Pictures from my trip to Medellín.
Category Archives: Trips
Medellín 2008: The food
Wikimedia Commons – Description = Bandeja Paisa – Source = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Banpaisa.png – Date = 12/16/06 – Author = Wikipedia Author F3rn4nd0 – Permission = Author released into public domain
Every time I come to Medellín it is mandatory for me to eat as many typical dishes as possible and this time it hasn´t been the exception.
These are the things I´ve been able to enjoy in the past few days:
- Picada (chorizo, chicharron, platain, arepa, beef, chicken, french fries: all mixed) at El Rancherito restaurant
- Sancocho with beef and chicken
- Ajiaco (thanks to my aunt Margarita)
- Mondongo (from the only restaurant I would ever eat a Mondongo: Mondongo´s)
- Arepa de huevo, arepa blanca, arepa de queso, arepa blanca redondita
- Sobrebarriga con hogao
This list will be updated soon with more dishes!
No worries, the Bandeja Paisa will be there!
Medellín 2008: Corralejas
Picture by Luis Pérez
A corraleja is a typical celebration from the Colombian coast regions where people gather in a place similar to a bullfight ring and fight several bulls. The difference with a bullfight is that there is no matador in corralejas, but anyone can jump in and fight the bull. And the bull is never killed. It is very dangerous and lots of people get injured. But you can stay off the ring and just watch the whole thing while you listen to a live band and drink alcohol.
Yesterday I went to a Corraleja with my friends from college and it was very fun to watch but also disturbing to see all these drunk guys fighting the bull and doing it for money or alcohol. They would ask the crowd for money after doing different dangerous tricks like jumping on top of the bull, and they will also show you their wounds and ask you for money to pay the hospital.
After the corraleja was over we went outside the ring and listened to a vallenato concert by Silvio Brito and stayed there until 11pm dancing and drinking more aguardiente. Finally a friend took me home and my sister was having a good bye party since she will be moving to Virginia next week to pursue a PhD.
Medellín 2008: The trip
It all started on July 30th at 3:30am when I get this phone call:
Me: “He…mfff…llo…bmgrrr?”
Cab driver: “Hello are you Mr. Jaramillo? I´m the cab driver and I´m waiting for you outside your house”
Me: “Dude! I asked for a cab for July 31st! You came 24 hours too soon!”
Cab driver: “Oh… errr.. crap!… sorry sir. I will cancel this service then”
Me: “No problem, just make sure you pick me up tomorrow at this time. Thanks.”
Ok that wasn´t really the start of the trip, but it was a funny story. By the way, if you ever need a great cab driver in Austin let me know and I will give you Fernando´s phone number.
It all REALLY started on July 31st at 3:30am when I get a phone call from my cab driver Fernando and he takes me to the airport. I got there at 4:15am and there was no line. Check-in and passing security was extremely fast. My first plane was Austin-Atlanta departing at 5:30am. In Atlanta I had a Donut and orange juice for breakfast and then at 10:30am took a plane from Atlanta to Miami. I got to Miami at 12:30pm and had pizza for lunch. In the past being at the Miami airport has been a nightmare bearable only because you can buy beer and walk around the airport with it, so I had one Heiniken for lunch, and then a Pacifico but I have to say that this time the airport wasn´t as crazy as other times.
Finally we got in the plane to fly to Medellín. The plane had some decorations related to the Feria de las flores which is the city festival celebrated once a year in early August. But that wasn´t all: the Avianca crew in charge of the flight had a few surprises for us the passengers. First they played Me voy para Medellín by El Combo de las Estrellas and then played La tierra by Ekhymosis (rock band from Medellín that Juanes used to be part of). Then they announced that Buchanan´s was sponsoring the fun factor in our trip, so they did a raffle and gave away t-shirts and a bottle of scotch and then gave scotch to all the passangers. Off course I had mine on the rocks. But the best thing came when we were about to land: instead of landing directly at the Jose Maria Cordoba airport located 30 minutes from Medellín when you usually don´t get to see the city, the pilot fluflew over Medellín for about 15 minutes at a not-very-high altitude where you could see all the main city landmarks like the Coltejer building, the Atanasio Girardot stadium, the old airport, the pueblito paisa, etc… it was a blast and at this point we were all singing, drinking, screaming, clapping! It was like being on a flying Chiva.
