Medellín, Columbia - Week 3

Hello Family and Friends,

By now we have visited all 4 major malls in Medellín and we have decided that if we decide to move to Colombia we will need to be close to one of these malls. Viva Envigado isn't the biggest "centro commercial" (mall), but it may be our favorite. It has a movie theater that plays english movies with spanish subtitles. Also, it has an amazing cookie place, Braun. Everytime we go to Viva, which was probably at least once a week, we get a four pack of cookies. My favorite is churro and ariquepe (I must keep walking up that hill to take Atlas to daycare so that the arequipe doesn't start to show on my waistline). There is also a huge department store, Éxito. The best way to describe Éxito is like what Sears used to be in the states with the addition of a Publix like grocery department. Our host, Maria, told us that all the Éxitos actually were Sears that got bought out by a local Colombian business years ago. Another mall is Tesoro. It is larger than Viva and we have named it the bathing suit store. It has at least 6 different swim stores, none of which are brands we have in the states and all the suits are made in Colombia. It is easy to find clothing made in Colombia, which we love. Then there is SantaFe, which is actually the closest mall to our AirBnB. It's entire top level is dedicated to sports. It has multiple indoor soccer courts that are outside. It also has a beach volleyball court and tennis courts. Also we found this great barbecue restaurant, Costillas & BBQ, with amazing ribs and fries. We went there on two separate occasions (which we almost never do when traveling). Oviedo is across the street from SantaFe and is much smaller. It is an indoor/outdoor mall and has a very cutesy feel.

Atlas playing at one of the kid areas in the mall.

We didn't just spend our time trying to walk every square inch of all the "centro commercials" in Medellín, we also decided to check out the nightlife in this area call Provenza. We booked a rooftop bar crawl. I took a lesson from the last time Brett and I went bar hopping in Chicago and sprinkled in a lot of sparkling water so that I could go the whole night. Our tour was suppose to include 5 bars and 2 shots. After 4 shots (5 for Brett after he grabbed two),a few cocktails, 5 bars and more Reggaeton than I will need for the rest of my life we called it quits. We had about 30 people in our group and by the end of the night Brett had earned the nickname "El Rey" (The King). He made it his mission to meet and talk to every single person in our group. He met everyone but two or three people by the end of the night.

Me sitting with "El Rey".

One couple asked us how important the nightlife was to our decision on where to move. I told them it didn't matter at all, we just wanted to see what Provenza was like since we had heard about it. It's a great time for people who like to party all night. However, for us old people, we spent the entire next day recovering.

We also learned a new spanish word, "pueblear". It means to go visiting little towns. If we moved to Medellín we would definitely do a lot of pueblear-ing. Maria took us to this adorable little town called "El Retiro".

Danielle, Maria and Brett

It is an hour outside of Medellín and has retained all of its original charm. I tried to convince Brett that we could live here, but he said it was too small. We both agreed that we would need to explore all the little towns surrounding Medellín.