Bogota, Colombia, South America

I had a pretty slow day in class today, but then had a great night! Ash came back to class so we had to catch him up a little bit by covering yesterday’s topics again. It was still good practice for me though, because any time I can read, hear and speak spanish, it will help me in the future. With both of us back in class, Magda was able to give us some homework, so it was good to get back here and do that. Hopefully by exposing my mind to this stuff over and over again, some of it will absorb and I’ll start to retain some of it.

I came back to the hotel and spent a couple hours studying and doing the homework, and then started to do some research on my trip to the Galapagos Islands and to Machu Picchu. I don’t have anything booked for either one yet, but I’m realizing that I’m going to be doing each trip in the next two months, so I really need to get my ass in gear and get these things booked. I really don’t want to put it off too long and then miss out on something. It’s just really tough to plan for a point in the future when I have no idea how long I will want to spend in places on the way.

I walked up to Melissa’s office and met her and her mom. We met Luz Mery’s friends, Trinny and Francesco, who live in Rome, and we all went out to dinner. We didn’t just go to any restaurant though, we went to Casa San Isidro at the top of Montseratte. We drove to the base of the mountain and then got the cable car to the top. The view of the city from the top of the mountain is amazing. You get a full panoramic view of the nine million person city from this vantage point. We got to see the church at the top, but couldn’t go in because it was closed. It was after 8pm by the time we got up there, so it was dark and pretty cold. We were at over 3,100m high, and you could really tell by the drop in temperature at the top.

We had an amazing dinner at the French restaurant, and enjoyed some nice wine as well. It was a really good night of chatting in a mixture of English, Spanish and Italian, and we got to look over the city from our table. It was a great night! Luz Mery picked up the tab again and I’m starting to feel really bad that she won’t let me pay for anything. I keep offering, but she won’t take anything. She is incredibly nice and I can’t even say how much I appreciate everything she and Melissa are doing for me while I’m here. They are amazing people.