOO good. Best lemonade I'd ever had in my entire life. It was nice and tart and that alone was enough to make me want to move to Colombia. Seriously.

We watched some more games, bought the tournament shirt, and then headed back to the apartment to change and get ready to go out to El Rodadero. Before showering, Marta had me try on some of the dresses she brought to see if I could wear one because I was complaining about how I was running out of clothes (I didn't really realize how much I'd be sweating in a single day. Nothing was re-wearable). I ended up wearing this cute white dress seen in pictures below. So anyways, Rey, Marta, Chile, Mattias (chile's boyfriend, who is from Argentina) and I took a bus into town. El Rodadero is basically a more touristy area, with lots of shops, and a really really busy beach area. On the beach at night, people can rent chairs and sit out there and hire out musicians to come around and play in their little circle, kind of like mariachi bands, but with different style. All along the street that borders the beach there are food stands (like at fairs and stuff) that were selling things like pizza, maiz, chuzo, jugos, gaseosas, etc. You could get anything your little heart desired. We all walked along the beach and sampled different things. We sat in some chairs in front of one stand to eat, and these two people (soda sellers) got in abig fight over whose chairs we were using. We had to buy drinks from both of them to settle the issue. It was pretty ridiculous. We ran into one of those people who acts like a statue until you give them money and then they move. This guy's gimmick was to shake your hand but then suddenly "freeze" with your hand in his until you gave him more money. We shopped a bit, but didn't get anything. It was all really fun and laid back. I got to talk to the people there a little more, which was nice, because everyone on the teams had been talking about how quiet I was and they found it a little off-putting (did I blow anyone's mind about me being quiet? It seems a bit far-fetched, I know, but I was nervous to say the wrong thing in Spanish or whatever, which is dumb, but I couldn't help it). We took lots and lots of pictures of pretty much everything, including the sign for this restaurant that is a fairly popular fast-food chain that serves chicken. This was one of the very first things I saw when we got into Cartagena, from the window of our cab, and I couldn't help but laugh. I didn't see many mistranslations in Colombia, mostly because it was really uncommon for things to be translated at all. I couldn't help but think of bromances and what now. Let's see if you can spot the error. If you can't, perhaps it's time for you to go back to remedial English lessons...

Headed back to the apartment, went to the tourney party. It was dumb. Left to go back to the apartment. Apartment was locked, but the window was open. We all climbed in through the window. Rey left. Marta and I went to sleep.

The next morning, the boys had a game at 7 a.m. so we were up bright and early again.We watched the boys game. They won, but it was the last game of the weekend for them. Then we headed over to our cancha for our game. We picked up an extra girl, Vanessa, who was super clutch. We still lost, and I was really hurting. I tweaked my ankle a bit pulling after the second or third point. The team we played had 15 girls, and just ran like crazy, which was exhausting. Skills-wise, they weren't any better than we were, but we just couldn't run with them. That team had a bunch of really young girls (some as young as 9), but they were all serious ballers. I just wanted to take some of the older ones back to UF for FUEL. Most of them had nice throws and endurance like you wouldn't believe. During that whole game, the boys from the arepa place the day before were cheering for me. We walked by that stand after that game, and the one professed his love for me and kissed my hand, which was completely hilarious. I was very touched, but had to regretfully turn him down. :-)

We went straight to the ocean after our game and cooled off a bit there. Then we watched some men's games, namely a game with the team Marta played with in '05, Arena Roja. After the game, I traded my black FUEL jersey for one of their red jerseys. I was so amped about it. The guy I traded with was really nice. He gave my jersey to his girlfriend, which I think was nice, since the jerseys were pretty new for them, I think.

That's all for now. I think I can fit the rest of the vacation into just one more post... hopefully.

As an aside, Fourth of July came and went. Nothing too special. Thomas had a party. I brought a bunch of frisbee people. I had a lot of fun. My frisbee friends really had fun. My students really are that cool.

Craig came to visit. It was really nice. It was too short of a visit (48 hours? not even), but nice to see him either way. He was super stressed about China, but if it's any consolation, at least he knows he has a job, unlike me. I'm still waiting. I'm expecting to hear for sure in the next week or so. I'm practically dying of nerves. Hold my hand someone, anyone?

Colombia Continued!

