Fri 1509 Quietly but surprisingly enjoyable day so far.
Slept pretty badly, woke up from minor nightmare at one point. Drowsed in bed from 9ish, got up about 10 feeling slightly rough.
Poked at MG site, decided to go over to Museo Casa Gardeliana - I will probably do some kind of park/walking thing tomorrow and so this seemed a reasonable compromise, plus it involved the Metroplus buses which looked like a very small comfort zone stretch.
Left hotel 11ish, got over to Gardel metro with no real problems. Went via Industriales as suggested on MG - I suspect this is suggested as it involves no "out of station" interchanges so is easier and (feels) safer. I noticed on the way that it would be possible to come back via an OOS interchange at Cisneros so thought I'd try that on way back.
Feeling a bit hot, including on bus, but not terrible.
Got a bit lost getting from Gardel metro to museum even though I knew it was very close. In the end I managed to get a grip on the location and found it, though thanks to crossing a street I thought was one way on a red man I nearly got pancaked by a bus coming the other way.
Museum very quiet, just me and a MoS up far end. Examined the exhibits on walls, watched video and listened to Por Una Cabeza. Lots of tables in there and there was a small cafe area near office-worker-looking MoS so I asked and I got a tinto for 1k. Sat at one of tables just looking at the place and that was oddly "romantic" - according to MG place had tango performances from IIRC 1978-2012 and while not tiny, for a music venue it felt very intimate and it was cool to imagine all the stuff that had gone on there while sitting there with the place deserted. It was also, while not temperature *cool*, coolish with the odd breeze through window, quite shady and the palm tree leaves showing outside open street door with bright light in the street was all very pleasant.
Had a second tinto, a couple of prob locals came in roughly during this and seemed to have a chat together with MoS; I earwigged lightly but didn't really make that much of an effort. Left 4k voluntary donation on way out. While it's a little out of the way, I could imagine going back there for a coffee and a sit and a mull again at some point.
Alan Parsons Project "Eye in the sky" playing at Gardel metro when I left museum, which for some reason made me grin like a loon. Got bus back to Cisneros no problem, no real problem with interchange either. Came back to hotel via El Colmado (where I went other day) and had steak+chips+salad, portion seemed even larger than last time.
Did think while in museum - as have other days incl yday in PB with A+M - I really do need to improve my Spanish. I'm sure just being here helps a bit but I do maybe need to think about taking classes or something, or doing a bit more self-study while I'm here, or having more lessons with my usual teacher. The lang exchanges here probably also help a bit as they're not entirely "English speaker meetups in disguise" .
Sat 0117 Been back at hotel for 21 mins but fucking ET driver has *still* not marked the journey complete. He is not responding to any of my messages and the app won't let me raise an issue with an incomplete journey. I don't know if it matters as it is an ET fare but I did also note his taximeter started the journed at COP7920. I want to go to bed - I'm pretty sober BTW, 3 bottles of beer all night, technically a decent night but mildly unsatisfying tho don't intend to write it up tonight as want to go to bed so I can "do shit" (maybe Parque Arvi) earlyish but instead I'm stuck waiting for this fucking journey to be marked complete. *Maybe* this is not the driver trying to scam me - I mean, the fucking app *shows* where the taxi is so it's obvious he has gone miles past my drop off point - but I don't know.
0137 OK, the cunt has put a wrong destination on the journey and charged me 30k pesos. I have submitted a complaint to ET complete with screenshots; if they don't help that's it, they are clearly not trustworthy. This isn't like the Cartagena case where *maybe* I got confused. Fortunately I *can* eat 30k pesos if need be (it should have been 10kish). I kept getting phone calls on my Colombian number 10ish mins ago, I have a voicemail but not listened to it. I have no idea if the driver is able to get hold of my phone number or not, I would hope not. I *don't* need ET, the other guys I was out with tonight got different app-based cabs so I could easily switch to one of those.
While I don't like being ripped off, the actual amount is low. But if ET don't help, this means they are simply worthless. Apart from lost money, I lost 30 mins+ waiting to see what was going to happen and submitting a complaint about it afterwards. In many ways that hurts more than the cash.
Sat 1729 Back at hotel probably for rest of day. This feels a bit sad and in a way it would be nice to go out for a few solo beers eg at FdlC but I've been out one way or another just about every night since last Saturday and it would also be nice to have a quiet night in. (It is IMO very unlikely but not impossible someone will personally invite me out, in which case I would go.) I need to do some laundry, it would be good to do a little Spanish study, it would also be good to have a bit of a think (coming towards end of the current hotel reservation) about ongoing plans (Guatape/El Penol - do a day trip or go over for a few days? Valle de Corcora? Formal Spanish study). I don't know how much of this I will do, I don't feel exactly run down but sort of "meh, don't want to do anything hard" . Don't really feel in mood for writing this up - there are some bits I do want to mention but bashing out the chronological stuff feels like a chore, but Future Me will appreciate it and even if this burns up some of my limited supply of willpower I think it's worth it. Might do it in little chunks.
