Hey everyone,

the first real week of classes was very exciting and exhausting.  

Politecnico Grancolombiano

Plaza Che at Universidad Nacional

And now the second week has just started. I have to say that all my classes are very interesting. Of course the ones in Spanish are way tougher, and especially my financial classes are the ones in Spanish. Lucky me, I got a very tough teacher in finance, and during every class, you can see everyone with a very red head and some even start sweating. The positive point, besides the stressful classes and tons of homework that always magically appear on moodle, is that we will learn a lot in his class ;)
I feel like I already start getting used to the busy and long days. Many classes already start at 7am, which means I have to leave my apartment at 6am, and Flo has to leave even earlier if he has a teacher that is picky about being punctual. Both, Flo and I have most of our classes in the mornings, so after the classes at Politecnico Grancolombiano (Poli), I leave straight to the Universidad Nacional (you can see Plaza Che on the picture), as I have Spanish classes there every afternoon from 4 to 6pm. The Spanish classes seem a lot of fun and our group is very diverse. We have 3 French, 2 north Korean, 1 Chinese, 2 Swedish, 2 Danish, 1 Canadian, 1 American, and me, 1 German ;)

beautiful church at Caracas

Small side street in the Candelaria

The Universidad Nacional (in short UNAL) is totally different from Poli. I would describe Poli as very personal, well equipped, modern, etc; while at UNAL my first impression was just that it is immense. It is a huge campus, probably half as big as Leeuwarden ;) with a different building for each education. Furthermore, the whole area is fenced in and has many parks and soccer places… and free running animals. the first time I was there, I thought the horses ran away and I was looking for the fence, but that is actually normal ;) I have only seen horses and sheep; maybe I will meet a cow tomorrow when I go ;) The university is definitely not as modern as Poli, but it has a very cool feeling, with lots of graffiti and many interesting personalities studying there. The university combines everything, from Genetic engineering to IT to international relations.
 The area of the UNAL is also pretty much right next to my apartment. Unfortunately, the language building is on the other side of the campus, and therefore I walk about 10 min to the campus, and another 20 to get to my building within the campus. I tried to take public transportation, but especially at the time around 6pm, it takes me like 1 hour instead of 30 to 40 minutes walking. And when I finally make it home at 7pm, I have to start doing my homework. Some days last week, I was so tired, I already went to bed at 9pm :D

Candelaria

 Even though homework was pilling up to be done on the weekend, it was still possible to enjoy some of our free time. Some friends had a housewarming party which was a lot of fun. It was a mixture of Colombians, Mexicans and Germans ;) Florian was unfortunately ill and tried to recover, but on Sunday he was able to come to the Candelaria with Laura, Camilo and me. It is always a very nice area to be, and I hope the pictures can project some of the good atmosphere. 
ja ja ja... and there are so many other impressions Florian and me always think that we need to write about in this blog. One of them, is that people here generally never have cigarettes with them (the smokers), but instead they buy just one cigarette on one of those street stands :D And that could happen like every half an hour...

Candelaria

 
Similar to the cigarette buying, there are people all over the place with several phones on a cord. They have a sign that says 150, 200 or sometimes 300 pesos per minute. So if you want to call someone, you can just walk up to one, call the person and pay afterwards. Quiet interesting and sometimes very helpful when my phone dies or runs out of money ;)

Alright, now it is time to get ready for university. I wish you all a great day. 
Un abrazo, 
Dana