September 2, 2017 – September 4, 2017
Since I arrived at night, my first impression of Medellin was that it had a gorgeous night skyline. After my brother-in-law’s mother and my father picked me up at the airport, we drove along hills where we could see all of Medellin, since the city is located in the mountains. I arrived at my dad’s AirBnB apartment in El Poblado late at night. While I was tired and hungry after a long flight my dad and I watched all the people mingling in Parque Lleras. Parque Lleras is a central area for going out on Saturday nights with access to pubs and restaurants surrounding the plaza. Whenever I saw people enjoying the plaza, I came to miss plaza life. DC, much less the US does not foster areas of congregation and community, where people meet with friends and people watch. Throughout this whole trip, I had come to wish that DC had more of an inviting culture.
After waking the next morning, my dad and I agreed to take it easy during the day, especially since we had plans with family in the evening. We started our day with a cup of coffee (and arepa for me) at Juan Valdez and then we explored more of El Poblado. Side note: While working on this, I found a Juan Valdez Cafe in DC. I guess I have a new place to visit. On Sundays, the city closes one of the lanes on Avenida El Poblado to allow pedestrians and bicyclists more space to walk around. Of course, we walked along it, but on our way back we came across Parque De La Presidenta, which had a small farmer’s market that day as well. Although my dad had been staying at El Poblado for about a month before I arrived, he hadn’t done much exploring and had not seen that park before. It was a new adventure for both of us because, while I had briefly read of Parque de La Presidenta and the farmer’s market on other blogs, I didn’t yet know where to find it. We just stumbled upon this gorgeous park.
Later that day, we visited my brother-in-law’s family and celebrated an aunt’s birthday. While we did not do any traveling at that time, some of the best moments of any sort of traveling is interacting with people you know. Both my dad and I enjoyed our time and are grateful for my brother-in-law’s family.
Once again, my dad and I started our day with a cup of coffee (this time an empanada for me) and then took the train to El Centro. We walked around Plaza Botero and walked down to Centro Comercial Palacio Nacional via Carabobo. Along here, we could watch the people of Medellin do their shopping and interact with each other. Once again, I started to miss environments friendly to street shoppers. We then took the train to Jardin Botanico, grabbed some lunch and ice cream, then explored the grounds and butterflies in the botanic gardens. After a long day of walking outside, my dad and I were tired so we headed back to the apartment. On our way, we saw a woman dancing in the crosswalk in El Poblado. To us, seeing a performer in the middle of a crosswalk was a strange site, but later on, I learned it was more common than we would expect. Throughout the rest of the week, we would see the occasional street performer blocking traffic by performing in the middle of the street.
That is all for now. I hope you enjoy the photos. More is soon to come!
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