Well, I´ve wanted to visit Colombia for several years now, and have finally done it. Some of you may find this account kind of long, but I'll just tell about the trip as I remember it and add observations along the way. Some of this may seem a bit disjointed or prolix, and the chronology of events is somewhat inverted, but I was unable to get to a computer until a few days after, so pardon me if I seem to ramble.
I was in between assignments at work, and spending over $100 a day to hang around Atlanta. It looked like the next assignment was over a week away, and it would have cost about $800 to fly home to Seattle and back. I considered going to a Christian conference in Mexico, but the chosen location for October was Cancún. Since Cancún sounds like a really touristy city, I decided to wait until a similar conference was held in a more remote, more authentically Mexican city-- thank God for that choice, as hurricane Wilma trashed Cancún the very weekend I would have been there. Since don Pablo had been inviting me for some time to come visit him in Medellín, and he helped me get an excellent airfare, I decided to do that instead.
My principal interest in visiting Colombia was to see how different it was from my experience of Brazil: although I had several girlfriends in Brazil, it seemed that in general the girls who were interested in me and the girls I was interested in were two different groups. I wanted to see what would happen if I just showed up, what kind of reception/response I would get, and how different the two cities would be for me.
The short answer to that is, it was about half and half: the women in Medellín were more receptive and interested than in Florianópolis, and I probably could have been more outgoing myself. Going out with Pablo and also meeting women by myself, I recalled a number of green lights that I had passed up in Floripa. For me, Medellín was far better because I really like the true Latina look that paisas have more than the look of most brasileiras, and I definitely attracted more attention in Medellín than in Floripa. Given the largely white racial makeup of Floripa, during my first week there people were stopping me on the street to ask me directions because I just blended right in. In Medellín, I stuck out like a sore thumb.
Just before my trip, I took the Myers-Briggs personality test (www.capt.org) in order to help me find a good long-term career, now that I'm not running a burrito joint in Brazil. From beginning to end, the description of my profile (INFP) was eerily accurate, almost as if someone had been spying on me and reading my mind. One aspect of this description that stood out in my mind during my time in Colombia was: "For INFPs the dominant quality in their lives is a deep-felt caring and idealism about people. [...] Their caring, warmth and deep valuing of relationships are also difficult to communicate to others and may not be immediately apparent to people in their lives. INFPs may even appear a bit cool or aloof from the outside, though they would be surprised that others experience them in this way, given the warmth and loyalty they feel on the inside." The representative who went over my results with me gave as an example of how I might need to compensate for this tendency that in a job interview I should make more of an effort to show enthusiasm for the job, or else I could give the impression that I'm maybe a little bored and not all that interested in the position. I got to thinking, that probably also means I need to make more of an effort to show that I'm interested in a particular woman as well, since I don't naturally transmit that. Funny, after a night out with Pablo and a lady friend, he asked her while taking her home, "Any chicas you think we could introduce Teo to?", and she said, "I don't know; he's so... *serious*." Which was kind of funny, because I don't see myself that way at all. Understanding this about myself also helps me be less judgemental of other people that I perceive to be aloof, and to be more accepting of the natural differences in people's personalities.
While I have come away from Colombia with a very positive impression and plan to return many times, an unexpected result of this trip is that I also came away kind of soured on the whole Gringo Trail atmosphere I saw, which I will get to later.
I arrived in Medellín Wednesday night two weeks ago and took a taxi to El Puesto de Pablo. We had been e-buddies for a couple of years at least, and this was the first time we met in person. We went out that night to an area of Medellín called Parque Lleras, which is the see-and-be-seen area of upscale restaurants. The joke is that it will soon be called Parque Gringos, for reasons you can guess. We saw and were seen by many pretty chicas there.
