Paris for the first time

August 2009
If you, like me, have lived away from this amazing city, and have all sorts of movie style drams about it, you can imagine how it was for me to go there for the first time.
We planned this trip for our anniversary in 2009 (August), our first anniversary in Europe. We meet in CDG airport and planned a visit to all major monuments and attractions, including one day for Disneyland Europe.

We stayed at the Suitehotel in Port de la Chapelle, a little bit far from the center, but an amazing room and very price-friendly. (We learned next year that the area has been dramatically worsened, becoming even dangerous, only rumors of course)
We took the metro to the city center, and then we started our now beloved hop on hop off tour. Going to the main sight seeings and walking around as much as we could.

The first sight of the tower is an amazing emotion. The magnificence of the structure piled with all the magic that surrounds it, makes this first time just perfect, even more by the hand of the love one.

We went up, to the top, and the view of Paris was amazing! (I don't have more words to describe it, it is just perfect) Of course, it was far away from the romantic idea of only the two lovers in the top of the tower!, going up required a veeeeery long line, a security check and a very crowded way up, but it is worth it!

This trip made us understand the meaning of SUMMER! we were dying! it was soo hot and our feet were aching from all the walking, we had to join the crowd in putting our feet in the water, inside some fonts, it was a funny experience and a refreshing one ;)

A very recommended experience is the boat trip, seeing the tower and all other amazing buildings from the river is simply perfect.

In the Louvre, we tried to grasp as much art as we could on the short time that we had, and as many tourist for the first time, we were disappointed with the Monalisa, and in love with so many other amazing paintings.  The feeling is weird, so much beauty, so much art, so many things to see and to enjoy, is an overflow of wonders that the brain can not take all at once.  I believe that to fully enjoy the Louvre, one needs at least a week, leaving off many things and only seeing the famous ones, and even then, one would be short of time.

I don't think I need to describe each of the marvelous things in Paris, the Arc du Thriump is beautiful, and the city is designed in such a way, so everything converges to this main sights.
The Sacre Coeur cathedral and the surroundings are breathtaking, and the Dali house in Mont-martre is a great museum for us fans of his eccentric mind. Notre Dame is as impressive as it comes, every corner has amazing details, inside and out, we did not had a chance to go up, we'll do it next time, along with a more detailed visit of the Mouline Rouge.

Walking through the Champs Elissee, having ice cream by the river, or discovering the light show in the tower at night, those are the things that can't be told, they have to be experienced!.

Disneyland Europe was a fun day, a lot of lines, but a lot of fun, we had the chance to play and enjoy ourselves, and we experienced a magnificent fire works show at midnight, that was much more than we had imagined.

Amsterdam and Brussels

Sergio surprised me in Aachen. He arrived to Spain, and his first question to me was, how do you get to your place?, I answered with a joke, I said I take a bus and say 'bis Haaren Markt bitte', in spanish it sounded like 'bisjarenmar bite'. If you know German, you will notice that it is plainly wrong, and even worst, Haaren Markt is the name of a bus stop, not a street or anything.  I had shown Sergio some pictures of the area, and without any other clue, he decided to try to find me. I have no idea how he did it. He asked someone showing them the spanish pronuntiation of what I said, he then took a cab to Haaren, and by the picture he found the building. My name was not even in the door, but he found Malak's name. He ringed on her door, and she took him to my room. It was the most amazing surprise ever!.
We took the chance to go to Amsterdam and Brussels.
We took a train to Amsterdam, It was summer!!! but maaan it was cold! thank God for H&M, cause I had to get pants in there. We walked around the beautiful channels, and were amazed by the amount if bikes, I think I've never seen so many before. We walked in to the red district, and it was an interesting experience. Later that day we went to Madame Tussauds, it was our first time in a wax museum, and we enjoyed it a lot!

 

We slept on a very cold train station, and we were kicked out of there, so we ended up sleeping in the airport. Next day we were very tired, but still we enjoyed a touristic bus in Brussels.
The Atomium is amazing! very impressive and very beautiful.
Brussels seemed very gray to us, but maybe it had to do with the fact that we were very tired. I spent the whole day (a sunday in Europe, everything was closed) looking for a pair of socks!!! I was freezing! 

