Is this love that I'm feeling?

I ATE DRAGON FRUIT AND I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW IT! Google works wonders. 

DRAGONS

LOOK AT IT! Gloria was so nice and bought me a pitaya (dragon fruit!) to try. It comes yellow here (on the outside), as shown below. It's seasonal, and only grows in abundance twice a year. It tasted like something I couldn't put my finger on... "Kiwi?" asked Gloria. "¡Eso es!" I said, as if kiwi is also a scarcity in the United States! The only fruit, I think, that we have and they don't is blueberries.

Also comes in pink! (But not here. At Yankee Candle it does!)

But that's okay, because there are many other fruits to try and make yourself feel really weird! Take zapote, for example. The name comes from the Nahuatl word tzapotl. There are many different types of zapote, and the kind I tried looked like this:

zapote

and left me feeling kind of like this:

za-plehhh

Not that is was tan asco, but let's just say it wasn't my favorite!

Something else that demands mentioning is the huge influx of Disney-themed restaurants you can find here in Armenia. In fact, in the city alone, you can find two of these!

Peter Bread! It's a bakery! Get it?

I guess I was meant to live here! There is another one that I wasn't able to get a picture of called Disney Pizza, featuring Mickey and Disney lettering on the sign. Probably would seem legitimate if it weren't in a tiny town surrounded by mountains in Colombia.

The arepa is a staple in Colombian gastronomy. They are the Colombian version of tortillas, but thicker. They are made from ground white corn. Florentino explained that twenty years ago, people would make arepas en casa with a grinder. The corn is first cooked and then ground with the grinder, which they still have but no longer use! Arepas are now produced by larger companies and sold in stores, or people sell them for cheaper on the streets. The handmade ones are way better than the packaged ones!

The grinder

Maybe someday I will resurrect the dying art en casa!

The ground white corn.

After grinding the cooked corn, the dough is formed into a circle and cooked over gas or coal. Over coal tastes much better! Some people on the streets make arepas with cheese in the dough, and those are super rico (or Puerto Rico, as Graham says)!

Jesus has some food too! I'm talking about communion, of course, because I went to mass today right in my apartment complex! I guess that is an advantage of living in a country that is widely Catholic! Anyways, mass is in a little outdoor pavilion (which is not a problem, as it rarely gets below 60 here!), and it was my first time going there. A little old Colombian lady sat down next to me (after wiping off her concrete seat with a Kleenex), and we talked a little bit. Mass was awesome. At mass in the U.S., you get the occasional one or two loud singers. Here, almost everyone is a loud singer! That makes everything more fun, and actually helps me understand a little better sometimes what some of the songs are saying! My friend the old lady was one of the Loud Singers. They receive communion on the tongue here, and, well, while in Colombia (I'm changing the saying!)! After mass, my friend invited me for hot chocolate and crackers in her apartment. She turned out to be 70, and a relative newcomer to the apartment complex living with her son. She lived in Venezuela for three years when her sons were 13 and 14, working as a seamstress of men's dress shirts to make money to send to her family. She said she knows how hard it is to be in a different country, when you don't have any friends and when everything is foreign and when you miss your family. She told me that she is there for whatever I may need, and was so generous. Although I am lucky and have made friends here, her friendly gesture and offer of friendship meant so much to me! She explained to me that people from the Paisa culture are asi - they want to share life with others, they always offer to help, and they love to give to others. I've experienced that time and time again, but I wouldn't limit that quality only to Paisas (who are people from Antioquia and Quindio) - Colombians from all regions who I've met are just as generous! I think other cultures would do well to take a leaf out of their book!

Sara and her friends just kept the entire apartment building despierto until 12:18PM singing karaoke with friends via YouTube videos with lyrics. It was so fun and I sang some songs with them! I get a kick out of them singing in English, and I'm sure they find it amusing when I sing in Spanish!

Well, thanks for being here with me, and have a great day! ¡Gracias!

	***gastronomy: the type of cookery of a particular region: the gastronomy of Provence.	http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/gastronomy?s=t

pitaya = dragon fruit

¡Eso es! = That's it!

tan asco = so gross

pan = bread

en casa = at home

super rico = so good!

asi = like this

despierto = awake