So last night I decided to go to the language exchange/karaoke at Dimeli at 7. I reasoned roughly that the alternative was the one at Onda's at 7 but that went on til 2 whereas the Dimeli one was only til 10, so I could go to the Dimeli one and then go onto to Onda's later. Plus the Dimeli one seemed more likely to be sober-ish so I'd drink a bit less over the whole night that way.
It did work out mostly like that. I didn't enjoy the lang exch bit at Dimeli last night as much as the one on Wed but it was OK, saw Andres again and chatted a bit with some people and did get a bit of Spanish practice. I didn't sing but karaoke was quite fun. Only had one beer there, stuck to tinto mostly. They closed about 2230 and there weren't that many of us there and I managed to tag along with a group of about five people going over (I sort of instigated it but also sort of massively tagged along) so we walked over together. Onda's was busy but not intolerably heaving. I think what kind of made the night mildly crappy was the *feeling* I got from being there of being really disconnected and the thought that had I not turned up with a group it would have been really hard to talk to someone. In reality it might have been fine, and had I been there from 7 it might also have been different of course.
The other minor problem was one of our group spoke virtually no Spanish, the others except me were either native speakers or pretty much fluent. On walk over there we had mixed round a bit but once we got there it kind of happened the rest of the group mostly spoke Spanish and mostly (though not all the time) I was chatting with the other guy, and when I was with the Spanish group I felt a bit of a fraud/drag due to my level not being high enough (I could get the gist, but I did feel a bit sub-par).
It shut fairly early (well, we didn't get thrown out, but rest of my group was leaving and only a dozen-ish other people there and clearly was shutting) so got the ET and got shafted as already written.
So not really a bad night but just some personal annoyances, and although not a huge one this is one of many times lately when I've been feeling I really need to give my Spanish a kick up the arse if only I can stop being so lazy and indecisive. But maybe more ramblings on that theme as I try to sort out onward plans later.
So that's Friday done. Let me slack off a bit and then write today up.
1841 Didn't sleep super well and was late to bed thanks to taxi. For some reason hotel staff tried to get into my room about 10am while I was awake but not dressed and appeared unable to hear me when I called through the door; I hastily dressed and shoved my head out and a cleaner down the corridor apologised to me and said there was no problem. Not a big issue but odd, I've seldom been out of room that early and they've never tried to come in before.
I dithered and really wasn't in the mood but decided to go over to Parque Arvi. Had to top up Civica card at Estadio before setting out as it's an expensive journey due to it being 10k each way on the final leg (a personalised Civica card might only charge 1k but I don't have one, and if true I think that is an unusually large saving), bit of a queue but no big deal.
Got over there no trouble. Cable cars pretty cool and more frequent/less queuing than I expected. I didn't take any photos from them as never had car to self (though on the final outbound leg up to PA I *could* have had one if I hadn't dithered on the platform expecting I needed permission to board, not the end of the world) and it seemed a bit touristy and (based on a random comment I read on web) locals may feel it's rude of you to be taking pictures of their slummy houses. To be fair some of the houses looked a bit shitty but in part I think they just have tatty roofs; not saying they are great houses but not all that bad. Probably not areas you want to be wandering round as a tourist though.
Ears popped on way up and it's noticeably colder as you get on the last leg (line L, IIRC) up to PA. I just wore one of long sleeved synthetic tops as I hadn't thought it would be colder up there and although I was fine one of the wool ones might have been better. On return journey as we got in the car at line L-K interchange to head down a woman said something to her friend to the effect that you could immediately feel the heat (maybe the air in the car is warmer as it's carried up from the valley floor) and she was right.
Being on the cable car does give a pretty cool view (though it was quite hazy) and really show how the city is in a valley.
Park was initially a bit of a disappointment. I had expected most tours to be every 30 mins, in reality there was one tour starting about every 30 mins and most were really short. Long story short, there was supposed to be a 3h tour at 1330 (I got up there about 1230) although today it was replaced by a *different* 3h tour and needed 7? people, so I had to go wander off and eat a bit (empanada and then a torta de chocolo, the latter seeming to be a bread-ish cake with a slice of cheese in, reasonably nice) and wander down to the area with the cafe and look at the little archaelogy exhibit to kill time. I hadn't taken bag/coat - just a bottle of water - and it was lightly spitting rain.