Anyway, that last part of the trip was a blast, and then seeing my family was even better. We stopped at Rancherito and had a picada and finally came home. I can´t wait to see what is next, but I´m having sancocho for lunch today!
Trip to New Orleans
Are you a really good brother or are you that stupid?
I must say that you have to be both, to drive from Austin to New Orleans by yourself to only stay four days (2 of which I spent driving). My sister went to New Orleans because The Acoustical Society of America was meeting at the creole city and I figured it was a good idea for us to meet over there. We stayed at a very well located hotel (The Chateau Dupré) right in the french quarter so we never had to drive anywhere. We walked the french quarter and the garden district, had good food at different places, visited the Lafayette cemetery, took the St. Charles Streetcar, had coffee and beignets at Cafe Du Monde and Hand grenades at Bourbon St.
Monterrey 2007
I spent most of last week in Monterrey, Nuevo León, México. The purpose of the trip was mainly to see the concert Me verás volver of Soda Stereo, one of my favorite bands ever. The concert was AMAZING! Check Marcos‘ blog for the chronicle and take a look at the official concert photos here and here.
Besides seeing Soda Stereo, we also went to the Fórum Universal de las Culturas 2007 at Parque Fundidora and saw the exhibition Isis y la serpiente emplumada (Isis and the Feathered Serpent), walked around the Macroplaza, went to the MUNE museum to see the Buddha: Guanyin exhibition, to the History of Mexico museum (my 3rd time there!), to the Marco museum to see the first Julio Galán exhibition after his death and to the Tecnológico stadium to watch the soccer game América vs Monterrey.
It was a great trip and you can see it by yourself.
Puerto Escondido
I can only describe this amazing trip to Puerto Escondido to Eva and Niv’s wedding in spanish.
Cómo describir lo vivido en Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, México en el Agosto de 2007, cuando los adjetivos se quedan cortos?
Una mezcla explosiva de Evas y Nives, de Mafaldas y Susanitas, Tequilas, Mazeltovs, y olas gigantes. De Dejarse Caer, de Tacos de Pescado, de Surfeada y de Michelada. De trencitas, de arena, de Arbojos, de cinturones improvisados, de anillos perdidos. De bailar hasta ampollarse, de beber hasta el tuétano y de reirse, reirse y reirse. Una oportunidad para abrazar viejos amigos y para hacer nuevos… Uno de los viajes más divertidos de mi vida.
Pictures available here.
August update
Blogs turn very lame when you dont post regularly. Recently I haven’t had anything exciting to write about, so my blog has been falling into the lame category. This post is just to summarize some of the things I have been doing recently or that I’m going to be doing in the near future.
Party, party, party
After coming back from New York, I’ve been going out a lot in Austin. I have too much fun going out with friends and last night was the first friday in a loooong time that I stay at home, and it wasn’t even because I didn’t wanted to go out, but because I could not get my friends to join me and I decided to stay at home and take it easy.
Moving to a new group at National Instrumenst
After being in the Integration Services group at NI for almost 6 years, I’m going to be transitioning to the System Configuration Services group around September. I’m very excited about the transfer because I’m going to have new challenges and opportunities ahead. This group develops the ‘Measurement & Automation explorer’ application which helps users configure NI’s software and hardward among other services.
NIWeek starts next week and it means listening to great keynotes, having breakfast at Las Manitas, meeting with friends that work in other NI branches but come to Austin for NIWeek and in general being excited to be part of NI.
