Well, we made it. With all our luggage I am happy to report. We have had a very busy first 48, so now I will attempt to start from early Friday morning to explain how it has all transpired.
Here is the email that went to family Friday evening:
We are here/home.
Due to my lack of exhaustion and culture shock this is going to be an email written in bulleted phrases.
-Sarah woke up at 3 am this morning to begin watching coverage of the Royal Wedding. Totally worth seeing that breath-taking dress, but adding to my exhaustion.
-Got to the airport at 6am. Approached airport security at 7:45 am. Our luggage was a bit of a debacle. Special permission from managers was needed to take the additional baggage, so on, so forth. Thankfully, Josie, the woman helping us is from Bogota and loved that we were moving to Cartagena. I am happy to report each and every bag made it.
-In Panama we learned that Subway does not have the same fresh ingredients worldwide.
- You know those people that complain about Spanish being spoken in the United States... I think they should spend a day in a foreign country when signs/directions/etc. are not translated to English. Then watch them complain.
-We become completely confused when they were preparing to board the flight from Panama to Cartagena. No English. And everyone just stood in line. No rows or sections called. Just line up. Thankfully a nice American explained this to us and then we discovered he works with Matt.
-Misty, they serve free booze on the Panama to Cartagena flight. Not sure how that works out but Matt saw people ordering whiskey, wine, beer, no pesos or cards pulled out. Sarah was sleeping. Missed that opportunity.
-The baggage people thought we were on their honeymoon and that was why they had so much luggage. We tried to explain we moved here, we live here. Need to continue getting Rosetta Stoned.
-We took 2 full size extra row vans to get to the hotel. 1 for our luggage. 1 for us.
-Sarah will never ever be driving in Cartagena.
-It was neat to finally get to see our new "home"- the city itself. Being surrounded by the water is amazing. It's hot. But it cools down at night.
-Our luggage/life takes up a lot of space in our standard sized room. We haven't started unpacking yet because we couldn't figure out the Internet. No wireless in the room. Ethernet cord not working. Currently a tech is working on that....can you imagine? No Internet in the room. This is written from the lobby.
-TV. I got some CNN in English, lifetime network (liv here) that is spoken in English with Spanish subtitles as well as some channels that show some CSI episodes.
I think that's all we got. We plan on doing some exploring tomorrow, so hopefully we will have some pictures to share and then do some phone calls/skyping in the next week.
Have a great weekend!
Love you.
Sarah&Matt
Due to my lack of exhaustion and culture shock this is going to be an email written in bulleted phrases.
-Sarah woke up at 3 am this morning to begin watching coverage of the Royal Wedding. Totally worth seeing that breath-taking dress, but adding to my exhaustion.
-Got to the airport at 6am. Approached airport security at 7:45 am. Our luggage was a bit of a debacle. Special permission from managers was needed to take the additional baggage, so on, so forth. Thankfully, Josie, the woman helping us is from Bogota and loved that we were moving to Cartagena. I am happy to report each and every bag made it.
-In Panama we learned that Subway does not have the same fresh ingredients worldwide.
- You know those people that complain about Spanish being spoken in the United States... I think they should spend a day in a foreign country when signs/directions/etc. are not translated to English. Then watch them complain.
-We become completely confused when they were preparing to board the flight from Panama to Cartagena. No English. And everyone just stood in line. No rows or sections called. Just line up. Thankfully a nice American explained this to us and then we discovered he works with Matt.
-Misty, they serve free booze on the Panama to Cartagena flight. Not sure how that works out but Matt saw people ordering whiskey, wine, beer, no pesos or cards pulled out. Sarah was sleeping. Missed that opportunity.
-The baggage people thought we were on their honeymoon and that was why they had so much luggage. We tried to explain we moved here, we live here. Need to continue getting Rosetta Stoned.
-We took 2 full size extra row vans to get to the hotel. 1 for our luggage. 1 for us.
-Sarah will never ever be driving in Cartagena.
