first week of Venezuela

Hola mis amigos!

I have almost officially been in Venezuela for one week & I could not feel better here. I feel that part of me really belongs in South America. It will be considered for one of my potential future living places for sure, it makes the list. I have a lot to update you about so just strap in and imagine Venezuela just like how I feel it. You can never fully feel the energy of a location unless you go there & I really highly recommend visiting Merida. My pictures won't do justice but just believe me when I say that Merida is really something special and MUCH MUCH different that my quaint hometown of Elmhurst. I currently am sitting on my bed in my host family's house listening to letra de solito by los cadillacs and recovering after my weekend camping trip to a hot spring that is in the mountains.

I'm going to start at the beginning. We arrived here late monday night and let me tell you monday was a very very long day of traveling and probably the worst day of the week for me. All my lack of sleep before my departure to Venezuela and all the energy that went into preparing what to bring gave me the worst sore throat on Monday. When I arrived in Miami on Sunday night it was already 7:30pm and I ended up just talking to nice girls named Amy and Kayla and then going to sleep for my 7:00am flight. We all got up 3:45am and shuttled over to the airport at 4:30am only to wait for 2 hours and buy some breakfast. Venusa, the coordinating organization for the study abroad trip to Venezuela, told us that with international flights we need to get there at least 3 hours earlier. South America has no set time schedule and even its airports tend to change its flight times spontaneously, True. A group of American students primarily from the midwest waiting for 2 hours and not even being able to exchange dollars to bolivares, unecessary! That was just the beginning to a day that consisted of 2 flights, one from Miami and Caracas and then from Caracas to El Vigia, and then a 2 hour bus ride from El Vigia to Merida. The entire time I began to dip my toe in the pool of spanish language saying things such as "Gracias, no lo necesito" and "con permiso" to the spanish-speaking flight attendants.


My host mother and her friend picked up my roomate and I from the school in Venezuela called Venusa late Monday night once we arrived. My roomate's name is Krista Johnson and she has blonde hair and blue eyes. She grew up in rural Minnesota and attends the U of M studying Spanish Portugese and French. My host family consists of Maen, my Venezuelan mother who is a lawyer and teacher at ULA, Alvaro, my adopted father, Carolina, their 28 year old daughter who is married and no longer lives here, Jose, their 22 year old son who is studying physical education, and Alvaro jr. who plays the violin, their 18 year old youngest son. The family is extremely welcoming and my Venezuelan mother feeds Krista and I very traditional Venezuelan food. A lot of arepas, empanadas, fried eggs, and juice. I really have been loving the Venezuelan food but it is an extremely meat heavy culture and most of it is fried. I would have hoped that fruit is more popular here to eat at meals because I miss eating a ton of fruit all the time. When I told my host brothers that I am a vegetarian they replied "En Serio!?!". It is hard for many people here to understand my motives for NOT eating animals haha, just a very different culture. Krista and I stay in an apartment that is conveniently only 15 minutes away from Venusa, our school. We have our own bathroom and each have a twin size bed. I noticed that there are no clocks or mirrors anywhere in the apartment besides the bathroom. Small insects are all over the house because in Venezuela they don't put screens in their windows. I really don't mind the bugs at all it is just when a bigger bug leaks in I get a little uneasy and make Krista kill it. She usually does kill it as long as it isn't a spider because she has an intense phobia of spiders. One quick side note to the doors in Venezuela, they are a mind game! Since we live in an apartment we have to enter two outer gates and then the gate outside of our door and then finally our door. The first time we had to open all four doors by ourselves we had gone to a Venezuelan Bar called poco loco and not even exaggerating it took us 45 minutes to open on of the doors. And it isn't just us, at least 4 other people who are in different houses have commented on the Venezuelan doors. I really love my adopted 6 week family but I hope to be able to spend more time with them during my last 5 weeks. Maen and Alvaro and their 2 sons all sleep and live in one apartment and we are in a completely separate space across the hall and Diego, one of Alvaro jr.'s friends also lives in our apartment. So needless to say I see my host mom but there has been little collective family activity, which is fine because Krista and I both had a super packed first week and each member of the family seems very busy with different activities.

