I’ve been here eleven days, but it feels like eleven months. Time passes slowly here. Not in that any given hour or block of time feels particularly long. But in each day I manage to fit in many different things, all of them brand new to me, and still manage to have a lot of time to relax, read, and sleep. By “different things,” I don’t necessarily mean sight-seeing or some other fun activity. Sometimes it is that, but usually it’s the simple act of say, buying groceries, finding a bookstore, making a phone call. Even the mundane things here have a new and unfamiliar aspect to them, and unlike at home, where I can go about my day without giving it much thought, doing the same thing here requires 100% of my mental capacity. Being so conscious of every little thing slows time down. So, if anyone is feeling like their life is moving too quickly, I suggest dropping everything and moving to a foreign country.

I’m becoming gradually ingratiated into daily life here. I’m lucky to have already made friends with some locals and expats (and I thought making friends in my first language was hard…). I feel like at any given moment I don’t have to be alone, which is nice, but I of course choose to be alone a lot anyway. I also feel like my Spanish has improved exponentially, being forced to use it every day. Unlike Spanish class, which has a concrete end-time and reconvenes a full 23 or so hours later, here there is no break. This is an obvious fact, but one that I hadn’t quite realized the full gravity of. It can be exhausting, like a muscle with only a finite supply of energy before it eventually fatigues and gives up. By the time night hits, the quality of my language dwindles into something resembling pre-school level Spanglish, and I can’t seem to express myself in either language. By the time I wake up the next morning, I’m fully recovered.

So I am off to Cartagena tomorrow for about a week. It is supposed to have some spectacular architecture, a really interesting history, and of course it being on the Caribbean coast doesn’t hurt. If I can track down a copy (a Kindle version doesn’t seem to exist), I am going to re-read “Love in the Time of Cholera” while I’m there! Gabriel Garcia Marquez is my favorite Colombian writer (I say this as if I know many Colombian writers…I think he’s the only one) and I’m excited to read it while being in the city he wrote about.

I know this post is all boring words and you probably want to see pictures. My next post should have pictures of what I’ve been up to lately, which I hope to publish later today. Hasta luego!

P.S. FYI, if you are confused by the titles of my posts, don’t worry…usually I can’t think of anything good enough, so I’ll probably get into the habit of using lyrics to whatever song I’m listening to. It’s just easier/I’m lazy.