Friday was probably one of our more boring days, if only because most of it was spent traveling. I woke up at nine, and Marta had already been out for nearly 2 hours working on getting her passport. She was supposed to call the hostel at 9:30 to let me know when she'd be back, so I had to hang around there a bit. I packed up a bit and went downstairs to use the internet. Around 10:15, she hadn't called yet, so I figured she'd be pretty busy. As such, I went back upstairs and finished packing and got ready to head out for some breakfast. When I got downstairs, the lady at the front desk told me that Marta had called and that she should be back soon. So, instead of breakfast, I hung out a bit more. She got there right around 10:30, passport in hand.

We called the bus place and had them reserve a spot for us on the 11 a.m. puerta a puerta bus to Santa Marta. This was the single most expensive thing I bought on the trip at just under 20 bucks (37000 pesos). We had breakfast at the same place I ate the day before.

Then we hit the road. The bus was nice. It had air conditioning (thank GOD) and was pretty roomy. I got the back row, aisle seat so I had plenty of leg room too! The bus ride was REALLLLLY long, and boring. They did have a t.v., and we watched The Changeling, the Angelina Jolie movie where her son gets kidnapped and then the LAPD replaces him with another kid who isn't hers. Unfortunately the sound was really low and, in the back of the bus, I couldn't hear parts. Luckily, there were Spanish subtitles, which I was pretty consistently able to translate.

The total trip was about four hours. We finally got to Santa Marta. Then we had to take a taxi to Bello Horizonte, which is a beach just a bit south of Santa Marta/el Rodadero. We got to the beach and found the tourney HQ, but Alfonso, the TD wasn't there. While we were waiting, we happened to see Mikey Marshall, Cathy's (from my frisbee team) brother, whom I know fairly well. It was crazy, and totally unexpected. Cathy's family is from Santa Marta, but we had no idea that her family would be there. Cathy was coming two weeks later, but the rest of her family was already there. It was just really crazy because Cathy obviously knew that Marta and I would be in Santa Marta for the tournament because we had told her about it, and she knew her brother would be there, yet she never told us, and we still managed to run into each other. Small world.

A bit later, we found the TD and our team captain, Chile. She was really nice, but we found out that they had already played their game for that day. We also found out that they only had 3 girls, plus two random pick-ups they found at the beach that day. So, the following day, we would be playing savage, pretty much. We went and watched the boys team from Maracaibo that came with our team. After that, we went back to the apartment that the teams were staying with and kind of made ourselves at home on the floor of the apartment on mattresses.


That night for dinner, we went into el Rodadero, and went to a restaurant called PailaNaki, which is "cocina fusion" whatever that means. Basically, it was this cute restaurant that serves dishes cooked primarily on the big open girll-top that is kind of like a japanese steakhouse without the show. Instead, there is just one, and tables all over, and a bar right in front of the cooktop. Marta and I naturally opted for the bar to watch the cooking. We each ordered rice dishes. Mine was rice, chicken, pork loin, veggies and chicharrón, which is basically like porkrinds, but more delicious. It's really common in Latin America, and is often served as a snack or part of other dishes. The cook was named Salvador and he was really nice. He knew a little English and he practiced it on me, and I got to practice my Spanish with him. That dinner was really fun, and the restaurant was really nice (easily the nicest we went to during the trip). We took several pictures of the place, which I've posted.
xoxo,
A

Back in the States

Well, Colombia was absolutely amazing. I wish I could have posted more after the second day, but I just didn't really have the opportunity to. A lot of the time I was too wiped out by our busy days or I just forgot to or didn't get to an internet cafe. I guess to start I should talk about Wednesday night.

We went to a bar down the street called Cafe Havana (it was Cuban-themed) where they had a live band. It was awesome! They were really quite good and we enjoyed that for a bit. The drinks were really expensive (7000 pesos/$3.50 for aguila beer) Here are some pictures of that (I still have to figure out how to get videos uploaded):


Anyhow, on Thursday, I had to spend the first half of the day by myself while Marta was out working on getting her cédula. I went next door to a little restaurant that was run by two young girls who I later found out were 17 and 19, which was pretty crazy. I ordered arepa con queso, una porcion de piña and café con leche. There was an adorable little family sitting next to me. They were British and had a son who was probably 4. The whole family speaks spanish, in addition to english, and the little boy cried out, "pero quiero miel" when the girls forgot to give him honey with his cereal and yogurt and fruit bowl. It was adorable because he was so little and it was so very unexpected. I met an older gentleman (now retired, probably about 60) who was from Germany and we carried on a conversation in Spanish over our breakfasts. It was very interesting being able to communicate with him all in Spanish. Neither he nor I were perfect, but we communicated quite effectively and I got to meet someone totally new and unexpectedly. Then I headed off to look around the city a bit by myself.