Wedding at Puerto Escondido
My friend Eva is getting married in Puerto Escondido, Mexico and I’m traveling there between August 15-19. Marcos is not sure if he can come because he is waiting for some paperwork related to his green card process. I hope he can make it though.
Social networks is something that has been arround for a few years. I have accounts in hi5, friendster, mySpace, LinkedIn and recently signed in for Facebook. My experience with FB has been amazing. The website is very well done usability wise. Very elegant and simple, but powerful. I already have lots of friend connections and its great to know what is going on with their lives. Social networks are not meant to replace physical human interaction, but to enrich it. I highly recommend that you give it a try.
Yes, I’m an idiot. I didn’t purschased my ACL wristband on time and now I’m going to have to wait for a last minute deal, hoping that someone can’t make it and wants to sell the wirstband to me. This year’s line up is amazing: Björk, Queens of the stone age, White Stripes, Killers, Muse, Arctic Monkeys, Bloc Party, …
Soda Stereo one of my favorite rock bands in the world is doing a tour after their last tour ‘El Ultimo Concierto’ 10 years ago (1997). I’m going to see them live in Monterrey, Mexico on November 9th!
Start spreading the news
For the 4th of July weekend me and four friends (Alejandro, Andres, Luis and Raffaele) decided to go to New York city. We bought tickets with American and flu on wednesday with one stop at Raleigh (NC). We stayed at the Howard Johnson located in SoHo (Manhattan) and it was a good choice: cheap hotel with a great location.
The first night we had dinner at a Peruvian restaurant and then went bar hoping. Bars close at 4am in the morning in NYC so you get to visit many bars and drink many beers. That night my sister calls me and tells me that she is coming to NYC too!
The next day we walked around Chinatown, Little Italy, Central Park, 5th Avenue and Times Square, and latter that night I went out with Luis and with Luvi’s sister Erika. Luvi is a friend from my sister that I never got to meet personally.
On friday my sister joined us and we took a ferry to visit the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Then we walked around Wall Street, World Trade Center and TriBeCa. Later that night Luis’s friends Pachito, Jorge and Victor joined us at a club where Ana Maria, Isaac and her sister Maria Victoria joined us too.
On Saturday we went to Broadway st. to buy tickets for Les Miserables. Then we did more walking and visited the Apple store at SoHo, the toy store FAO, the Disney Store and then we went to see Les Mis show which was a very pleasant surprise. After that we had dinner at Little Italy and went early to bed… at 2am!
On sunday we were able to wake up at 9am and we split appart. I visited the MOMA museum and Greenwich Village with Alejandro, while Andres, Raffaele and Ana Maria visited the American Museum of Natural History. Later that night we went bar hoping again until 4am.
Monday was our last day at NYC. We had breakfast and took the Metro to La Guardia airport. The flight stopped again at Raleigh and Alejandro, Luis and my self almost missed the flight to Austin. They had already boarded everyone and closed the doors, and because Raffaele was inside the plane, we were able to call him and ask him to tell the flight attendants to let us in. It would have been really sucky if we had missed the flight.
Let the pictures tell the story all over again.
Volver
Volver,
con la frente marchita,
las nieves del tiempo
platearon mi sien.
Sentir, que es un soplo la vida,
que veinte años no es nada,
que febril la mirada…
Ok, lets not be drama queens: coming back to MedellÃn after less than one an a half years is not as dramatic as Carlos Gardel´s tango “Volver”. But I felt like singing and as a free piece of knowledge for today, let me tell you that Gardel died in MedellÃn when his plane crashed back in 1935.
This trip to MedellÃn has been great: I’ve been able to see family and friends. I had visited towns around the city that I hadnt visited since I moved to Austin. I got to be at Paola’s wedding at Fizebad and met her family and friends. And I got to show my hometown to my non-colombian friends which I believe left this country with a great impression.
As always pictures are worth a thousand words.
Check also Vanessa’s pictures and Paola’s pictures (ceremony and party).
No better way to end this post with a very paisa style phrase: MedellÃn es una chimba parce!