a change in pace

We made it to Medellin! Sitting in the front of the bus was a wonderful way to do overnight transportation, although you never sleep as well as you'd like. We arrived at Myriam's family's house around 8:00 am and our full day of Spanish began.:) It was a very fun change of pace to spend time with Myriam and her family - she's got the cutest grandma ever. Sure I couldn't understand most of what her grandma said, but it seemed to be mututal.:) We drove north of Medellin in the afternoon to their farm, which is a beautiful piece of land set into some rolling Andean hills. (Michelle & Myriam in the photo to the left at the farm) Her brother lives on the farm with his wife and kids. It's a work in progress, but it was fun to hear how much potential and joy Myriam and her brother see in the farm. I drooled as I looked at the avocado trees and the passion fruit vines. Oh what I would do to get one of each of those in my yard. Seriously. (Michelle & I eating passion fruit in the photo to the right... sooo good) They've got a lot of coffee plants sprouting, the spectrum of different types of banana trees and some orange trees. Gosh would that be fun. We puttsed around the country side and then picked Ali up from the airport! Myriam's family is wonderful and all the Spanish is a great deal of fun but is exhausting.:)

These changes in our travel patterns will be fun ones. We're staying at Myriam's sister's apartment, so I'm glad to be able to pull a few recent photos from my camera. Today and tomorrow we'll try to make the most of the Feria de las Flores (the Flower Fair) that's the big deal in town for the next week. Today is the horse parade. And then Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday we'll explore the Zona Cafetera (the coffee zone) before I hit the road on Thursday back to MN. Who knew three weeks could go soooooo fast!

(And this photo isn't a great one, but Ali's in it! On the left. We went out for Arepas on the way home from the airport last night.)