I was a little nervous about walking around by myself mostly because of how everyone stared at me and hooted and hollered regularly at my blonde hair, fair skin, long legs, and unusual height. I was nervous I'd be harassed by someone begging or something. You certainly can't deny that the street vendors target me as a tourist who they could sell their wares to. As such, I decided to stay relatively close to wear the hostel was. I took a big loop around some of the streets, pretty much. I walked down to a little plaza type place that Marta had told me about that had this big bright yellow church on one side with statues of three people walking in front. I sat there and read for a bit, just enjoying the open air and freedom. A donkey-drawn cart strolled by and I people watched a bit. Then I headed further west out to where the water is, and walked along the street where the water was. It was mostly boating waters and there wasn't much beach, but it was still nice walking. I didn't really know where I was, but I ended up walking up to where the Convention Center is and took some pictures of that and an old theater, the Tetro Cartagena, which was very pretty. Then I headed back down the street our hostel was on. I hung out there for a little bit, expecting Marta to be back soon for lunch.
It took longer than expected and I was getting really hungry so I decided to walk down to the corner store and try to get some bread or snack type things to hold me over till lunchtime. Right after I walked out, there was a guy in front of me walking who was staying at our hostel and he introduced himself. His name was Guillaume and he was from Quebec but had been in Colombia for a month studying geology for his master's degree, which is interesting, I suppose. He was looking for someplace to eat and wanted to go to Cafe del Mar, which Marta and I had seen earlier. I told him roughly where it was. We started talking and I ended up walking all the way there with him. Cafe del Mar is on the top of the wall that surrounds the historic part of the city (la ciudad murallada) and has a beautiful view of the city and of the water and surrounding area. Marta and I had hung out up there earlier. It turned out that Cafe del Mar was closed and we walked to la Plaza de Santo Domingo, which is a plaza with lots of restaurants, a sort of much smaller verison of the plaza mayor in madrid. It was touristy and significantly more expensive than anything else in Cartagena (20-30 thousand pesos, or 10-15 bucks)

I didn't eat anything because I knew I would be meeting up with Marta for lunch a little bit later. We walked back to the hostel and found Marta there. We went to Kokoriko for lunch/dinner/lunner/dinch/whatever you want to call it. Kokoriko is a fast-food chicken type place. It looks just like a fast food place when you walk in, but you sit down and someone comes and takes your order. But everything is surved in plastic throw away cups and with plastic forks and knives. It was weird. I had fried chicken, salad with corn carrots and peas and french fries. It was delicious.

Then we hung out a bit at our hostel and whatnot. We went to a panaderia and had bread for dinner. Guave and arequipe filled breads and cheese bread and we had postobon soda, which is a fruit soda that is super common in Colombia.

That evening we had one of our only other nights out of the entire trip. We went to a bar across the street above a hostel. We got mixed drinks at half price because the bartended had to make extras for a photographer to take pictures of for the bar's website. Since he had to make them and they weren't specifically for anyone, we got to get them for half price. We went to the bar with about a half dozen people from the hostel we were staying with. Most of them were Irish, but there were a couple Americans, and Australian or two, and a French girl in the mix. On the roof of the bar there was a sitting area that had beautiful views of the city and of Castillo de San Felipe, which was all lit up and looked really pretty. After that, we headed to the apartment of one of the american guys (Shawn). He was renting the apartment and it was right in the middle of la ciuded murallada, which was cool. We hung out there for a little bit, listening to lots of Michael Jackson (RIP) and then we headed home pretty early because marta had another early morning ahead of her the next day.

El Castillo de San Felipe

Coming up: the journey to Santa Marta, Rodadero, y Bello Horizonte, and the 7th annual Beach Ultimate Tournament in Santa Marta, Colombia.

xoxo,
A