Bartending in Medellin: work, exercise, Drama!

Friday, September 10th, 2010

I`ve seen more of the city, as the architectural playground it is. I´ve been on a daytrip to beautiful Guatape, in the countryside, where the locals retreat in the weekends. It´s 1hour and 45minutes outside of Medellin, and it´s just so green and quiet! The town is full of colour and figures on the walls; everything from sheep to daysies. There`s a lake that`s shapes the terrain quite picturesque because they flooded the area on purpouse to have a water reserve. You can also walk up a huge, black rock, called El Penol. It was tough to climb those stairs in the heat, but the view was definatly worth it!

I´ve taken a job as a bartender here at the hostel, and I start tomorrow night. It`s not a busy bar and only three nights a week, so I think it shall be fun. I`ve always wanted to try to work in a bar, and it saves me some money. They gave me a room to myself, so I could actually unpack, and they`ve told me about a great fitness center right by, that I`m going to today. The people here are great! I also went for a run yesterday and stopped by a primary school, where I asked if they would like some help. I`m going back down there now to have a chat.

Sunday, September 12th, 2010

The gym was brilliant: fun rumba, spinning, kickboxing, etc - classes, steam shower, weights and a fingerprint entrance card. I´ve made a friend that has a jeep, which is pretty sweet. We drove around and talked about life, while he showed me more of the city. There amongst the massive shopping centers, that are a few minutes from where I´m staying. It was without a doubt the best Nike shop I have ever been to, f.instance. I start volunteering at the school on monday. I can work as much as I like. There was a birthday party here on friday, where I was the subject to analysis. Working as a bartender was pretty alright, but I feel darn tired at this point. So good night! I´m closing up.

Tuesday, September 14th, 2010

Bartending improved a bit after the first night. My patience has been challenged by some, but I´ve had good company, good music(chosen by myself and others), I´ve played pool and the bar has been chilled. I´ve been getting up early to go to rumba classes, and I´ve been down at the school, twice. They haven´t had time to arrange anything yet, and they won´t be ready before next week, so I´m just there talking spanish and english to whoever wants to, while studying spanish. Some kids taught me slang I doubt I´ll use in a class room. The weather has been beautiful, and I appreciate my hammock-napping before work. Now most of the people I know have checked out, so it should be interesting to meet the next group of people to check in. Tomorrow, after four nights in the bar, I have time off till the weekend!!

Aand if anyone is interested in getting fit and an interesting job, you can go to Bolivia and become a panther trainer. Basically you´re chained to it while it runs and climbs, two or three times a day.

Friday, September 17th, 2010

Wednesday, I killed myself physically at the gym with two sessions of rumba and thai boxing, and a steam bath. I actually bought some make up and an mp3 player, plus a fruit salad on the street that made me throw up when I came back. Very nice.. Very weird! Just watched tv, practiced my pool and then we went downtown to Medellin. Being in the center finally made me feel like I was in Colombia again. We ate dinner and went to the cinema, but the movie turned out to be swedish with spanish subs! So we couldn´t watch it, and with some belgian waffles w ice cream and berries, we snuk in to watch another movie, which showed "letters to Juliet", the biggest romantic soup of a movie we had ever seen. Horrible.

Today I spent a long time at the gym. After pool and basketball, I was going to have the night off and go on a pub crawl, but I was apparently supposed to work! The hostel is so quiet right now, that I´m Sitting and using the computer in the bar. Quite nice! I met my second norwegian today, who´s just next to me, having his birthday after 12. And

 tomorrow I´m going with my israeli buddy, Zohar(d), and two more israeli guys on a roadtrip to Santa Fe. There are so many israelis travelling after military service, so they grow fond of the concept. Travelling is addictive for a reason. The problem occurs when they stick together and only talk hebrew. A lot of backpackers don´t really travel. They just go from hostel to hostel, doing the most obvious tour things or just drinking the days away.. but I can see how it can be hard to do anything else if you don´t know spanish. I´d recommend putting in an effort to learn!

Saturday, September 18th, 2010

A dramatic night and a useless police:

Last night there was a murder attempt in the reception.

Murder attempt in the hostel

I woke up in the middle of the night. My good friend Zohar, was shouting. I heard the voice of the annoying chilean guy that ha

d been bothering me constantly. After fifteen minutes, it was clear that the police was there. In the morning, Zohar woke me up to go to the gym for pilates and rumba. He told me what had happened;

Gonzales and another guy called David had accused the receptionist for stealing David´s computer(which was on his bed), and Gonzales had broken a bottle. The breaking of the bottle woke Zohar up, and he was just in time to stop the high chilean guy from his third attempt of slitting the receptionist, Leo`s, throat. 

He had missed the first time, but he made a 8 stitch cut to his throat the second time, which would have been lethal just 2mm further. Zohar is an ex israeli solider, thus he was able to disarm him easily enough, and to keep him on 

the ground for fifteen minutes. There were several witnesses, and it was all caught on video, which the police saw as well as Leo`s cut. Leo was sent to the hospital, Gonzales was brought to the station, uncuffed. The others confiscated his passport and id, so he couldn`t flee the country. When we came back from the gym,

 Gonzales was sitting outside the hostel to apologize and get his passport back. The police let him go! We thought things would be okay, but on our way back from our roadtrip to beautiful Santa Fe, Zohar got a phone call saying that Gonzales couldn`t be stopped because L

eo or someone else didn`t press charges at the police station immediatly, but waited four hours, since he was in the hospital! They tried calling lawyers to file a lawsuit and everything, but if Gonzales has a brain, he`s a

lready flown to whatever country he can get a flight to.

So people are a bit upset... but we`re still going, trying to enjoy the colombian valentines day. Hopefully Gonzales is an idiot, and stay in the country long enough to get caught and be forced to pay Leo what he deserves. As for those who says Colombia is dangerous and full of drugs.. Once again, it was the tourists on drugs making trouble, and 90% of the country`s cocain is after all exported, to the US, especially.