My new, but long lost amiga, Julia

Sister Barbarita surprised me the other day by picking me up from the Asilo with one of the english teachers at the Colegio De La Presentacion. Her name is Julia and she started teaching at the school in September and was just assigned to teach 7th grade with classes starting again on February 7th. Before teaching here, Julia lived in Denver working as an au pair (nanny) for a family with 3 kids. She went to au pair school in New York for two weeks before going to her house family. Julia didn't speak much english before coming to the US so she can totally relate to what I'm going through here and she's been absolutely wonderful to get to know. The two of us hung out Monday and Tuesday afternoon after her morning meetings for school preparation. She has shown me many historical sites and churches in Tunja. Below are some pictures of our adventures. Please excuse my laziness in not finding the special characters to put in the correct accents. ;)


Julia y Jill en la plaza de Bolivar

Sister Barbarita, Jill, and Julia

In front of the Statue of Bolivar; 200 year old church in the background. Bolivar's army fought the Spanish over 200 years ago and freed Colombia and many other countries from imprisonment, repression, and slavery. There are many statues in honor of him and Bolivia is named after him.

Sister Barbarita had to leave for an evening school meeting, so Julia and I continued with our walk around Tunja. We went in the house of Tunja's founder, which is now a museum. Here is a picture of Julia in the courtyard of the house and me next to a bust of the city founder, Gonzalo Suarez Rendon:

Next, we visited the Cloister of St. Augustine. This building has a very unique history as it started as a convent and church, became a school and university, then a jail (which you can still see the results of), and is now a public library.

Courtyard

Balconies (en espanol - balcon)

Jail Courtyard

Jail Cells

Inside a cell; they are now all used for storage

This tree (árbol) is called an Araucaria; I thought it was really unique looking, but there are many beautiful trees, plants, and flowers here.

When leaving the library, we ran into a friend of Julia's, Francisco, who is also an english teacher at another school. He joined us for dinner and it was great they found very authentic and special food for me to try. Here is dinner Monday night, El tamal boyacense, it was filled with pork, chicken, carrots, potatoes, and other stuff - it was delicious!

Here's the menu of the place we ate at:

It gets fairly cold in the evenings and mornings (high of ~65 F in the afternoon, 55 at 8pm, low of 45F), but nothing compared to the single digits and teens that I hear Michigan is getting right now! Before they took me back to the school (where I'm staying), we stopped for aromatic tea with fruit slices. Here's a local favorite, Papayuela Aromatica té:

The next afternoon, Julia came alone to pick me up from the Asilo and we continued our tour of Tunja. I don't have many pictures since we saw mostly churches and we're not allowed to photograph the inside of the church. There are security guards in each church.



We headed back to Bolivar Square and Julia pointed out the best hotel in Tunja. I had to take a picture of this hotel for my Mom and her AAA advisory role. ;)

And the travel agency next door:

Next, we visited Santa Clara Church and participated in the Chaplet of Divine Mercy with many locals. It was really wonderful to experience these prayers that are said all over the world at 3pm, but in another country although same time zone. I was surprised but happy to see how many people arrived at the church to pray at this hour. Religion is extremely important here and images can be found everywhere, even on public buses.

After viewing more churches and a historic park dedicated to soldiers executed during their fight for independence under Bolivar's command, we stopped to quench our thirst with Columbiana soda.

Then we went for a very typical meal in Colombia called Fritanga which was excellent. It's different types of sausages with potatoes - Chorizo (brown), longaniza (red), morcilla (black). My favorite was the longaniza. I was sooo full. Who told me I wouldn't eat much meat here? ;)

During dinner we talked about music and I assured Julia that she wouldn't like the music I listen to, but come to find out she loves 80s and 90s glam rock. She even has a picture of Sebastian Bach displayed on her phone when it powers on! For you non-believers...

How awesome is that? I met my kin in another country. :)