Goodbye Puerto Rico and Hello Colombia

The past few days have been a whirlwind.  I said my last goodbyes to my family and my brothers friends and spent my final night in a hostel in San Juan, expecting to keep it pretty tame due to my flight the next day.  Well, there happened to be a really good crowd of people at the Juan International Hostel, and post pizza party, thrown by the owner himself, they convinced me to go and shake my groove thing, and forgoe sleep.  Around 4am my cab driver almost slept through picking me up, but I was still able to get to the airport an hour and half ahead of time. Thank goodness cause I ran into a few issues, and almost was not allowed on my flight.  The people at the airport were very kind and helpful, and bent a few rules for me.  If you want to know me, ask me in person, I would rather not publish it on the internet and get anyone in trouble. =)

I make it to Colombia, and towards the end of my flight I started conversing with my nieghbor.  She is a wonderful woman, vice president of a major healthcare union in the United States, and is trying to helping poor workers in Colombia have a type of union support group without getting in trouble with government.  A bit of a sticky situation, but its wonderful that she keeps trying.  She was giving me advice, and trying to hook me up with a friend she has in Medellin when I tried to use the ATM and could not get my card to work.  She lent me 10,000 mil pesos, enough to take the shuttle into the city and then the metro to get to my hostel.  I just want to emphasize how kind people have been to me thus far.  The instant I left her and was looking around for the shuttle, a man notices my confused face, and immediately offers me help.  He explained my public transportation options, and left me off at the shuttle.  The shuttle driver made sure I some of the passengers that were walking to the metro went with me, and helped me find it.  Those two American men were extremely kind, taking me under the wing for 30 minutes, giving me advice, and helping me find my way.  We had to go seperate ways on the metro, because I had to switch lines.  As I was trying to figure out where to go, I almost accidently exited, and a Colombian lady, who overheard our questions to other Colombians about where I need to go, prevented me from going in the wrong direction and showed me the way.  She was getting off at the same stop to meet a friend.  The two Colombian ladies then wandered for about 10 blocks with me, trying to figure out exactly where the hostel was and would not leave me until I was safely in my hostel.  It has been wonderful.  The people are so kind here.  Everyone gives me their contact information in case I get in trouble and need help.  It is kind of crazy.  There simply is not this kind of kindness in the United States to complete strangers.  I have been told the people are either the most kind you will meet, or complete scammers.   I will have to keep my wits about me.

I cannot seem to figure out how to get my pictures on this computer, but I do have some pretty ones of the view from the hotel in Puerto Rico, and of me and my Dad just before he left.  I will try posting them next time.  It has been such an amazing week, getting to spend time with my friends and family prior to starting this trip.  I have hit a few snags in this trip, like my debit card, and issues in the airport, but everyone is so helpful that I am (thus far anyways) easily overcoming these obstacles.  Hopefully that will continue.  Life is good.  =)  I will write again soon.  (PS apologies if my grammar or spelling is terrible.  Everything is underlined in red because I am typing in English and not Spanish.  lol)

Pura Vida