Medellín in Review

We've been in Medellín for 49 days now.  Today, we finish a month and a half of language courses, or 76 hours worth of instruction (142 if we're combining).   We've lived in two distinct neighborhoods and wandered through countless others.  We've been able to cross off almost everything on our extensive to-see list (our favorite haunts being the botanical garden and Modern Art Museum).  Though we still have two things left to do, with two days to go before we leave, hopefully we'll get there!  While here, we've seen 13 species of birds that were new to us, eaten 1 Bandeja Paisa (the quintessential Medellín meal), tried 14 new fruits (with varied success) and worked our way through countless mangos, avocados, and pineapples.  We've become "regulars" at one mercado, and the team of men working there chat away incomprehensibly to us and give us candy. We've fallen in love with our bear-dog neighbor, made three (hopefully) lasting friends and only wanted to get divorced twice (jokes).  We've read 15 books, written 22 blog posts, and bookmarked 29 recipes to make when we get back home to familiar kitchens and ingredients.  We've bought a total of 0 gifts for our friends and family back home (no jokes).

In addition to creating a life for ourselves in Medellín, we've also been preparing for next year.  We've sent off 24 cover letters to schools on literally every continent except Antarctica.  We've received 7 non-automated replies and had one interview. Once in a desperate attempt to make our application stand out, we actually attached these photos.

Clearly, we did not hear back from this school.

As we're writing, we've realized that this is the longest possible preamble to introduce this idea: we're feeling ready to start something new. Sunday, we get on a 6:30 am bus to head to the coffee growing region.  Our first destination is Salento, and after that we have no other plans (aside from catching up on all the coffee we've missed these last 49 days.  We drink tea now! While we're recounting our experience in Medellín, we've gone through at least 75 tea bags.)

Though some parts of our lives here are easy to quantify, most of what we've experienced is intangible. If we've grown at all, that growth is invisible to our own eyes and, if experience serves, it will most likely will remain so until much later.  Our split attention between living in the present and planning for the future has had some detrimental effects on our sense of accomplishment here.  Our Spanish, while in theory is better, feels the same.  We loved our time here, but we're not walking away with lasting connections to the place or its people.  Though possibly inevitable, these are disappointments and things we hope to rectify next time we settle down in a place for a longer period of time.  All in all, we feel lucky that we found ourselves in such a wonderful city on our first try and overwhelmingly grateful to all the people who helped us get here, especially our lovely and "creative" family, some of whom are pictured below: