We didn't like our new teacher as much as Juan. She was much more bubbly, but I think that was a symptom of the disorganization in her head about the material. She had interesting activities on how to improve our Spanish - like finding an article in Spanish and reciting a summary in Spanish - but I am more into the traditional way of learning conjugation. Give me the rules, give me some examples and then ask me questions to see if I got it. The extracurricular activity that would make us learn is conversation on the fly and not writing out an essay in the comfort of one's home and later read out to people. When we used our Spanish out and about in the city, we didn't have a dictionary and a paper with which to plan out our questions of "Are there onions in this empanada? Can you take them out? What beers do you have on draft? Do you use chicken breast or chicken thighs in your enchilada?"
After class, we decided to get a quick lunch and came across our Australian classmate Alistair. He had 1 hour to kill before he took his salsa lesson and asked if he could join us. He is an older guy and happens to be in Colombia for contractual work. Michael pegged him as a weird cat, but he was kindhearted nonetheless and made for interesting conversation. He had been in Colombia for months at that time and he himself had mixed feelings.
New(er) University
After lunch we went to EAFit ("ee-fit"), another university that had a Masters in Law program. A quick Uber ride took us through neighborhood west of Parque Lleras that seemed nice to live in! It seemed all housing options were apartments, but the several people walking around looked kind and neighborly. We envisioned what it would be like while Michael went to school at EAFit and it didn't seem like treacherous living.
At first glance, the university looked much more recently constructed.
Based on all the stiles, it appears there are a lot of students at EAFit
Despite the sunny weather when we got there, a torrential downpour plagued us the rest of the visit. Running from canopy to canopy in attempts to find the law building, we came across interesting sights.
Art or Landscaped Lounge?
What is this?
Water and food for the university cats?
Awesome water fountain!
Insert in your mouth or in your water bottle!
A lot of construction happening at EAFit.
In the background are the apartments we had seen.
Their food court was so clean!
The entirety of the school was clean and that very much appealed to Michael. He preferred EAFit over UdeA just because of the cleanliness. I asked about the quality of education and he thought it was more important to get connections. In all honesty, Bogota was going to give him better connections than Medellin. I however had been more excited about Medellin than the country's capital, so he wanted to check out its universities to weigh the options properly.
Sushi!
After our field trip, we returned home and rested. That night we visited Basilica again and this time I had sushi. This particular restaurant didn't offer nigiri (rectangle fish over rectangle rice) so I opted for a salmon roll with cream cheese. In America, the standard roll that comes with cream cheese will have a big honkin' chunk of cheese to accompany the fish. Not in Colombia. The different portions gave me the impression that cheese was a precious commodity and that there was a surplus of rice. I barely tasted the cheese because it was spread so thinly on one side! The rice was not only too much that it overpowered the fish, but it was also too sweet. Sushi rolls seemed to be a sweet and salty experience in Colombia. I hoped that it was just Basilica that interpreted Japanese food as such and resolved to try more sushi at other restaurants.
Where's the cheese?
No comments:
Post a Comment