Today I have done absolutely nothing. I mean to visit anything new or worth sharing. In Medellin, there are a few more places on my list that I could have visited, such as Parque Arvi, it is a more outdoorsy destination, and it is located north of Medellin requiring a longer journey on metro train followed by cable car, but I had a feel for the cable car ride at Comuna 13 already yesterday. Another location I thought about visiting was Parque Explora, which is a complex of museums, aquarium, vivarium (I don’t even know what that is), and whatnots. But ah…I am feeling kind of lazy today, I have great room here, so I thought I would take a break from sightseeing and do nothing and, enjoy my room for a change.
I have gone down to the pool at the 10th floor, I dipped myself in the water but the water was way SOOOOO cold to swim. Though the sun was very hot though, even my phone was complaining in a message: your phone was overheating, you cannot take any more pictures of those goddamn buildings and your legs at the moment. Yes madam! I turned my phone off, so it did not explode on me. I hanged by the pool for a while before I ventured out to find lunch. I was going to try the famous dish of region called bandeja paisa (https://impulsetravel.co/en/blog/25/colombian-food-the-story-of-bandeja-paisa). I walked all the way downhill to find this restaurant that serves bandeja paisa and they have a google rating of 4.6, but there was a huge line wrapping outside their door, it was almost 2pm, so definitely no gracias. Found an alternative online, darn it, it was back close to where my Airbnb is, instead of downhill, it is uphill for a few minutes. I managed to find an Uber that took me that. The Uber driver was so friendly, he also lived in US for a while. We talked about US culture, all money money money. He was not trashing the US culture, but more of a reflection after experiencing it. As a foreign born person now a US citizen myself, I saw where he is coming and shared part of his views too. Anyway, within that short ride to the restaurant, he also managed to change my mind, I was going to try bandeja paisa. He said it is good and unique to region, but that is a lot of foods, including 4 proteins on the plate! There is another regional dish called mondongo, which is a soup made from beef tripe with lots of mixed vegetable, served with rice, plantain and avocado. He praised this dish all the way and I have not tried it. Sold and I really loved it! I know the word tripe might off-putting to some people, it did not taste funky at all, it tasted delish!
I walked back to the Airbnb and catching up on my blog writing, listening to music. It was 7pm-ish, I felt like I should get some light dinner, it is Sunday, the nearby pizza place is closed. I was going to give it a try since I just wanted something not too far. I googled around and found a restaurant serving an octopus dish. The picture had my name written all over it. So, that was what I did. It was also good too. The best one out of the 3 times I have octopus in Colombia so far.
Aside from some pool time, eating, blogging, I also spent a good amount of time chatting with different people to figure out what I am going to do with the COVID test I am required to take before coming back to US, which is next Friday. Biden Administration has a new requirement that I must take the COVID test one calendar day (some sites say one day) prior to my return flight, one day is kind of subjected to interpretation: one day can be strictly within 24 hours, or really one “calendar” day in a sense that I come back on Friday (midnight), then if I take the test on Thursday (even in the morning), it should be ok too. My flight is really late close to midnight, if it is counted as 24 hours, it would be more challenging, I would have to take very early on Friday morning and hope that I will get a result before my flight.
I originally planned to take a test at the hospital Carlos worked at, however, the website said both antigen and PCR tests will take 2 days to get the results. The option is out. While I was looking for alternative, Synlab was my back up option, they can have the antigen result in 1 day. They even have a testing site at the airport, which based on their website, could produce the results as soon as 2-4 hours, I am just not sure whether this is true. If I treat that and get to the airport and they tell me, it will unfortunately take 24 hours, then I am fucked, what am I gonna do. A third option was offered to me surprisingly from a restaurant, I was making a reservation with this restaurant in Bogota for Thursday, turned out the owner was also from US and they was planning to go back to US for Xmas. He has a contact that collect the sample at your house, and they will produce the test results in a few hours. So, he totally went out his way to help me contact with this person. I talked to that guy as well, he thinks I best do the test on Friday morning, and he will be able to produce the test result later Friday early afternoon. The issue with this guy is, because he is bringing the test to someone’s home. He was listed on the US embassy list. Money is not issue, but whom am I supposed to trust is the part I am trying to sort out and also the timing of the test. But I still have a few days, I will make a final call when I get to Bogota.
