A long awaited update...

Hello everyone, as you can see from my scarce updates, it´s been over 2 months since my last update - I´m terribly sorry for this. Today, friday I´m home, have gotten sick in the last days, just as this week is filled with cultural events at the university, which means there has´nt beeen classes in the last few days. I´m now living in Robledo, another area of Medellín, just 5 minutes from uni in bicycle, which suits me quite well, especially on tuesdays, when I have lessons at 7 o´clock in the morning.

Here is a short summary of the last 2 months:
In the end of july I finished my spanish course in Poblado, and after that I went to Bogotá to sort out a visa and a identity card, and of course I also went to visit the two other norwegian students and other friends that I got to know in Medellín. The climate was quite from that of Medellín, but it was nice to see the capital again and I met a lot of good people. For the visa I went to the foreign affairs ministry, it took me surprisingly just 3,5 hours to get my visa. After around 5 days I was ready to get back to my town and the warm climate. I also had time to visit the campus of the National University in the capital, which was much bigger than the one in Medellin, whith around 25000 students, compared to the 10000 ones here. Funny enough, I got to meet a friend from my primary school in Norway, had´nt seen him in 8 years, it´s funny how you meet people again at different places.































After coming back to Medellin I had some days of to enjoy the local flowerfestival before the uni startet on the 2nd of august. The same week I was so lucky to get visit from Europe -my mom from Norway and my aunt from Holland - they´ve never been to Latin-America before and didn´t know any spanish - I really respect them for coming this far. They stayed for a little week before they continued to the coast and the capital before returning again in the end of august for a second time. We got some time to visit some small villages situated around Medellin.














Otherwise, I´ve been studying a lot, working with the spanish language and try to have the weekends for smaller excursions and for bikeriding. I have gotten the pleasure to get to know many wonderful people at the university, especially at the faculty of history, where I spend most of my time considering that I´m taking 3 history courses, two about Colombia and one about Latin-America. In total I have 4 courses, the last one about Colombia and post independence in the 19th century. Ofcourse I have to add a picture of my bicycle:

Otherwise I have thinking about staying here for another semester, so I hope that it would be possible to extend my exchange and being able to write my bachelor assignment down here. Anyway I will be home for xmas in Norway, so don´t worry guys, I´ll see you in december / januari. Well, enough writing, don´t want to bore you. Will write again soon. Last picture here is of my friends and me, the one is my neighbour and the other lives close by.

Update from Medellín

Hello everyone, it´s about time for an update. It´s saturday, the sun is shining, which means that the rain will take over sometime during the afternoon. Been living with a friend for 2 weeks now, and I like it, alltough the traffic makes me wake up early everyday of the week. Have completed 3 weeks of spanishlessons now, which means that I have just one week left. The plan for next week is to go to Bogotá to visit some friends there and first of all also to obtain the important studentvisa I need for the next 6 months. I could arrange it from here, but it would cost me 150 - 200 U$, so for the same money I can do this trip and have something like a vacation. Uni starts around 2. august, thus I will have some 10 days free between spanishcourse and the semestre at the uni. I could probably write several pages, but will try to keep it short, I know how boring long blogs can be. For those who know me well know that I´m fond of biking. After realizing that it would be impossible to obtain a secod hand one, I decided to order a new one. I found a store where they sold XXL sizes, the only place in town as far as I know. I will hopefully receive it in a few days, in the colors blue and grey. My biking clothes can´t wait to get out of the closet and get useful.

Just to finish about the weather; it´s supposed to be summer here right now, but it´s still raining a lot, and according to the locals, it is freezing cold (18-25 centigrades).

Well, yeah, I had my birthday one week ago. Since my roommate had his birthday the day after mine, we arranged to celebrate them together, so we invited friends from the Blacksheep Hostal which I´ve stayed in and also friends whom which I met at the university here. It was a good night and we went to a bar.

Other things that have happened: Got stopped by the police and searched. Since my friend had something illegal amongst his cigarettes, in the end he ended up 25 U$ poorer, but without having to go to the police station, something which they ofcourse threatened with. The following day, whilst waiting for a girlfriend, I observed to guys coming to the Metro station, one of them bleeding from a knifewound on his stummick. Not enough to scare me away from this beautiful city though. The pics added here are from the birthdayparty.

Feel free to comment or write me, I would love to hear from my friends how they are doing in their life.

My number here is: (+57) 3152449313 and I´m also available on Skype. Looking foreward to hear from you.

My first week in Medellín

Hello everyone.

First: One experience I have taken with me from my last blog is that it was best to use english as the written language for a blog as I have aquaintences from different parts of the world who speak different languages.

This blog will be about my life as an exchangestudent in Medellín, Colombia for rest of the year 2010. Medellín is a big city in developement and a boosting economy with around 2.3 million inhabitants. At the time of writing, they are constructing around 60 buildings with 10 stores or more here. It´s the second biggest city in Colombia after the capital - Bogotá, which has more than 7 million inhabitants. The first time I had the chance to visit this beautiful city was in july/august 2007, when I was travelling through Latin-America, see my other blog about that trip. After I came back from backpacking, I decided to attend the University of Oslo to study "Latin-american studies", which is a 3 year bachelor. This study consists of spanish, human geography and "area-studies", like history, politics and culture. When I got a chance to do an exchange I decided that I wanted to go back to Colombia and Medellín, something that I have been thinking about ever since I was here in 2007.

So here I am - I arrived a week ago, 27th of june, completely excausted of jetlag and hours of flying. Took me a couple of days to get used to the 7 hours timedifference to Norway and here, and also the climate is quite humid compared to the norwegian one. At the of writing, it rains quite a bit here in the afternoons, but usually not for long.

Since the university does´nt start untill august, I have 4 weeks to work on my spanish which is quite crucial considering that I have to take all the courses at the uni in spanish.
The uni is named La Universidad Nacional de Colombia - with its biggest headquarters beeing located in Bogotá, but it also has a department here in Medellín with around 10.000 students.

I´m living in a hostal now, but will move to an apartment which I will share with a colombian friend I have had the pleasure to meet here. The area which I live in is called "El Poblado", and is considered as one of the nicer neighbourhoods in the city. Quite safe and clean, both night and day. Well, I can write and write. There is a musicfestival going on this weekend with a lot of latinamerican music, but also classsical music and theater is going on.

That´s it for now. Updates and photo´ will come.