American invasion!

“No, I’m serious,” Paul said. 

It was a casual invitation, but I was also being sincere.   “No problem,” I replied almost as a dare. “You can come visit whenever you want.”

Six months later, he did (proving us both right).  

It was 1:00 in the morning when he showed up at my door, but his eyes were brighter than a boarding school freshman stepping onto the train platform.  I was determined to be a good hostess in order to pay forward all the karma I had accumulated during my own travels, however I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep up the Super Extrovert Tour Guide act for very long.   But his enthusiasm was unavoidably contagious and when I greeted him my voice came out an octave higher than expected.  “Hi! Welcome!” I exclaimed with involuntary pep, foiling my plan to make our first encounter as mellow as possible.  

But I couldn’t help myself... 

We hit the ground running and within 48 hours we’d hit up all the major Must Do’s--downtown, the university, the hike to the church on the mountain, the city lookout, public transportation, street food.  I never realized how self-absorbed I was in my own world until Paul temporarily popped my bubble.  As we were twiddling our thumbs one afternoon he asked me what I normally did on Sundays.  Run, write, read, internet, eat raw oatmeal in milk out of a mug... Not the most company-conducive activities.  By day 3, we were like my family at my grandma’s house the day after Christmas: everyone sitting around the table taking the last bites of breakfast and someone asks, “So what’s the plan for lunch?”  The only interesting thing left to do was eat and talk about eating.  

But then my apartment flooded and we were occupied with the task of finding a place to sleep.  An eight-hour overnight bus seemed like the perfect solution, until we realized that the highway between Bogota and Manizales was the inspiration for The Matterhorn ride at Disneyland.   I would have put my hands in the air to maximize the thrill of hurdling around hairpin curves down a mountain in the middle of the night, but unlike a real roller coaster, there were no lap bars on the bus.  I white-knuckled the arm rests to prevent myself from flying down the aisle and through the dashboard.  

I imagined that Paul, who had been concerned about packing the right clothes and finding a hostel--the kinds of plans I intentionally avoid making--was realizing that those were the least of his worries now that his body was on the brink of being throttled over a cliff.   We bonded.  But once the solidarity of our shared near-death experience wore off,  different aspects of our contrasting personalities became more apparent.  

If all of my trips in Colombia were published in a travel book, the subtitle would be: “Everything happens exactly as not planned.”  Expressing the beauty of this approach to a financial accounting major whose universe revolves around order, statistics, and predictions is not easy.  

If I go to a movie, I refuse to watch the trailer.  It’s an almost neurotic obsession with not creating expectations.  Paul, on the other hand, is the kind of person who will read the Wikipedia article on the history, economics, and politics of Hawaii before going on vacation.  

If there’s one thing I’ve held onto from my Christian upbringing, it is that the Bible says that all food is good to eat.  Amen!  This philosophy is difficult to share with someone who is nauseated by vegetables and deathly allergic to anything in the birch family.

If I go on a diet, it will last one day and in those 24 hours I will cheat at least twice.  Paul uses his iPhone to keep track of every calorie, monounsaturated fat, and gram of protein than enters his body.

But despite the chasm between our personalities, we actually had a great time.  I didn’t even want to suffocate him with a plastic bag after hanging out with him for ten days in a row--a feat few humans have accomplished.  We each made adjustments to make it work (he pretended to be stoked about bowling and leftover pasta to make me feel better and I euphemized translations when the campesinos were making fun of him in Spanish to make him feel better).  But overall it was surprisingly effortless to relax and have fun.  

I was proud to show off the awesomeness that is Colombia--where you can spend one night in a metropolitan city and the next day picking bananas from trees in the mountains; where a three course meal costs less than a gallon of gas in the States; where perfect strangers will welcome you into their homes and shower you with fruit and chocolate.  

I think he liked it.  

 Apartment flooding...

So much butter...