Day 19 - Haircuts and Cut Meat

Today, Saturday, June 27th, we were given money to choose where to go: the aquarium or the cable cars that go over the city. But Dr. Steffanell had also told us that he would treat the girls to getting their nails done, and since another student had made appointments with us, we decided do that first. However, there was only one woman that did nails, so only one person could go at a time. Since we missed breakfast/were tired of the breakfast they serve. Of course, we went to Juan Valdéz for breakfast. Afterwards we headed to the nail salon. We got to the salon at about 11:30 and it took a round an hour for each of us. Shortly after I had finished my toes, Lauren decided to do both her hands and her toes. Since I knew that it would take a while and since there was a hairdresser there, I decided to go ahead and try to cut my hair. What I really wanted was to take off the weight and thickness of my hair. I was pretty proud of myself for being able to convey exactly what I wanted and it looks pretty good! It's so much lighter cause he feathered it it's just weird having hair this light! Including the tips, the cost for getting my finger nails done and my hair cut was around $13!

In case people were wondering how my hair looks now, I'll post a photo. This was taken in Cartagena the day before the rest of the students left, so July 2nd. It really doesn't look a whole lot different, I just have more hair that is short than I have that is long, which you can't really tell in the photo haha. But I like this photo, also I'm wearing the shirt that I talk about below (the one that wasn't "warm," but I just couldn't not get it!)

Shortly after that, Lindsey and I were getting hungry and they hadn't started on Lauren's toes yet. So, we decided to go get a snack. We ended up going to a place that had French fries where you could add toppings. The base bad French fries, barbecue sauce, queso fresco cheese, and a white "house" sauce that tasted like potato salad to me. I got the normal base, but got rid of the white sauce. It was alright since I was hungry but it was a little weird and I couldn't eat it for too long. When we returned to the nail/hair salon, we came exactly when Lauren had finished! On the walk back, we found Evan and he accompanied us to the salon. We were fully planning on going to the aquarium, however it was close to 4:00, it would take around 30 minutes by taxi to get there, and we were supposed to be at the hotel at 6:00 and decided it wouldn't be worth the money cause we wouldn't have enough time to fully enjoy it. Furthermore, the nail lady said it would be better for us to go to the cable cars instead of the aquarium, but we still wouldn't have had time for that either. Since I'm going to be going to Bogotá, I need some warmer clothes and since we didn't have time to do anything else, we all (except Evan, who went back to the hotel) decided to go to the mall that the nail lady told us had cheaper clothing. At that mall I ended homework finding a long sleeve cardigan that I absolutely love for $13 from a French store called GEF. I also found a shirt that wasn't long sleeve, but I loved it too much so I bought it anyway. At a store called Bouj, they were having a promotion where the second item that you buy will have a 40% discount. Since I only have 1 pair of pants with me and since that store had the cheapest jeans I had seen here, I decided to get those. The sizes are different here, but it's not as obvious as it is in Europe. It really feels weird buying clothes in size 10 and 12 though! I wanted to get something else that would keep me warm since it would have a discount, however I didn't have enough time to look since it was around 5:40 and we had to be back at 6. So, I just bought a gray scarf that is probably men's cause I was in a hurry, wanted the discount, and wanted something warm. I'm hoping that I can find that store in Barranquilla or Bogotá so that I can exchange it for something that I'll like better. We got in a taxi to go to the hotel and halfway there, Lindsey got a Facebook message that said we actually didn't need to be back until 7;30! We were a little frustrated cause we wanted to go back to where we were but didn't want to have to pay to go back. Since we were passing another mall, we asked to be dropped off there, even though it most likely wouldn't be as cheap as the last place. That taxi driver was really nice. We thought he was charging us too much and so we offered less but then realized that there is a base price here in Medellín that the cost for the distance is added to. He thought it was funny that we did that and said we were "paisas" (people from the paisaje-the areas that are more mountainous, which Medellín and Bogotá are). He asked us if we were living in Medellín or if we were just passing through and we told him we're from the US. He has even been to Hawaii and knew it pretty well! He told me of some of the places he went including "Pele's volcano," however at first I thought he was saying a word in Spanish and didn't realize he was talking about the Hawaiian goddess, Pele! He is just started studying English so that he can live in the U.S. and work in tourism as a bilingual. At the second mall, we decided to go into Jumbo which is kinda like a Walmart. I was looking at their clothes and noticed that they had clothing from the French REF store! I soon realized that all of the women's clothing was 30% off! So, I ended up getting a maxi dress since I don't have any, need a dress for an upcoming party, and it will be a warmer dress for Bogotá, I also bought a pair of shorts that I couldn't pass up due to how cute they were and the price, one more pair of jeans, and some stockings for warmth in Bogotá. After all that, we headed back to the hotel. From the hotel, we were going to walk to the restaurant, however we had some problems with a it, but finally we did.

We went to a Brazilian restaurant, mainly because Guilherme is from Brazil. It was odd cause you don't order anything, they just keep coming around with different types of meat and cut off slices for each person. They probably came around like 20 times with different meats! It was so often that I normally didn't finish the last piece before the next one. (During the entire time we were there, there were several tvs with Animal Planet on, which was depicting animals eating other animals in the wild, which was very pleasant while eating at a meat restaurant. - see photo on left)Since there was so much meat and since not everyone is going to like every single one, they also had a guy that would come around and take the meat that we weren't planning on eating off of our plates. It was SO MUCH food! The last thing was cooked pineapple with sugar and cinnamon, which was really good!