-It was neat to finally get to see our new "home"- the city itself. Being surrounded by the water is amazing. It's hot. But it cools down at night.
-Our luggage/life takes up a lot of space in our standard sized room. We haven't started unpacking yet because we couldn't figure out the Internet. No wireless in the room. Ethernet cord not working. Currently a tech is working on that....can you imagine? No Internet in the room. This is written from the lobby.
-TV. I got some CNN in English, lifetime network (liv here) that is spoken in English with Spanish subtitles as well as some channels that show some CSI episodes.
I think that's all we got. We plan on doing some exploring tomorrow, so hopefully we will have some pictures to share and then do some phone calls/skyping in the next week.
Have a great weekend!
Love you.
Sarah&Matt
So, that was Friday. It was an intense and long day. We woke up after a full nights sleep after that and a calorie burn we went to our first Colombian breakfast. Fruit, phenomenal... so fresh. We also had some delish Colombian coffee. This idea of fresh fruit and black coffee each morning, I can totally get used to. And with our views, I plan on enjoying both of these on the patio looking at this:
After breakfast, we unpacked what we assumed was necessary for the next 4 weeks and ventured out into our city. It is warm, within 15 minutes my washed, blow dryed, straightened hair was up in a bun.
There are vendors all over, who approach you speaking Spanish, but leave you alone with an ignore or No Gracias. There are loads of places to eat, all different cuisines. I spotted some Nike & Addidas stores as well as a Tommy Hilfiger and Lacoste. Matt and I came upon some grocery stores (Yes, I will be shopping at a grocery store, not a mercado). Matt and I spent some time walking around and seeing what they had to offer. Matt felt a little piece of home when he spotted this:
I was also very captivated by the produce section. There was a whole lot of these:
There were some differences that I was not so comfortable with. At this particular grocery store all the raw meat was out in the open, as in anyone could walk by, sneeze, touch, grab, smack, spit on the red meat. Fish was the same way. I made a mental note not to by any meat products from this grocery store. Our walk took us along many more roads where we experienced the need for balance
There don't seem to be a lot of "rule of the road" in Cartagena, people drive the wrong way down one ways, pass in no passing areas, and are all over the place. We had to walk down this very narrow sidewalk as huge buses, both of the public transportation type, and open air party buses that are constantly running. This definitely made for an exciting walk through the town.
We found another grocery store in the Boca Grande area that was extremely nice. More like a Whole Foods and no, their meat was not out in the open. We got some fresh fruit from this grocery store and finished out our 3 hour walk.
(this is our hotel from the street)
After resting up, Matt's co-worker stopped by and invited us out for some cervesas, dinner, and Rugby watching. There are some Irish men on this job site who are very passionate about their rugby. Matt and I were happy to join them. We had such a lovely evening and I had the opportunity to meet and chat with 2 adorable girls who accompanied their boyfriends to South America. They shared their war stories and what they have learned thus far. I can't believe how lucky I got to meet some amazing cohorts so early in this adventure, so thank you to those of you sending all your positive thoughts and energy our way!
We enjoyed the drink, food, and especially the conversation. As we prepared to leave and said our goodbyes Matt had a strange look about him. I asked if he was okay and he responded, "Yeah, I'm fine." Then, the color drained from his face, he bobbled a bit, and fell to the ground. Yep, my husband passed out. People rushed around him, got some water, and asked me about some pre-existing medical conditions. He came to, drank some water, got up to leave, and repeated the same act all over again. Finally after some drinks of water, he was okay and we all tried to come up with some reasons for this dramatic medical act. This has never happened to Matt before, so we chalked it up to some dehydration (???)
I happy to report my husband is completely healthy.
Tomorrow we are off to register our visas, open a bank account, and hopefully begin touring some apartments.
Our adventure has begun...
( Fact: Blogger is now acknowledging my South American location, so using Spanish terms while creating posts. Spell check: everything I wrote is highlighted as incorrect. Except numbers, names, and blogger. So this is my disclaimer.
I apologize for any misspellings.)
No comments :
Post a Comment