Llegando a Europa-Aachen

June 2009
After several decisions, we ended up traveling to Europe.  I traveled on June 24 of 2009.  My future advisor (I came to Germany to pursue a PHD) kindly offered himself to pick me up at the main train station in Aachen.  So apparently it was easy, arrive to the airport and then take the train to Aachen.  My plan was to arrive to Madrid airport and 2 hours later to get out of there to Dusseldorf airport. The first problem was in Bogota's airport... My bag was to heavy, so my brother got me a new one, and in the middle of the airport I had to transfer things from one bag to the other, which means that I was not sure what I had in each bag...  Then I forgot to ask for the second boarding pass, and the girl in the counter forgot to give it to me... So I went in to the flight very exited, it was my first over-seas flight! -I should point that everyone in my family was very worried, since just a few weeks before my trip, an Air France airplane had crashed when going from Brasil to France... :D-

So I arrived in Madrid, and I went to the counter in the gates to get my new boarding pass, this was hell! There was a really long line and the movement was very slow, since people with problems like mine where combined in the same line with people with bigger problems, like losing a transfer flight or so.  It was time to get my other flight and I was still only getting the pass.  If you know Madrid's airport, you will understand why I was worried: it takes something like 20 minutes to go from the customs agents to the doors.  Gladly my plane was delayed, so I got to the door just in time to board -yet I was worried about my advisor waiting for me...-

So I managed to get to Dusseldorf.  Once there I found out that one of my bags was missing.  Since my german was pretty much patetic at that point, I got in the wrong line, and after 1 hour they told me that lost baggage for my airline was elsewhere... so I went there and they asked me for a phone number, for when they   found my bag - I HAD NO PHONE!!! It was my first day there.. so no phone, only an address for where I was supposed to live...

Then I run to see how to get the train.  We don't have a train system in my country, and I've never taken a train between cities before this day, so I had no idea how this worked, or where to take the connecting train, or where to read, where to get the connecting train, I had a really heavy big bag (thank God they misplaced the other one) and a hand bag, a jacket, a purse... I was stressed, and I even had a wrong pair of shoes (clogs, that kept flying away on every stair).  Finally a nice man helped me, he explained to me how to read the train charts (yes, I could have figure that out on my own, if I wasn't as stressed as I was)  and then he pointed the platform that I should reach.  I asked for an elevator, he said there was none (he probably didn't knew there is an elevator in each platform of Dusseldorf's main station) so I went down stairs and back again with all my things, I was dying.  My advisor was waiting for me at 8 pm.  It was 10 and I was just taking the train.  At midnight, I arrived to Aachen.  I was alone, really stressed and did not know what to do next.  So I sat in the station, next to a blond man -the other bench had a homeless guy, so easy choice- I took my laptop and I used my credit card to pay for internet, I started writing to my boyfriend in windows live msn, since I know this program records messages even when the other person is not connected -he wasn't connected, none of my friends or family was- and I wrote something like:

"I'm alone, it's very late, Iberia lost one of my bags, I think there no one here waiting for me anymore"

My next line would have been: I will wait here for a while and I will look for a hotel online, then I will take a cab and go to a hotel... BUUUT I realized that they may close the station, since it was very late and we were the only ones there... so I asked the blond guy, if he knew what time did they closed the station, he answered he believed they didn't -of course the conversation went by in English-. Then he asked me 'are you Sonia Vivas?' my Colombian instinct was crying: 'he saw your credit card! run! you are dead! did you saw the movie The Hostal ? that is you!', yet I behaved like a not crazy person and I answered yes, he showed me the picture of me he had (a black and white photocopy of my Toefl test results, which is probably the worst picture of myself until today) and of course he did not look at all like the picture I had... but anyways we trusted each other, I closed my laptop without further writing, and he took me to my room. He had to lend me sheets and a pillow, since my sheets were in the other bag, and of course I did not had a pillow with me.

The next day he picked me up (yes, I know, he is a great person, and a great advisor), and I meet Malak, who lived in the same building as me, and taught me about the bus lines and about the phone cards.  I'll go to Malak again, since she became a very important part of my life. But first, phone calls... For my family, a day and a half had past without any news of me.  In any other family this may seem normal, but not in mine.  We are all really connected, and they were all screaming and crying, they made Sergio send an email to my advisor in Colombia (Rodrigo, another excellent man), who of course didn't knew anything about me either.  The only information they had was my pathetic "I'm alone..." message, you can imagine how they felt.

So I called them, they yelled at me, and yelled, and yelled... but then they were happy I was alive.  They were fantastic new days, and in the whole process getting to start a new live, there was a lot of fun.  

