Week 1: Bring on the Classes!

So I'm sitting here Monday afternoon after my first class, waiting to get ready to tutor and give a few classes tonight.  My first Spanish-language, three-hour seminar went pretty well... for those of you who know me at Pitt, I like to participate in class.  In Spanish, it's no different, just with a little bit of a language barrier.  However, as the topic was public policy, the professor pointed to me a couple times to explain how our system is a little different from the Colombian one.

Beyond that, I had to do some errands today.  One fun thing about Colombia is that apparently the visa isn't enough to be able to stay here more than three months:  in fact, you have to obtain an alien resident card (cédula de extranjería).  Fortunately, the international coordinators at UniAndes gave us a neat little list of things to pick up in order to facilitate the process, so I spent a good chunk of the afternoon moving back and forth between Chapinero to get what I needed.  On top of a pretty hefty money order, I had to get new passport pictures done and practically my whole passport relative to Colombia photocopied.  After it was all said and done, I lost a good chunk of change; however, if that's the most I have to spend here, I'll take it.

Today was an absolutely beautiful day here... upper-60's, partly cloudy, and a slight breeze as I walked to class this morning.  Once I'm totally accustomed to the air, this should be a pretty nice weekly routine.  I've been up since about 5:10 this morning, as I had a 7:00am class, so it was an early ride on the Transmilenio.  Though I didn't board at any "peak hour," I found myself crammed on a J bus on the way to school.  From about Calle 26 to the school (Calle 17), I thought for sure I was going to lose my backpack, as I had it low on my body and in my hand, crammed between at least two people.  Fortunately, however, nothing happened, and I made it to class about 10 minutes early.

Tomorrow I don't have class.  My schedule works out that I have two morning classes (Monday and Thursday, 7:00am) and one evening class (Wednesday, 5:00pm). Therefore, after getting my cédula, which I hope doesn't take long, I should have nothing to do.  I'm gonna have to try to find a laundry place, as I'm running low on clean clothes.  Apparently I missed the people who take the entire apartment's laundry and cleans it.  At any rate, I should be fine.  As long as I get my clothes back by Thursday, heck... I might even hike it up to the UniAndes gym after my Thursday class!  That's it for today:  talk to you all later!