In the end five people including me expressed an interest in tour - guide spoke to three of us earlier and said we could do a shorter one if we got fewer people. I am far from clear if we did set out on any 3h tour or not, I understood 80% of what was said but a) did we have enough ppl to start it b) there was a thunderstorm in distance during trip and guide asked us something and we may have had to cut the tour short/not do the long tour because of that. We had to buy disposable plastic ponchos (the environmental horror! but I did find it mildly ironic that they sold these) for 3k before we set out and we all (incl guide) put them on when rain intensified a little earlyish in tour. Mine was torn/I tore it down the front, but I held it together OK. It wasn't pissing it down anyway.
The tour was quite decent really and guide quite informative but it was only maybe 1.5h for whatever reason and at 25k for foreigners it felt a smidge expensive for what it was. For the record the snake up the tree in my photos is a wooden one, though I didn't know that when guide pointed snake out and I photographed it. We did get to eat a few wild blueberries IIRC and also touch a sort of curled up hairy young plant (pata de perro?????) which looked a little bit like a hairy snail. Also hard to really "take in" the surroundings when you're walking and holding bottle of water and holding poncho together. Didn't take that many photos in part due to difficulty of getting camera out of pocket, tho got enough to get flavour.
At end guide warned us cable car might not be running, and it wasn't. He said (and had told us while talking to us at a map display at start) there was a bus into town, but luckily after joining not-huge-but-not-tiny queue at cable car station the service started again.
In the second cable car journey (line K IIRC) coming back - the one where woman made comment about heat at start - the locals (at least native speakers; I suspect some were Colombian tourists not people living locally) were sort of chatting a bit and saying some stuff about foreigners bringing the coronavirus. I don't think this was aimed at me but I did feel a mild temptation to start coughing a lot. Almost as we got to the end of the line I sort of heard (I wasn't trying *hard* to listen in; I was half trying not to) some comments about "el solito" and I got the impression they were talking about and maybe *to* me but I didn't like to leap in and start saying stuff out of the blue if they hadn't, so I sort of made probably weird eye contact with one woman opposite and a few seconds later her friend sitting next to me tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I was local and I said I was a tourist and she asked if I was travelling alone and I said I was and was tempted to ask if they thought that was a bad idea but couldn't marshall the words and make a decision quickly enough. We got into station at that point and so although maybe I could have tried to talk to them some more I said goodbye and it was all very quietly amicable. A bit of a weird situation, not *bad*, but again I wish my Spanish was better, then I could have earwigged better in the car and maybe joined in and at least the last bit where I did speak would have been more fluid instead of me struggling to understand things.
So I came back to hotel to drop off bag and plastic poncho which I had been carrying since got into cable car at PA (it's maybe an hour for the total journey), knew I wanted food but dithered. In end found restaurant down 70 which had fried chicken which I had half been fancying, but I got a quarter of pollo asado instead since they had both. I originally and not making a Spanish error asked about half a chicken (no proper menu so was asking waitress) - I have eaten half a chicken and chips before, when hungry - but her mildly surprised reaction and suggestion of a quarter made me feel maybe half would be excessive, and it turned out quarter+chips+salad was 11k and I could get a juice in milk (I picked lulo) for 4.5k so I did that. Pretty decent, I probably could have eaten a half chicken but that was enough really. Tipped 3k, esp as did get salad undressed and it was a pretty substantial meal.
Have been washing the odd apple in tap water back at hotel over last few days and tho had half toyed with going to exito for water (practically opposite the restaurant) I did a bit of poking on web and have decided I will take a punt on the tap water here in Medellin. Not necessarily drinking gallons yet, but will have a bit.
So that's the chronology up to date. Let's have a bit of a slack off then maybe I'll do a bit of thinking about future plans and maybe scribble some stuff here as an aid to thinking.
2315 Been totally slacking. It's fine, did tiny bit of laundry. TBH thinking I may not "do" anything special tomorrow but perhaps just go for a walk round Laureles and have some coffee and mull etc etc.
Anyway. Let me just waffle a bit here re Spanish:
- as a random sample (someone I met at karaoke exchange last night was studying there) elefun want COP595k for a week=10h of private lessons. That is USD16.6/hour - and I only pay USD13/hour to my current private internet-based treacher. Obviously there is something to be said for being there in the flesh in terms of communicating with teacher, and also for studying *while* I am staying in a Spanish speaking country, but still. To give elefun credit, they do seem to allow you to book just a week at a time.
- obviously I could in theory do some private study, and I am going to get some benefit from the language exchanges here.
- in reality, am I perhaps *mainly* paying for being forced to do 10-20h or whatever a week rather than allowing myself to slack off and just do a few hours here and there?
