Paola in Chicago!!!

Paola came to town and it was a wonderful experience. I came back from Austin on Tuesday morning and she got in that same afternoon. We had a great time; a bit to short, but I guess that’s way better than nothing.
It was cool to show someone “My City”, basically now that I know a lot more about it. I took her to a lot of my favorite places and we also did most of the touristy stuff… I discovered that showing someone a place that I love, like Chicago, gives me as much pleasure as going to a new place myself. It is the same that happens to me with presents: I like getting them just as much as I like giving them.
We had a very tied schedule, but we did almost everything that I wanted to do.


On Tuesday night we went for dinner to La Creperie, one of my favorite restaurants, then I gave her a short tour around the city and took her to Ethel’s, cause she loves chocolate, finally we went to Matilda, a bar that I like a lot!! On Wednesday we had a full day that stared at Lou Mitchell’s with a delicious breakfast, then the walk by the river, downtown all the way to millennium park and through grand park, to the lake, cause she wanted to be close to the water.


Then to State St. where I finally had the opportunity to introduce her to H&M, one of my favorite stores in Europe and which I have told her a million things about.


After spending two hours there, we rush to the Hancock building to see the sunset from the Signature Room and finally ended the day at Mia Francesca, which is an amazing Italian restaurant and where we had the best time of the whole visit enjoying some delicious food.


Oh, by the way, I discovered that Paola will never make it with me to Alaska, she is the worst person that I’ve ever seeing handling cold weather, she’s seriously bad at it… during the time that she spent here, she only wore my winter stuff, from boots to tides, gloves, sweaters etc, everything that a person needs to stay warm, but she didn’t, she froze all the time… and no one could ever say, that I don’t have good winter cloth, but it didn’t seemed to be enough to keep my poor friend warm!!!

TEXAS WITH CAMILO!!!

The trip was AWESOME; I almost have no words to describe that experience… it was to good!!! We did SO much stuff, that it was unbelievable.
The highlights of the trip: every single minute.
The lowlights: I’m sure I gained at least 3 kilos.
After arriving to Austin, Camilo gave me a quick tour and showed me some cool buildings, I also tried a “peanut butter empanada” which was in my opinion a great cultural mixture, the peanut butter is SO American and the empanadas are SO Latin… it was delicious. We met up with his parents and some of their friends (great people) for dinner, in a cool restaurant where we ate southern food. Then we went all together to a Cyril Neville’s concert, one of the Neville’s brothers from New Orleans. IT WAS GREAT!!!


Later on we went to a bar were there were people playing beach volleyball at midnight; obviously the weather was great too. We ended the night playing watchers at camilo’s friend, Ryan. On the way home, we stopped for hot donuts at 4 am (typical camilo’s tip)


On Saturday, we went to Mt Bonnell. The highest point within Austin City and got an amazing view of Town lake and Pennybacker or 360 Bridge , we went to Laguna Gloria, surrounded by beautiful grounds and an amazing amount of peacocks at Mayfield Park.




We rushed to see the sunset at the congress Av bridge, where 1.5 million bats (North American largest urban bats colony) come out from under the bridge giving an spectacular view and forming dense black columns that snake across the sky looking for food. After the show we went for dinner to a very nice Tex-Mex restaurant called Gueros and the best was to end the day swimming in the most beautiful natural pool called Barton springs at Zilker Park.



On Sunday we drove to San Antonio; saw the library, the Alamo and did the river walk, which is beautiful.


Dinner was at what could be my new favorite restaurant called Mi Tierra, open 24 hours and where we got the most delicious Mexican food at the most authentic place I’ve ever seeing. There where mariachis playing all over the place and there where colorful decorations everywhere.

On Monday we drove to Lockhart, a small town about 40 minutes away from Austin to get the REAL Texan Barbecue, which is not only delicious but impressive too. We went to a couple of different places, the Blacks and Kreuz, that way I got to try the different styles of meat and the tastiest and typical dessert call cobbler.Finally I had a shopping afternoon and got the real Lucchese, cowgirl boots, which are awesome. Shopping in Austin was a lot of fun; all along congress there are lots of unique stores where one can find all sort of weird things. My favorite store was electric ladyland, which is some sort of costume store.Well, after writing about all the great things that I saw in Texas, I haven’t said yet which was my favorite; Texas is the lone star state, they LOVE STARS and have them EVERYWHERE and I mean everywhere… on bridges and buildings, on the flag, the water hydrants, on the floor of the river walk, in the capitol… EVERYWHERE I LOVED MY TRIP!! And I REALLY liked what I saw of Texas thank to Camilo and his family!!!
Click HERE for more pictures!!

RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD!!

