Two weeks ago, my friends loaded up three boxes and a suitcase packed with all my possessions and locked the door to my little Beijing …
Moving On from China

Travel. Workout. Write
Two weeks ago, my friends loaded up three boxes and a suitcase packed with all my possessions and locked the door to my little Beijing …
Last weekend, I finally checked off the most iconic of the Chinese tourist attractions and the 6th of the 7 new wonders of the world …
In my favorite Doctor Who episode, Blink, two girls enter an abandoned house. Thus sparks one of my favorite dialogue exchanges in the entire series— “I …
I recently canceled my flight from Medellin to Miami. It was supposed to be for today, April 30th. I’m not taking it because A) I’m …
Two weeks ago I got an amazing job offer. It had a great salary, tons of benefits, and involved writing. The job offer was so …
Christmas Past This is my third consecutive Christmas outside of the United States, and my fourth ever. The first Christmas abroad I spent in Prague, …
One of my favorite Leonardo DiCaprio movies is The Beach. If you haven’t seen it, it’s about a backpacker in Thailand who discovers a secret …
“Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.” – Kurt Vonnegut A few years ago, I met a girl who had an upcoming trip to …
I have to say that I may be the happiest I have ever been. Perhaps it’s the fact that I am currently living in the city of eternal spring and the weather hovers around a solid 75F everyday. Perhaps it’s because I spend the majority of everyday working on things I find fulfilling and important (writing, exercise, and language). Or maybe it’s just the view from my apartment.
El Poblado is definitely an ex-pat bubble. This has been both good and bad— good because I can easily grab a salad, I can go to an English-speaking gym, and there are loads of opportunities for Spanish classes. Bad because, well, it’s a lot harder to slip into Colombian culture when you are living in a miniature United States.
Tomorrow I am flying to Santa Marta for two weeks but before I go, I just want to share parts of why I am feeling so happy in Medellin recently:
I am also planning to write an entire blog post just on learning a language, but I’m pretty excited about where my Spanish is now (it’s a solid “meh” status) as compared to where it was when I first landed in Argentina (I could say ‘pollo’ and ‘hola’).
Finding a good language teacher can be difficult. It took me three weeks in Medellin before I found a teacher that was a good “fit.” Now I almost don’t want to leave Colombia just because I like my Spanish teacher so much.
In Argentina, I had a thriving social life but I wasn’t taking care of myself. I’m excited to go back, but I’m happy to have sort of taken a bit of a “break” and gotten myself in order so I can better withstand the social pressure to eat badly and drink a lot.
Plus, it’s giving me the time to catch up with some of my old friends in the US, India, and Argentina.
5. Work: I have an amazing routine which involves me waking up at 7am, getting ready, arriving at my café at 8:30am, ordering the exact same thing every morning and working.
Like I said, this neighborhood is an expat bubble. While I don’t love all the English, it is nice that café culture is thriving here. Everyone jams inside with a laptop and is living up the “digital nomad” lifestyle. I get a ridiculous amount of work done in the café from 8:30-12:00/1 everyday.
6. Festivals: Colombians are great at partying. The next two weeks are Feria de las Flores, the festival of the flowers. This involves parades, flower vendors, free concerts, and traditional food/crafts being sold in parks. I’m sad I will miss so many of the events, but I’ve been working every weekend for a month and a half to justify going on vacation.