Welcome back, dear blog of mine!

Who knows who's reading, but now that I have part of my life back due to a wonder of the new century called VPN, I am so overwhelmed by everything I have to update in this blog, my blog.

So many experiences I have not shared, so many disappointments and so many moments of joy.

I will update very soon. When? When I feel like it, you're not the bosses of me and I don't get paid for this (OK, that was me being a total a$$hol3/b!tch, sorry, folks! ) but it will be very soon.

See ya!

Chao, Quilla! Salût, Paris! Ni Hao, Beijiao! Part Three

Paris, Paris, Paris. I always dreamed about and wondered how my first day or moment in Paris would be like. And I have to say that I always pictured myself walking along Les Champs Elysees and Montmartre. But none of that happened in this trip. I couldn’t even see it clearly from the plane! I just went straight to the transit area, and waited there TWELVE hours for the next flight.

There isn’t much to say about my twelve-hour Parisian stay, apart from the fact that I was pacing around and around and around. Practicing my highly accomplished French and asking questions whose answers I already knew.

There were a lot of shops and only one cafeteria. What can you do in twelve hours in an airport? I was so longing for an answer right at that moment. As I didn’t manage to answer it myself, I decided to do what I do best: surf the Internet. I even had two options: American keyboard and French keyboard. I chose the latter. Boy, to say that it was hard to handle was an understatement.

Hours later, in my attempts to take a rest, a creepy Chinese guy approached to me and started a delightful chatter. I would have been clearly impressed by his charm, if it hadn’t been for the fact that he was speaking in Chinese. I thought to myself: “This is exactly what you’re getting into. Just get used to the feeling”, but the feeling was simply too creepy to get used to, seriously!

Departure time, again and after 12 hours on a plane, I arrived in Guangzhou as expected. I met my contact and my colleague and later on, I was confirmed that I wasn’t certainly going to amazing, enormous Guangzhou, but to dull, boring, little Beijiao.

Chao, Quilla! Salût, Paris! Ni Hao, Beijiao! Part Deux

Leaving Colombia doesn’t seem to be easy in many aspects. Emotionally, economically and even legally (?). When in the migration counter, you are asked many questions about the reasons of your trip, about the reasons of your previous trips, if you ever made one, and about when you are planning to get back. Anyway, it’s all part of the process.

And when you least expect it, departure time. Fortunately, I made it on time. Part of my lateness was that I was savoring what I knew I wouldn’t see in a long, long time: a Corral combo.

But in the end I made it into the plane, found my seat and tried to relax. Hours and hours of listening to the same songs over and over again, and watching the same five or six movies in different languages and captions.

Sleeping on a plane was a bit hard for me. If my closest friends are reading this, they might think that I am just talking BS right now, because if I can sleep on a bus in Barranquilla, I can sleep anywhere. However, that wasn’t the case. Maybe it was the feeling of sleeping on a chair or the excitement of traveling…who knows? I just couldn’t sleep well.

But finally, Paris. Yes, I know. Charles de Gaulle is not precisely Paris, but I will always think to myself that I was in Paris.

Chao, Quilla! Salût, Paris! Ni Hao, Beijiao! Part One

Chao, Quilla! Salût, Paris! Ni Hao, Beijiao! Part One

This is my first actual post ever on this blog, and I want to describe my experience of leaving Colombia, more exactly my hometown Barranquilla (which I thought was ugly and uninteresting, I have to admit) and coming to Beijiao, the most uninteresting and ugliest place on planet Earth and its surroundings.

My THREE-DAY flight was supposed to begin at 9.00 am on a Saturday in May, but due to motherly superstitions, it all started at 5.00 am in the morning. Waiting, eating, talking, taking one picture here, one picture there, waiting, and for a change, waiting. But time passed by and there it was in front of us: the exit door. Hell, I didn’t cry once! (maybe trying to prove that… I have no idea what I was trying to prove or to whom) But my sister, oh boy! She was literally crying a river. My mom was just laughing at the whole thing, because she KNOWS, not thinks, KNOWS for sure that I am coming back.


There I was. Alone. Trying not to cry like a girl and waiting for the first of the three planes that would take me to my out-of-this-world adventure: working and living in China for a year.

My First Blog Ever

The blogging experience can be a little intimidating for some. At least, for me it is. Blogging means tons of effort, dedication and time, but it also means sharing experiences, and that exactly is my motivation to make the decision of starting this blog.

I would like to explain my reasons for the language choice.

Even when most of my friends speak Spanish as a mother language (as do I) -I also have to say that I feel much more in my comfort zone by writing in Spanish- almost all of them know English because they studied it or because they’re also English teachers like me. For that reason and also for being in globalized era where English reaches more readers around the world than you could ever imagine, I have decided to post exclusively in English. However, if you feel like posting a comment in another language that isn’t English, you may well do so.