My favorite cat sitting atop our luggage before we headed to the airport - wish we could have taken her home too!

After a whirlwind of family get-togethers, holiday parties and reunions it feels good to hunker down inside with a cup of coffee and catch up on life.  It truly is good to be home and the last two weeks have made both of us appreciative of all the people and things we've missed while being in Brazil for the past ten months.

Reunion of Sean's friends from high school and college

As usual, it's been particularly difficult to get used to the freezing temperatures and dry air during winter in West Michigan.  It was also tough on the system to jump into eating very rich (albeit delicious) holiday foods and indulging in fancy beers and drinks that we hadn't had for awhile.  But overall I'm thrilled to be back. It's great to be with family and friends again and have other friends just be a cell phone call away.  I love being able to drive anywhere I want instead of having to wait for for a hot and crowded bus.  Hot showers and washing dishes and my hands with hot water feels divine.  Being able to throw used toilet paper in the toilet instead of the waste basket is an added bonus.  Not sweating profusely 100% of the time or constantly swatting mosquitoes is fantastic and we don't miss sleeping in a mosquito net at all.  The fact that we can count on the electricity to work, the internet to be fast and businesses to be open/not on strike is awesome.  The choices available for food, clothes, soap etc. in places like Meijer and Target is absolutely mind-boggling; Sean and I find ourselves just walking around with mouths open and drooling. It's also nice not to be constantly started at/asked where I'm from due to my accent or misunderstood due to problems with Portuguese.

My friends from high school at the new Hops brewery on 8th St.

What I'm especially grateful for is the chance to feel safe again after living in a fairly dangerous city.  It's a huge weight off of my shoulders and a big sigh of relief.  The other day, while walking out of the Family Fare grocery store with a bag of rolls, I felt my chest seize up in panic at having to navigate through the parking lot to get to my car (parking lots were especially vulnerable places in Brazil) and had to tell myself that everything is fine - I'm in Holland, Michigan. While out at restaurants and bars on 8th street I found myself constantly checking the crowd, my surroundings and if my purse is still at my side. It feels absurd, other-worldly and paranoid.

Ohio State reunion at Founders Brewing in Grand Rapids - what a fun time and a great place to hang out!

What I'm really excited about being back is all of the amazing opportunities, events and things to do happening in Holland, at the library, on Hope's campus and in the community.  I take these activities for granted when I'm here and miss them sorely when I leave. I'm hoping to do a run camp with Gazelle to train for the Fifth Third Riverbank run and the Couch to Crossfit program with Soaring Ledge. There's also a local hot yoga place that would feel really good if not just for the warm and humid climate from time to time. I'm going to be a coach for Girls on the Run and am really looking forward to Alumni Dutch Dance with my original high school partner!  As usual, I'm going to work a bit at the Hope College bookstore and then substitute teach and Sean is going to work at his friend's factory.  We feel very lucky to come home to a community of friends and family who not only heartily welcome us back but also help us along in the transition in generous ways.  It's good to be home!

Sean and I chose to do the CELTA course in Colombia because we wanted to experience a place other than Brazil for 6 weeks.  In Colombia, we had the choice of doing the course in Medellín or Bogotá and we went with Medellín after hearing really positive things about it from both friends who had visited and Colombians who we met in Brazil.




Medellín did not disappoint. It's a city of about 3 million with eternal spring-like weather.  Friends had told us that the city felt a little bit like Europe and they were exactly right.  Medellín is clean, efficient, modern, safe and beautiful.  The most impressive characteristic about the city, however, is the people.  After so many years of struggle and violence that's given the city a bad rap, Medellín is finally ready to welcome tourists and the locals couldn't be happier about it.




Citizens would go out of their way to help us and were always incredibly friendly.  More than once we were verbally "welcomed" to the city just because people noticed that we were not from there.  The hidden gem of Medellín is starting to catch on, however, and we met quite a few expats from Canada, Europe and the U.S. who had decided to make it their permanent home.  All of the other CELTA graduates were intending to stick around and find work in the city - Sean and I were the only ones who were planning on leaving.



Another impressive thing about the city is the transportation system.  Medellín has a metro (Bogotá doesn't) and the metro system includes buses as well as cable cars that go to neighboring mountain towns.  This allows people from quite far distances to get into the city center quickly, efficiently and cheaply.  The cable cars offer impressive views of the city and the day we rode one all of us in the car were tourists and were just along for the panoramic shots.



The most common things to eat here are arepas, which are thick corn tortillas covered in fresh cheese.  Sean's favorite dish is the huge bandeja paisa which includes a fried plantain, avocado, sausage, rice, beans, arepa, egg, bacon, ground beef and coleslaw.  The national drink is a liquor called Aguardiente made from sugar cane that is flavored with anise.



We didn't have a lot of time to do much sight-seeing but spent one full day down town checking out some churches and squares and visiting several sculptures of Botero.  We spent another day visiting the botanical gardens which were abuzz with yoga classes, dance demonstrations, food vendors and a marching band festival.  We're glad we were able to stay such a long time in such a pleasant and enjoyable city.  Medellín - highly recommend!

Our CELTA cohort with instructors

On Friday, Sean and I officially finished the CELTA course. We are so happy and relieved to be done and although we don't know our grades yet, we do know that we both passed.  Although it was a really intense, stressful and tiring month, we learned so much and got know a fun group of people really well.
Our three CELTA instructors are all from the British Council with Cambridge in England and they did a fantastic job of pushing us, challenging us, motivating us as well as providing exemplary models of teaching.  The other 13 people who made it through were from England, Colombia and the U.S. (Denver, Seattle, Grand Rapids (small world!), San Francisco, and Pennsylvania).  

Our fabulous instructors

During the course we were up every day at about 5:30 a.m. and at school at 6:30 a.m. where we taught and were observed and then had classes until about 4:30 every day.  Then it was back home for 5-6 more hours of homework until crashing into bed.  Now, after the course is over, it feels strange to be able to sleep in and have extra time to ourselves.

We are taking this next week to travel around Colombia and are visiting Bogotá and Cartagena until the 13th when we fly back to Brazil, pick up our bags and arrive in the States on the 15th.  We're excited to be home soon!

Our group with some of our Colombian English students