I know a place where we can dance the whole night away...

...

They love to tell you stay inside the lines, But something's better on the other side...

Back home.


Or something like that.

just looking out your window at the world outside...

The time is winding down and I am already dreading tomorrow morning...

Ay ay ay aaaaaay que bonita es esta vida
y aunque no sea para siempre
si la vivo con mi gente
es bonita hasta la muerte
con aguardiente y tequila..

When everything's made to be broken, I just want you to know who I am...

Picking up with the gringos right where we left off has been one of the best parts of this vacation. My Paris girls and I always talked about how it would never be the same to go back to Paris without the same people there to go to "our" places together. Exactly the opposite is true of Colombia. Time stopped and my life here was waiting for me to slip right back into it. With only a few notable exceptions, everyone is still here, life goes on as it always has. I know it won't stay like this forever, but it will take more than a year for things to fade away completely.

I often fear that living abroad will turn into a dream once I return home and I will forget too many of the little parts of the experience that mattered the most. I am asked about Colombia on almost a daily basis, but usually need to sum it up with an overall generalization about what I great experience I had, what a beautiful country it is, how amazing the people are. Coming back here has reminded me of all the little nuances of the city and the culture - good and bad - that took a year to comprehend and to cement the bond that I have with this country. The memories weren't tucked away quite as far as I had feared.

Off to Bogota, where more amazing people await me, more priceless memories promise to be made...because it's Bogota, where everything has always begun and ended. Colombia needs to learn the beauty of low-cost airfare. My ticket from Barranquilla-Bogota cost as much as NYC-Chicago. This country is getting more and more expensive.

Feel the beat of the rhythm of the night
Dance until the morning light
Forget about the worries on your mind
You can leave them all behind
Feel the beat of the rhythm of the night...

what we had was so much more...

I woke up early from the hammock in Melissa's apartment, where I slept very well last night, rather than in the guest room on the rock hard bed that was actually in my apartment last year. The sun is shining over Barranquilla and I look out the windows to the view of the Magdalena River to one side, the Prado neighborhood - where all my friends still live - our frutera, our pool to the other.

By this time last year, I left, wanting so much more. My living situation was far from perfect and I felt restless, wanting to be challenged professionally in a way that I had never found with teaching. I loathed the routine of this city, where everyone knew everyone, our options for going out were limited, and I had all but run out of money to travel. It was time to shake things up. I was ready to move on, first to Bogota, then to New York.

I know that leaving was the right decision at the time, that I had reached a point where I was no longer happy, but it's so easy to come back and wonder why the hell I gave this all up. Countless facebook messages and emails over the past week have included the words "welcome home". I have let myself forget that this is only a vacation. A weekend at Tayrona with the gringos isn't vacation, it's just what we do. Este es mi vida.... este FUE mi vida. Melissa, Patrycja, Bartira and I went out for chuzo last night and joked, as we always do, about the oximoron that is comida rapida [fast food] in this culture. I have an easy day ahead of me of going to the spa for a facial and mani/pedi, buying a plane ticket to Bogota, coffee at Juan Valdez, dance class at BodyTech, and cooking dinner with friends. That was my life. I miss this culture, where things move slowly and easily. I am torn between two homes of the extreme, and right now I dread going back "home" to New York.

paradise, it ain't hard to find
just looking out your window at the world outside
paradise, it ain't far away
here in my head it's just another day
here in paradise

Who says you can't go home...

VISA. It's everywhere you want to be.

except Colombia.

Trying to buy an airplane ticket to get from Barranquilla to Bogota is proving difficult now that I no longer have a Colombian bank account and major credit cards don't sync with online payment systems here. ohhhh Colombia.

Being back here is so easy. So much easier than I ever expected. I know the system, the little intricasies of the culture that took a year to figure out, but that really are second nature. My espanol has come back without any effort.

I missed a culture where things are a little crazy, where you have to argue with the taxi driver to avoid getting screwed over. It doesn't matter that it's a difference of 1.000 pesos (~$.50), it's the principle of things, knowing how the system works and letting them know that you know how things roll around here.

The inside jokes have stood the test of time. I say pasame la botella and the gringos understand the reference. We hiked into Tayrona and I can anticipate the twists and turns of the path, where we need to hike over rocks and how much longer until the trail will open up to the gorgeous spread of ocean in front of us. When it comes to "domicilio-ing", I open the phone book and recognize all our favorite restaurants. It's all so familiar.

Time cast a spell on you, but you won't forget me...

No puedo creer que estoy aqui. Parece como un sueno. Estoy buscando cambios pero hasta ahora todo esta exactamente lo mismo.

I stepped off the plane and smiled to see the Colombian military and Tigo ads. It had been raining just before my flight landed, evident from all the roads in the south which were flooded, children splashing around in the mud. All of the little things that are so ordinary, and that make Barranquilla the pure beautiful craziness that it is struck me in the taxi ride from the airport into the city. I could do nothing more or less than soak it all in. Via 40, Exito, moto taxis, Junior jerseys, Aguila, donkey pulled carts of fruit, the gaudy brightly colored city buses, banderas, piles of rubble from broken down buildings that have probably sat there for years and will not be cleared away for years to come.

I walked passed my old apartment, stopped for juice at the frutera, and headed straight to the Prado to go for a swim. The hotel staff looked as if they had seen a ghost. The amount of time that the gringos spend chilling there put us on a first name basis with most of them. Colombian hospitality never fails as they told me how I had been away for awhile but it was good to see me back. I jumped in the deep end, clearing my mind of everything going on back home. I lay out my towel to soak up the rays alongside the pool and realized that I couldn’t remember the last time that I could PAUSE as much as I do in Colombia.

Stepping back into my old environment immediately made me realize just how drastically I have changed over the past year. The longer that I am back in the States, I find myself feeling more and more like a New Yorker…questioning if I could ever live anywhere else again, now that I have grown accustomed to having the world at my fingertips. Yet Colombia still holds a spell over me that I can't escape. Barranquilla is different from New York in every way possible. Two cities, on two different coasts, each defined by a drastically different type of chaos. Each presents an extreme foil of the other; the me I want to be is searching for the balance between the two.

The emotions are swirling, I try to digest them, and the only one that I can clearly identify is happiness, pure and simple.

Reflections of coming back will continue to develop…

Off to dinner at Crepes and Waffles!

mari-mari-mariposita....

so many f'ing butterflies...