Upon our awakening on tuesday we went to Venusa and underwent several orientations which ended in a beautiful tour of the city of Merida. The highlight of the tour was when we went to a heladeria close to the plaza that is in the Guiness World Record for having the biggest selection of ice cream flavors. A girl named Zoe got bean and rice ice cream. I kept it safe with vanilla chip y galletas. We also saw an incredibly immaculate and ginormous Cathedral that had extensively meticulous designs. Let it be known that the group of kids that are on this program from the United States is about 40 45 kids so we heard the word Gringos A LOT especially when our huge American group travels anywhere together with our back packs, and shorts, and flip flips. One of the program coordinators Hector said something that I found to be funny, he said that to a Venezuelan flip flops = an American with money who can't run away. Also they are not lieing about piropos, or cat calls, when American girls walk outside we DO hear whistles, honks, phrases in spanish, and miscellaneous spanish words. Krista and I made the mistake of both wearing shorts and tank tops one night to walk to a nearby plaza and of course 2 blondies with a lot of skin showing will attract more attention than normal. We at the time were running low on clean jeans and were fed up with sweating through pants but Oh My Gosh 5 seconds after we walked away from the outer gate we heard whistles and cat calls, and they didn't stop until we were safely back inside after we got ice cream. We were even told an I LOVE YOU from a very fast passing car on the street.

After all of the introductions we all went to a local bar called poco loco on tuesday night where we drank Solera, danced salsa and got really sweaty! I met a nice man named Jesus who lives in North Carolina but is from Venezuela. At all of the bars and clubs here they play their music ridiculously loud so any conversation ends up being a shouting contest in spanish. Much of this past week I lost my voice from the combination of beer and speaking ridiculously loud in attempts to compete with the music. I was told on several occasions that I both spoke spanish very well and danced well. No surprise there. It was very interesting because there is a lot of American music in Venezuelan night life and depending on if you go to a bar or a club you will hear reaggetone, rap, tambores, rock, or traditional salsa/merengue music.

My wednesday and thursday I attended my 3015 spanish class from 1:30pm-7:30pm and in that class my teacher does not speak one word of english. I feel very confident in my speaking skills and even though I can't pick up everything when she starts to speak fast I love the full immersion and the distance away from the english language. I get frustrated and mentally tired sometimes of listening to entirely spanish but I really am learning a lot and it is very effective. I have a very long class schedule but it's nice not having to rush early in the morning. Wednesday night we had some salsa lessons at the school after our classes then we took those lessons to a club called cucaracha. The clubs in Venezuela are surreal. Everybody is dancing and the drinks are usually cheap. I love dancing at all of the clubs and bars because for me I feel like there is more energy in the culture.

I think the most epic part of this entire week for me was the weekend. We only have classes four days a week and so on friday we went on a hike up the mountains. We took a bus for about 2 hours and stopped twice at little Venezuelan shops and restaurants and to take pictures and proceeded to a lake. I don't remember the name of the lake but we went to a lake that was near lago negra and from lago negra we hiked about 3 hours to another lake. Let me just say that walking through the natural surrondings is amazing. You see wild horses and the clouds are reflected in all of the lakes while in general it's as if you can breate easier. I really can't go very far to try and explain what hiking in the mountains felt like, hopefully the pictures that I will post will do a little bit of justice.

After an entire week of fighting a sore throat and stuffy nose and after all the hiking in the mountains I was pooped Friday. I stayed in and readied myself for my departure saturday morning to a camping trip at a hot spring in the mountains. Just a side note Venezuelans NEVER tell you the whole story, ever, and they have no time schedule. We all met at a grocery store at 10:00am Saturday morning to buy food for the weekend and we did not end up leaving Merida for the hot springs until 1:00pm. It seems ridiculous but it just is that way in Venezuela, punctuality is not valued nearly as much as in the United States. I am still getting used to the slower way of life yet I can't help getting annoyed when somebody walks extremely slow in front of me, it's just the Chicago in me. Anyways we took jeeps up the mountain with all of our backpacks and a ton of sleeping bags and tents and then we stop at a point and have to hike the last 30 minutes to get to our camp site. I was wearing sandals, SANDALS. And everybody had to carry firewood, tents, their mat and sleeping bag, our own backpacks so basically we were pack mules and about to hike 30 minutes to our camp site. This is the part when what I mentioned before about Venezuelans not telling you the whole story comes in. Our large American group starts the trek to the campsite only to learn that we literally have to walk on the edge of cliffs carrying a ton of crap and with some people in SANDALS, like me! I'm not kidding there were many moments during that hike that I was definitely scared and I got even more scared when I looked to my left and saw the long fall down the mountain that I would have taken had I lost my balance. In retrospect that hike was incredibly epic and the most dangerous I have ever taken in my entire life and I loved that I did it but I would have liked some freakin' mental preparation. The actual camping was incredibly amazing and it was actually my very first time formally camping somewhere. The view of the Andes and the clouds from the camp site and the hot springs was beyond breathtaking. With a group of 23 young people and limited supervision there was a bit of craziness but details need not be disclosed. I felt bad for a couple people because they got food poisoning and altitude sickness and were not happy campers because they ended up being sick all night.

Today, Sunday, Krista and I just stayed around our host house upon our return and went to get some ice cream. My first week was amazing and I feel that I filled my quota of exploration of Merida. I can't wait to find out what this next week will bring me....