Several days ago Inessa came to Bogota and stayed several days at my house. It was really exciting to have the opportuity to show someone from Trinity the things that I love the most from here. One of the places you need to visit is the Salt Cathedral in Zipaquira. Zipaquira is a small town 30 minutes away from Bogota which has a strong salt mining industry. In 1993, the salt minerzs began the ambitious project of building cathedral inside the mine into the mountain. 2 years later the Salt Cathedral opened its gates. The entirety of its structure is made of salt, and digs down 168 meters below surface. It is, indeed, a wonderful site to visit. So I took Inessa there. The first section of our visit included 14 small shrines commemorating Jesus passion: from the 40 whip lashes to his burial. All the sculptures of these shrines are abstract representations of the Lord's suffering, and everything is carved from salt. The crosses at these shrines usually weigh 4 tons. Yes, 4 tons of salt scultped into a cross. Shortly after, we accessed the choir, designed to have perfect acoustic conditions for any performer. The cathedral down below also holds the world's biggst cross underground, towering up 17m from base to top and 12 m from arm to arm. The cross was also carved into the salt deposit. Many of the different ornaments inside the cathedral were lit with blacklight, giving the salt a majestic blue tone. My favorite was the access dome, where the blue ceiling glowed with overwhelming beauty. I promise to put some pictures sometime soon. I'm currently in a trip to Paipa, a town 3 hours away from home and I forgot to bring my laptop (with all the pictures taken in it) with me. For now, Happy New Years and hold on to more landmarks and adventures in Bogota.

Posted by Sebastian at 4:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Alright, so the lights were already shining on the Trinity trees on Thursday November 29. The following day was the ISO Christmas party. A year ago, the International Programs Office started requesting international students to arrive earlier than the American students to have three days if orientation. This is International Student Orientation (ISO). So Inessa, the International Student Advisor, requests the help of several students and offers an internship. I actually didn't enroll in the internship, but I was part of ISO as a volunteer. Well, in any case, interns and volunteers from the last ISO got together at Inessa's house for an early Christmas party. We were "encouraged" to bring a traditional dish from our countries in order to keep the spirit of internationality. I wanted to cook arroz con leche or buñuelos, which are traditional Colombian Christmas goodies, but I didn't plan on advance and ended up buying a cake at HEB. Yes, lame, but trying to figure out how to get all the ingredients and cook something when you don't have a car or cooking utensils in your dorm for a party that will start 3 hours later isn't exactly ideal. Anyway... at Inessa's we had some Cuban sandwiches, Russian potato salad, and llapingachos, which is an Ecuadorean dish.

Llapingachos ready to be fried... Ecuadorean goodness that fits in one hand.

Needless to say, by the end of the night my stomach was stuffed so much deliciousness. After eating, we played the white elephant game. I had never heard of that game before, but the basic rules are:
1. Everyone brings an unmarked gift and puts it in a table.
2. A drawing order is determined randomly.
3. Whoever goes first, can pick any of the gifts at the table and opens it.
4. The next player picks another gift and opens it, and can choose to either keep the gift he/she just opened or swap it for any of the gifts already opened.

The catch is...the people who have played this before buy ridiculous gifts. For example watch this:

While we bought DVDs, gift cards, and other "nice stuff", the older players brought a giant ugly doll and a very naughty dog doll. It was hilarious to see people fight over who would keep a fondue pot and who would end up with the giant baby doll.

Gifts switched hands like the Mississippi Miracle play. In the end, we had a great laughs watching people's reactions and frustration when they had to give their gift to someone else who wanted it too.

Christmas party was a great time. We all ended up with a gift and learned about how food in other countries was like.

Posted by Sebastian at 1:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The subject of this entry might seem a little bit outdated, but I got caught up with end-of-semester chaos and couldn't get to write until now. My case was a little bit particular since I will be going abroad next semester to the European Union, so I had to clear everything from my room, and that took a lot more time that what I expected. Juggling with finals and packing was really hectic. Anyway, I'm back home, in Bogota, Colombia. This couple of days back in my country have been awesome. My family is really tight and I'm blessed with the ability to return often. But anyway, let me try to recount the holiday activities before finals at school started. ASR, which is the student government organization on campus, puts up Christmas lights at the Esplanade every year, and being a Senator I helped out. We actually had to go through two attempts since the lights we had stored were all broken, so we had to go and buy some. In the end it was nothing overwhelming, but it made me realize it was already Christmas time, and the semester would end soon. Here are some images about the process of putting up the lights:

I will leave you with this for now. Tomorrow I will write about what has been going on my last three weeks. I will probably avoid the nasty misery of finals week, but there might be some interesting things I'd like to tap on. Stay tuned.

Posted by Sebastian at 1:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)