Thanks to Malak, I found my way very easily in the town, and I had a lot of fun with her. A month later we both moved out to a building closer to our office, where we live next to each other, and share a balcony. I believe she is an amazing person and an important piece in my life.

Around Colombia: The Trip...

In this trip one good friend join us, his name is Erick Escorcia.

First, we went out from Bogota to Bucaramanga, aprox 380 km, I recommend to start the trip at 9 am, that's because if you want to lunch, you have to go to Chiflas restaurant, and you have to ask for "Cabrito Asado" and "Pipitoria de Chivo", with "Arepa Santandereana", really delicious.

Then you can go to the Chicamocha National Park (Spanish:Parque Nacional del Chicamocha) also known as "Panachi". It is a Colombian Natural park along the Chicamocha Canyon (Cañón del Chicamocha) located 50 km from the city of Bucaramanga, Santander.

The site is a tourist attraction due to is spectacular landscape and the variety of outdoor activities that it offers such as paragliding, spelunking, bushwalking, camping, fishing, kayaking, rafting, mountain climbing, etc. Also they have a 6.3 km length cable car system who goes across the canyon from the station "Mesa de los Santos" to Panachi.

After a great sunset on Chicamocha National Park, we went finally to Bucaramanga . In Bucaramanga we went to the "Water park", it was beautiful because in this park they have thousands of lights around the trees and they added other Christmas decoration.

The next morning the trip was to Santa marta.

We arrive at 3 pm with a beautifull scene, sun shining, white sands and friendly people. We stay 3 nights in some place that for our security we dont speak about it, but on the other hand was a good experience for us.

El primer dia fue un dia de playa y descanso, espectaculares playas en santamarta y en el rodadero con un buen almuerzo de pescado frito y arroz con coco, ya en la noche algo de descanso ya que iniciabamos al siguiente dia nuestra acreditacion como buzos "open water" PADI.

El dia siguiente iniciamos muy temprano nuestra experiencia viajando por tierra hacia Taganga, pueblo de pescadores situado a 15 KMs de Santa Marta, alli nos entregaron el equipo de buceo y de alli salida hacia al parque tayrona en lancha, unos 45 minutos.

Nuestra primera inmersion se suponia que era el examen y no podriamos ver mayor cosa hasta no tener nuestro certificado y aprobar el examen, sin embargo al bajar los primeros 5 metros gran sorpresa la que nos encontramos...... una tortuga de gran tamaño que parecia volar en medio del mar.... muy muy bonito, despues de admirar su belleza, iniciamos el proceso de acreditacion como buzos, lograndolo con como los 3 mejores de la clase..... (eramos 3 jajajajajaj)... y nos entregaron nuestros emblemas de buzos acreditados..... luego de esto iniciaba de verdad la aventura de bucear y admirar el paisaje submarino. En total fueron 4 inmersiones en el dia finalizando en la tarde con una sorpresa de parte de nuestro instructor al llevarnos a una caverna, de por si muertos de miedo pero llenos de adrenalina.

San Andres!

Sept 2008
This was a very important trip for us, it was our first time in the ocean together, before this our vacations had only pools and rivers :)
Everything started in another trip, one to Girardot.  I was affiliated to Colsubsidio at that time (I was working for my University -Universidad de los Andes, proudly :) ) and we had great discounts for nice hotels there.  So we were having our nice getaway when someone trapped Sergio. Here is the deal, Sergio is the kind of guy that can't say no... so salesman are happy around him, he just go and listen to them for as long as they want and then he feels really bad if he doesn't buy...
But this time it was good! they trapped him for one of these vacation plans, where you pay for some points that you can use in different hotels around the world.  It actually sounded good (probably had some trick under it..) but you needed something like 15 million pesos to start (8 thousand dollars or so).  We didn't had them, but we did the whole process.  For this we got 3 days in a five star hotel in San Andres, so we booked cheap tickets and we payed two more days.  We had our cheap trip!




San Andres is a paradise.  It's a very small island, with white sands and clear water. Sunshine and cheap cocktails are all around.

We stayed at the Sunrise hotel.  It is a very beautiful hotel, and the ocean view in the morning is astounding!!










We had many pictures of this trip!! - I say had cause we lost all of them in Portugal... I'll tell you later, but it was a big motivation to start writing this-
The hotel offered us a free lesson of wind surfing and a free diving lesson (with a discount for the actual ocean trip).  So we took the wind surfing lesson on the first day.  Sergio was a natural, he had fun and did a great job with the board; me... well you know me... I fell like 10000 times and I was crying in frustration... I could not keep the equilibrium.
Later that day we rented a jet ski, and had fun with that too!
But that was only the morning, in the evening we went for a snorkeling trip that included stingrays... veeeery cool!