Taoism: Shit Happens.
Hare Krishna: Shit Happens Rama Rama Ding Ding.
Hinduism: The Shit Happened Before.
Islam: If Shit Happens, Take A Hostage!
Zen: What Is The Sound Of Shit Happening?
Buddhism: When Shit Happens, Is It Really Shit?
Confucianism: Confucius Say “Shit Happens.”
7th Day Adventist: Shit Happens On Saturdays.
Protestantism: Shit Won’t Happen, If I Work Harder.
Catholicism: If Shit Happens, I Deserve It.
Jehovah’s Witness: Knock, Knock, “Shit Happens.”
Unitarian: What Is This Shit?
Mormon: Shit Happens Again & Again & Again...
Judaism: Why Does This Shit Always Happen To Me?
Rastafarianism: Let’s Smoke This Shit!

like in the old times...

Chris and I had a very nice weekend, just like in the old times in Berlin. Trying new things, exploring cool places and basically and most important, getting along REAL WELL !!

On Friday night we went for dinner to Fogo de Chao, which is an amazing Brazilian - Gaucho restaurant. We've wanted to eat that for a long while, we’ve been talking about it since we were in Berlin. Well, his parents gave him a gift certificated (typical American present) for his birthday for that restaurant and he decided to use it with me!! (lucky girl) We ate so much, that it was hard to walk afterwards, everything was VERY good and we really enjoyed the evening. They had 11 different kinds of meat and he tried them all. The best part for me was that instead of normal bread, they had mini pan de yucas. I couldn’t believe it and I ate A LOT of those, I love them and that is SO COLOMBIAN that I haven’t have one in forever…

On Saturday, after a long work day, we went and met AD (Chris’s friend) at the Chicago Horror film festival, where we saw a couple of good movies, a documentary about vampires and the worst magic show ever.
On Sunday, we went to Starved Rock State Park, to see the colored leaves and it was very beautiful, we had a really good time!!

The park, derives its name from a Native American legend of injustice and retribution. In the 1760s, Pontiac, chief of the Ottawa tribe upriver from here, was slain by an Illiniwek while attending a tribal council in southern Illinois. According to the legend, during one of the battles that subsequently occurred to avenge his killing, a band of Illiniwek, under attack by a band of Potawatomi (allies of the Ottawa), sought refuge atop a 125-foot sandstone butte. The Ottawa and Potawatomi surrounded the bluff and held their ground until the hapless Illiniwek died of starvation- giving rise to the name “Starved Rock.”

6. why would you ring the door bell ... ever?

Last night I got in BIG trouble for stopping by at a friends house and ringing the doorbell.I first called, no one answer the phone… so I thought, I might as well stop by… VERY NORMAL COLOMBIAN THOUGHT. Well, that’s NOT the case here. If no one answers the phone, that means this it is NOT a good time. But my stupid thought process was: maybe he fell asleep or didn’t hear the phone!!!Before leaving Colombia, I wasn’t used to announcing my visits to my friend’s houses ever. Living in Europe I understood that things were much more formal and less natural or spontaneous. I remember having a conversation with Marcelo about this topic while living in Berlin. Apparently, here its the same way as in Europe.Well, in any case, I understood my lesson; I need to pay attention to the signs, which I didn’t do. If it isn’t a good time to answer the phone, much less would it be a good time to open the door…

My Blues Experience!!

When I moved to Chicago and based on the kind of stuff that we used to appreciate and do while traveling together, I was sure that Chris was gonna show me A LOT of cool stuff in this city. But to my surprise, was Camilo who ended up “REALLY” introducing to me the GREAT city of Chicago!! Every time we hang out, I end up seeing amazing places, restaurants, doing pretty cool things and learning about all sorts of not only Chicago, but also American traditions.
The past weekend was a great example of it. Knowing how important blues is for this city, I was waiting to have the possibility to listen, understand and learn about it. Well, on Saturday I had the amazing opportunity to attend a private concert with VIP tickets of one of the biggest legends of blues in Chicago and five time Grammy winner, Buddy Guy. That was already pretty cool, but the best part was that the concert was at the Chicago History Museum (where Camilo works at), which was reopening after months of closure for restoration. So I also got to see all the exhibits before they open to the public on Sunday with private tour guide and all sorts of anecdotes and very interesting explanations.

The concert was AWESOME, Buddy, who obviously makes part of the blues gallery at the museum, gave us a very special show. In which he decided to have a walk while singing trough the crowd and gave me the possibility of taking this REALLY close pictures of him and feel even more how much he feels his music, which by the way is BEAUTIFUL.


I got the best taste of blues that I can imagine and a gigantic appreciation and respect for it.

Being able to see the museum without people in it was a lot of fun, it is a GREAT museum, without a doubt the best I’ve seen until now in this city. There is obviously a lot of history, but also some very cool interactive galleries, where I got to be a Chicago hot dog, created my own Chicago postcard and ride a very old bicycle.

During the weekend, I also got to go to a couple of great restaurants, hung out with some new people and play once more Texas hold’em, which is always fun!!