“I’d like to see coffee,” I told my family when I scheduled my vacation to Colombia. I didn’t know if this meant I’d have to go to coffee country, or if there was something a little closer to the city, I just knew that since I drink coffee every day, I wanted to see it growing.
My second day in Bogota was a Saturday so my family and I scheduled one of the activities I was most looking forward to: a street art tour of Bogota. I’ll be honest: street art has never been a huge interest of mine, but as soon as I saw them listed as something to do when I looked at Bogota on Pinterest, I immediately knew it would be part of my itinerary. We scheduled a tour through Bogota Graffiti Tour. These tours are led in English (although it looks like they have opportunities for Spanish and German language tours as well) by artists who are living in Colombia. The tour was free, with an opportunity to give a donation at the end for whatever you thought the tour was worth.
Even if you aren’t interested in street art, I highly recommend going on a graffiti tour if you ever visit Bogota and that you fit it into your schedule earlier rather than later.
Hello, everyone! Remember when I used to write about Colombia? Yep, it’s been a bit since I wrote about my trip. This post has been a little daunting to write, because we saw a couple of things on this jaunt so it isn’t just about one subject like the other two have been. So let’s just dive right in.
When we left off, Nestor and I left the shop that sells products from the glass factory we visited and made our way to La Candelaria, which is the old part of the city. I had seen glimpses of La Candelaria as we drove around Bogota and was so excited to see it! (Not gonna lie, Nestor also talked it up quite a bit, but for good reason. When we were introduced he was told that I’m an artist and he asked some questions after we left the apartment that I think he was able to use to figure out what I’d be interested in seeing.) La Candelaria is filled with old buildings, lots of street art (more on that another day) and a plethora of museums. Another thing that I noticed as we drove through to find a parking ramp is that there are a ton of hostels. Apparently this hasn’t always been the case; there was a time when there were only a couple, but now there are hostels everywhere you look. It just goes to show how much tourism to Colombia has increased. (Also, if I didn’t have a place to stay in Bogota, I’d definitely be interested in checking out a hostel in La Candelaria!)
Last week I shared photos from the Sunken Garden at the Como Zoo & Conservatory in St. Paul. Today I thought I’d share some photos from the North Garden. I was about to write “I think the North Garden was my favorite,” but I realized that I probably could have written that about the Sunken Garden as well. Really, I enjoyed each garden in the conservatory for different reasons.
In July I took a trip to the Como Zoo & Conservatory in St. Paul. I wanted some photos of gardens to use for a work project and I couldn’t find any stock photos that I liked, so I decided to go take my own. My mom has always been a huge fan of gardens and flowers, so I thought she’d enjoy a trip out to the conservatory as well. It was a great mother/daughter outing and a fun way to spend the morning. Here are some photos from one of the gardens in the conservatory–the Sunken Garden. I loved how bright and airy this garden this was!
I wish I had a name to give you for the glass factory, since it was such a fun part of my city tour of Bogota, but I don’t. I don’t even have the name of the store we visited after, where the products are sold and where I bought three small animal figurines. But this was such a cool part of my city tour and I have so many photos from it that I have to share anyway.
I woke up bright and early on my first day in Colombia. After a delicious breakfast of huevos pericos and patacones (fried green plantains), I met Nestor, my tour guide for my city tour of Bogota. I’ll admit that the idea of a city tour didn’t really appeal to me, but my parents, brother, nephew and my aunt and uncle all went on tours with Nestor, so it came highly recommended.
Colombia as a travel destination has been on my radar for years, ever since I saw a tweet from someone sharing her excitement about an upcoming trip to Bogota. A conversation with someone else ensued, during which she shared that it was her third or fourth time visiting, she loved it that much. So I was excited when relatives of mine moved to Bogota a couple of years ago and the very real possibility of traveling to Bogota in the near future opened up.
I arrived late at night, but during the drive from the airport to the apartment I took in my surroundings as much as I could. When I was settling into my room I asked myself, “With this first impression, is Colombia what you imagined it would be?”
I’ve always wanted to share more of my city on my blog. A few years ago I started by sharing some of the places that you can eat in downtown Minneapolis. I worked downtown at that time and went out for a weekly lunch with my friend Heather. But Minneapolis has more than just food and that restaurant series wasn’t the most inspiring to write about–and I’m sure it wasn’t the most inspiring to read about, either!
One of my favorite things about Minneapolis is that it’s a wonderful city for creatives. If you’re a writer, artist or musician you will be able to find a community filled with your people. I recently started to keep an eye on the events popping up on Facebook and it seems as though you can find some sort of art event every weekend.
Yes, you read that right. Weekly Vlog 01. I started a YouTube channel!
This has been a goal of mine for over a year now, so I decided it was finally time to do it. I actually filmed this footage a month ago, from March 27th to April 1st. Since it was so late I almost thought about forgetting about all of it, but I really liked some of it so I decided that using it a month late was better than not using it at all.
The video includes Easter Sunday, a few days spent in Stillwater, MN at the Aurora Staples Inn and a behind-the-scenes look at taking photos for my blog.