- one downside to booking in for a course is that it's constraining. I couldn't easily go off to eg Guatape (assuming have got name right) for a couple of days mid-week. Of course I could go Fri afternoon and return Sun evening. Or if I were studying by the week (or longer, if planned) I could of course do "full time" classes for 3-4 weeks then revert back to "casual tourist mode" afterwards as I have been for the last week.
- of course studying full time burns up my time here, but if I want to do it and I think it's more helpful somehow than private study back home+internet classes then it's hardly a waste. I don't have any real "must do" items (though I would like to see El Penol, at worst that is a trivial *day trip* I could do one weekend regardless). Valle de Corcora (sp, from mem, based on a random web page I read) might be nice but I think I'd have plenty of time to go there even if I studied another 4ish weeks (modulo weather), but as long as I'm using my time semi-productively/entertainingly I don't think it really matters. I won't have VdC regrets on deathbed, plus it's quite likely I will be back in Colombia in the future. And of course *if* I can kick my Spanish up a notch (I am not sure if the study in Xela really helped or not, it is so hard to tell) that would feel really good *and* be helpful with future travels.
- doing classes *is* a bit like having a job, eg I could well be needing to get up at 8 Mon-Fri if classes were 9-1. But if it's for something I want to do I can live with that, as I did in Xela, and to be fair for better or worse most of the social activities I've seen here seem to be with people who don't stay out super late for one reason or another anyway.
- I feel a little pressure as classes are *probably* Mon-Fri and *just maybe* I could start Mon. But especially if I go 1-1, I could potentially start mid-week. And it's also the case that while I'd kind of rather not as I'd like to be here to try to get to know people at these lang exchange etc events, I *could* for example just continue touristing it up for the coming week with perhaps (making this up for example purposes) Tue-Thu nights away in Guatape before returning to Medellin for Fri night and start classes the following week.
- I think I would want to do *fairly* intensive classes, eg 9-1 every day - that's 4h a day or 20h a week. elefun (just going with them as a starting point) do *group* classes at that level for COP525k a week. Obviously I may well learn less in a group class, but it *may* also in some ways be helpful (from an educational, not social, perspective) as long as the group isn't huge. Thats £112.35 (spurious precision alert) so £22/day. That's not negligible but especially if I can continue to stay in this hotel or something similar at about £9/day it probably isn't busting the trip budget terribly, even before I start to possibly argue this is "education" or "hobby" spending and can be justified on those grounds. I suppose one way of looking at it is that I have about 6 weeks of the trip left. So maximum spend here using that elefun example price is £674; that is not negligible, but it is not a life changing amount of money even if I felt it was a complete waste (and if I were feeling that, I wouldn't be doing it continuously for six weeks).
- of course if I wanted to improve my Spanish on the cheap (without going back to check prices) the thing to do would probably be to go back to Guatemala (or maybe some other equally cheap country) and study there. But it may well be COL is actually lower here (probably not), and to some extent I *do* want to be in Medellin/Colombia right now and I quite like the social/lang exchange scene that seems to exist (Xela seemed a bit bleak at times socially) and it's a bit of a trade off.
- going back to the group class business, obviously 1-1 it is going to be in theory more focussed on me and I won't have to "waste" time while other students are eg speaking. But that may be no bad thing in terms of bringing the intensity down just a touch and making it more comfortable, and it may also be helpful to have some concepts reviewed in a class situation and hear other people's questions about the material and so on.
- I have to say I am leaning towards signing up for a no-other-commitment week of classes starting Monday and see how it goes. But I sure as fuck don't want to rush into this too much. On the other hand, it *may* be possible for me to sign up tomorrow afternoon to start Monday, depending how the admissions process works, but by tomorrow night it is *possibly* too late (though I could take a punt on turning up at my chosen school Mon morning and asking).
- elefun are actually *really* close to this hotel, as it happens. I feel fate sliding me over to them... I do after all have a single personal recommendation for them.
2359 Fuck it, I've emailed elefun on the offchance it's a small enough outfit (they have a gmail address for e-mail) they will reply - OK, just had an automated response saying they will not reply until school opens Monday, but it does say if you want to start classes for the coming week you need to be at the school at 815 on Mon for a level test. So I guess it *is* possible, I can sleep on this, perhaps follow my wander-plus-coffee-plus-mulling plan for tomorrow and just turn up at the school Monday morning if I decide to go ahead. I haven't shopped around re price but the location is good (assuming I can extend at this hotel for similar price as I have had up to now; I quite like this location really) and as I say I have had a personal recommendation and the price is certainly *OK*.
Sun 0157 Been slacking off on YT, could be worse. Bed I think. Actually a bit surprised it is so late!
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