Daily Routine and the View From the Street

I'm staying in Colombia for five weeks. My schedule here has worked into a pattern. In the mornings, I get up and shower and enjoy a nice cooked breakfast that D. in my host family prepares for me. Then I walk to go take classes at a Spanish School in the center of old town Cartagena.

When classes get out, I go with some of the other students* to choose a nearby restaurant and get something to eat. When we're finished (at least an hour later), I work my way back towards the school with a few others--who might be taking a dance class or getting another (private) Spanish lesson. I go back, though, to work with J. from the foundation for young mothers. We work for about two hours on French. I can tell J. studies at home. I hope she gets a good foundation in French before she travels to Marseille to complete her six months of culinary training that she was given a scholarship for.

After that, I might team up with some of the others from the language school and go on a little outing around the school, or wander around a bit on my own, or I might just walk back to my host family's house. I might work out and shower again (it works well to shower twice during the day), or just sit out on the patio reading. I get dinner from the family around seven, and hang out with them until it's time for me to go to bed.

The other day when we were walking back to the school after lunch, we turned down a street I had never been down before. It fascinated me, and I went back later to take a few photos.

 

 

 

*Perhaps a subject for another blog post, the students at the language school are quite the crowd. I guess I expected a lot of college students on holiday, but they are definitely the minority. I have, however, met people from Canada, the Netherlands, the US, Japan, France, Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland. I've met young and not-so-young professionals on sabbatical (from countries where that is one of their rights as a working individual) to study Spanish or to travel for an extended period of time. I've met lots of people who work in education--teachers of history and ESL and other languages and school counselors. I've met an individual studying to get an MBA and one studying engineering. I've met more people than you would think--of a variety of ages--who quit full-time, salaried jobs to travel around the world over ten or more months. I've met an older couple traveling together, a family with kids, friends that partner up to travel, and lots of people going it solo.