Men will fly someday! I have been there. I have seen it!

This weekend was a good one. On friday we went into a group of mountains overlooking a lake I cannot remember the name of. The coolest thing was on the way there,  though, when we stopped at an awesome mini-church overlooking the mountains. It was apparently built by a very old architect who only used rocks and searched for years to find ones that fit perfectly. When he built the church, he did not use any glue or cement or nada. Now, there is some cement in certain places because people are theifs and theifs steal rocks. But it was a beautiful little building nonetheless and inside it was buried the architect himself, a grave fit for a king!

Then we stopped at a little mini-zoo which had cages containing monkeys, parrot-like birds and some other animals. One of the monkeys had escaped from his cage, and chased around one of the girls in our group because she had a popsicle. Fearing some sort of rabid monkey disease, she relented and threw the popsicle to the monkey and it then perched itself in front of the caged monkeys and gobbled up the popsicle. Proof that punks exist amongst all animalkind.

When we got to these mountains, we hiked around and there were many great views and also some awesome plants. One plant was a very soft circular plant that had the softest and yet still firm leaves I have seen. It was toilet paper of the gods. I took a piece of a dead one, because here, toilet paper is precious. There is none in most public buildings.

Saturday was the bes day yet, though. After getting up early to search for a cellphone with mi mama, I went with about 15 other students up into the mountains to go paragliding. I had no idea what exactly paragliding was and I was picturing some sort of Wright-brothers-like contraption as we were driving up the snakelike road. Paragliding, though is more like flying underneath a parachute controlled by cords extending down to the pilot's hands. I have put a video up that will do the experience much better justice than this description, but even that is far from sufficient. You will just have to do it someday. It only cost 50 dollars here!

Anyway, we were up in the air for what I think was around 30 minutes (we being the guide "Gonzalo" and I). At one point he decided to some "tricks" and he rotated us outward and this reminded me of highsiding on a sailboat, only instead of being a foot above the water you are a kilometer  above the mountains. I imagine it would be pretty awesome to be a bird, and I thought about this phenomenal  disney scene a couple times in the air. After landing, a van took us back down the mountains and, still dizzy from the paraglide and getting more dizzy from the 270 degree turns our van was taking, I stuck my head out the window to impersonate the birds in another way. Along with the photos from the paraglide, there is a cool photo of this that one of our our chouffers was kind enough to take.

Then last night my 2 roommates and I went with our mama to a fiesta for her cousin. If you can imagine a typical latin american party, this was it: Piñata, Balloons, Salsa music, etc. But once again I have rambled, so thanks for reading and ciao for now!

Rojo significa nada en la noche

Que pasa hombres? This is the first chance I've had to just sit down and relajarse since I left Minnesota. So here is what I have been up to so far:

I left Minneapolis sunday around 3, and then went to Houston. I was very hungry and I thus ate a lot of Chinese food, from Panda Express or Fat Panda or something like that. Long turbulent flights and Airport Chinese food make for an unhappy stomach. So the layover in Houston (~6 hours) was pretty rough, but I spent some of it getting to know some of the other students in my group and some of it over the toilet. Waa! Our plane to Caracas left at midnight, and then we had about a 12 hour layover there. We didn't get to explore at all, but a very cool sight was flying into Caracas during a nice sunrise over through the clouds. It looked like someone stretched black cotton candy over a watercolor painting. Caracas, which is Venezuela's capital city and a good place to get kidnapped, was less gross than I imagined and looked pretty cool all nestled into the mountains.

From Caracas we flew an hour to El Vijia and then took a big bus ride to Merida, where I am now. It was a cool ride. Looking out of an open window at a lot of enormous mountains and trees with spanish moss is not something I have done in Madison or Minneapolis.

So I have been here for appx 48 hours but it feels much longer than that. The first night we (two minnesotans and I) were picked up by our Host Mama, a 70 year old retired woman, who taught us that because policemen don't work at night, and because there are many carjackers, nobody obeys red lights at night. We live in a small apartment that has a beautiful view of the city and los Andes, I will post photos when I have wifi good enough to do so. Her cooking is very good, though the cheese here has a subtle aftertaste that is reminiscent of gasoline. Besides that though, it really is delicious!

Yesterday we had our initiation at VEN-USA, my school. It is small, only about 4 stories and very small lengthwise, but it has a nice lounging room complete with an out-of-tune piano, hammocks, pool, ping pong, and bathrooms with toilet paper. All of these things are hard to come by elsewhere in the city. We were shown around town yesterday afternoon although I have yet to figure out how to get anywhere. The nice thing is, taxi rides cost about 20 bolivar or $2.20 so it is not as big a problem as it could be.

Today I had a long day of class (3 classes, 2 hours apiece). The details I am already forgetting but I have a very funny professor teaching two of my classes, so that's good. Those at school speak more clearly and I can have pretty decent conversations with them in spanish, but with others it is difficult. They don't pronounce the "s" at the end of their words and speak very fast. But I am picking things up faster than I thought.

This weekend I am hoping to do some sort of excursion that involves hanging from ropes off of a bridge (don't worry mother it is safe) and also there is a group trip planned for friday. It's been a blast so far, hope everyone reading this is doing well! Adios!