The night ended with drinks on the beach...












Day 3.  We rented a golf car, they are very cheap, and you can rent it inside the hotel, so it is easy and secure.  This is, as I said already, a very small island, so it easy to round it and it not really dangerous, since there are not a lot of cars outside the commercial zone.
If it is your first time around San Andres, every touristic spot is interesting, but after the first time, everything is just the same.  But there are 2 places that are really worth the trip: The natural pool and the 'Hoyo soplador'.  The first one is a small cove that has a lot of reef fishes, many colors, many types.  They are used to get food from tourists, so they gather around pieces of bread, you pay 1000 pesos (half a dollar) and they give you a piece of bread.  This is usually old bread only planned for the fishes, so no food for you in case you are hungry... (I know, I know, but I heard from a girl that actually ate the bread and went for more...) If you can swim, this is a great place to get wet.  The current is strong, so you have to be careful not to fall in the rocks... if you do, you may not get out of there, and be careful going out of the place, the leader  (the old and the new) are very slippery. If you go here be sure to have either a waterproof housing or a simple waterproof cover (we had a Dicapac, it worked pretty well).
The second place is a blowing hole.  It does not blow every day anymore (global warming :( ) but when it does it's pretty cool to see the water being pumped by the waves. -It didn't blew when we went-

For lunch we wanted a local restaurant, so we asked around and they told us to go to a place.  This is something only Spanish speakers will understand, since we had a problem with the accent of the island people. We heard 'miselia' -miseria we interpreted. We thought it was a weird name for a restaurant, it means misery, but well, what do we know, so we look for it for like half an hour (a lot considering the small island) then we were tired so we went in the first place we found, once in they told us welcome to 'miselia' and then we checked the actual name: miss Celia, which in their fast way of talking was... well... anyways very good food, very recommended

Since we loved packed days, that afternoon we went for our first diving experience. It was scary.  It begins with a fast boat trip, not easy on weak stomachs (like Sergio's :P ) and we had a huge lunch so you can imagine.  Then you have to put all the gear in a moving boat. Yes there was help, but it was not that easy, thank God we didn't need suits. So once 'dressed up' we had to go in the water... yeah right... the way to do so is jumping backwards from the boat... pretty scary... we jumped and then going down!  The first time is a scary experience, you feel small and kind of claustrophobic, huge space but breathing is hard and the idea of running out of air keeps rounding your head. Of course all this things are controlled, and you have an instructor that takes you all the way.  Our instructor told us before jumping: do no touch anything!!! you don't know the animals, some of them may be dangerous, the corall can cut your skin very easily, so please do not touch!

So we went down trying not to touch, is harder than it seems, since when floating you can't really control all your movements, but we managed to behave.  But then a huge group of fishes came to us, they were like curious puppys, and we were trying to run away, then you realize you were running from a really small fish, but... All and all it was a great experience, and it was the begining of our diving adventures.



For the evening we went for 'El barco Pirata'.  Very nice party in a boat, good music, rum all over and people having fun, it was great!

Day 4.  We went to Johny kay and the acuarium island.  Again a forced trip when you go to San Andres :).  Two small kays with great beaches and many fish to see, also stingrays.
The trip in the boat can be rough, especially for someone old or overweighted, since going in and out of the boat requires equilibrium and some help from the locals, involving even carrying you.

As an advice, do not take many things to this trip, you'll be in the water most of the time.  There is a kiosk where you can leave your thing, for a small amount of money, but anyways is better not to take much, everything you leave in the beach can be stolen.  But do take your snorkel! there are many fishes and the water is really clear, it is worth it!  Again as an advice, the stones in the water are very slippery, be careful.
That evening we went for cocktails in the Hotel Disco, some karaoke involved, thank God we lost the videos :P

 

Day 5 and 6 we needed to rest, so we went for beach days.  The beach in San Andres is really beautiful.  A tent with chairs for the whole day is very cheap, and one can order drinks to the nice people that rent the tents.  If one feels like shopping, there is a nice commercial zone, you find some god and not expesive stuff like candy, liquors, perfumes and makeup - one of Sergio's friend lives there and his family has a perfumes shop, we went to visit him-

This was our trip to San Andres, the pictures that we have are all on facebook, I will add a link to Picasa soon.