The next morning, while Pablo was getting ready for a trip back to Gringolandia, I sat down at his computer to take a quick look at my email. Latinas kept popping up in his Messenger to say hi to him, and rather than ignore them I told them I was a friend of his and he was busy. He has quite the network, and I wound up chatting in Spanish with several of them. One of them was a bogotana writing from Columbus, Ohio, and we had a fun conversation. She said something about how she was having a hard time dating Gringos, and I made some joke about how, yeah, we Gringos are a pain, or somesuch. She responded, but you're not a Gringo! I thought that was a nice compliment, and wrote to her in English to prove that I am. Paul saw who it was and told me she was worth meeting, so we carried on for a while, with me doing some cocky&funny and she loved it and told me she wanted to meet me. I told her I get all over the country and would undoubtedly pass through Columbus sooner or later and would call her. The next day the boss emailed me to tell me I would be picking up my next client in... Columbus, Ohio, where in fact I'm spending the entire week. ¡El mundo es un panuelo-- lleno de mocos! Columbus is a remarkably nice city. I've met up with this lady several times now, and got her tickets to see my clients perform tomorrow night. I also had lunch with L4W, who is not L4W anymore, but EW4FTBW (Eagerly Waiting For Fiancée to Become Wife).
A gorgeous young model came over to El Puesto de Pablo for a photo shoot--tough job he has--and he introduced us. Funny thing, it was obvious she had some interest in me, but still stuck in Gringolandia thinking, my first thought was, no way, she's too pretty for me, out of my league. Pablo corrected me later, saying that with enough time in Medellín I could have anything I wanted. She gave me her phone number and email, but I didn't follow up. The fact that she's a model and has had a boob job are a couple of things I want to stay away from, because they suggest a fixation on looks and a possibility of being high-maintenance. A woman can be as flat as Florida for all I care, as long as whatever she's got is natural.
Pablo and I went out to do some shopping and sightseeing around town, and he introduced me to several paisa and gringo friends. He took me to meet a nice girl he knows, kind of average looking but whose personality makes her a 10. I was particularly interested in her because when I think of how I would want myself and other people to admire my wife, I would want her qualities of honesty, cheerfulness, sweetness, etc. to stand out, not that she's "hot"; and "Aracely" seems like just that type. In fact, according to Pablo that is the impression she leaves both on long-time co-workers and on people who have just met her. We made tentative plans to go to lunch, but never got around to it during my visit.
In order to take advantage of my time off from work and local prices, I went to an optical shop to get my prescription checked ($9) and had new lenses made for my glasses (total about $50 with exam). I then met up with Pablo for lunch at Crepes&Waffles-- great restaurant chain, by the way. He wanted to show me just how easy it is too meet girls in Medellín, so when a couple of pretty universitarias sat at the next table and checked us out as we were leaving, we went back in to introduce ourselves. I gave them Pablo's business card and told them he was always looking for good models, and we got the digits sin problema.
The next day I headed downtown to do some book shopping. On the way into the Metro station, I made eye contact with a cute girl who was coming out, and we said hi to each other. She seemed strangely familiar, and an invitation is an invitation, so I chased her down to introduce myself. It turns out it was a girl Pablo had introduced me to, who works at a local coffee bar. I promised to come see her later, and walked her to the Metro after work. We're staying in touch by email now, and she seems very interested.
When I got downtown, it started to pour rain, so I ducked into a bakery to get some coffee and wait out the rain. A Spanish-speaking gringo was apparently something of a novelty to the girls behind the counter. A girl wearing regular clothes appeared behind the counter while I was making my purchase, and was looking at me and smiling like a star-struck schoolgirl, so I introduced myself. After I sat down, she kept looking at me and smiling, so I motioned to her to come sit with me and we started to chat. Sandra had just gotten off work and was also waiting for the rain to abate. Twenty-two years old, lives with her mother and her five-year-old daughter, a familiar story. After having dated a couple of women with children, I'm not as open-minded about it as I used to be, so I was only mildly interested in her. She asked for my phone number and said she didn't have one. So I gave her Pablo's home and cell number.
