Day 12 - last day of Spring Break, last day in NY and last first day of school

On this last day we woke up early and set out for a fun day in NY, shopping and lunching. We hit up Bloomingdales then went to Chelsea Market for lunch and then back to Saks and finally ended the day at Bloomingdales. Now we are sitting in the airport getting ready to board our flight and head home from this wonderful trip.  Of course Lauren got upgraded on the flight to business class, but not to worry I got an economy plus seat and had plenty of leg room to sleep almost the entire way home. We landed almost an hour early and when I got home I was too awake to sleep so I ended up watching the first half of the Oprah Lifeclass I sat in on just the day before scoring the audience for any image of Lauren or myself.

Day 11 - OPRAH - check

Today was the day my dream of being in the same room as Oprah was going to come true and I was going to be able to check seeing an Oprah tapping off my bucket list. We obviously slept in and then headed out to meet up with another one of Lauren’s friends for lunch in the financial district. After lunch we did a little NY shopping and then it was back to the hotel to get ready for my moment with Oprah. I did my hair for the first time in 9 days, actually put effort into my makeup and made Lauren approve my outfit and shoes before we left to go to Radio City. Lauren had gotten an email a few weeks ago saying we had been upgraded to a special pink wristband area but we didn’t really know what that meant all we knew was we had to wait at a special entrance. After about an hour wait in line (ie there was no way I was going to be late) we were let into Radio City and escorted to our seats. Each time we approached an usher they told us to talk to another usher closer to the stage and then closer to the stage and then closer, we ended up 3 rows away from the stage in the same row as Gail and Tony Robbin’s wife (one section over) but still closer than I could have ever imagined. Now you think I would be the one asking to sit closer to the action, but Lauren was the one negotiating with the usher asking if we can sit even closer. The show started off with the Executive Producer and the CEO of OWN talking about OWN and the future of the network and then Tony came out and got the crowd energized for the show. Right at 8 o’clock on the dot OPRAH WINFREY walked out on stage.  For the next two hours, Oprah and Tony talked about finding purpose and eliminating fear from your life. After it was all over, Oprah left the stage and Lauren and I went and had dinner to talk about our day and the show. At the end of the day all I could say was, “What a great day.”

Lauren and I at the Lifeclass filming

Day 10 - We have tickets and pink wristbands

We landed in NY, went through customs and then waited in baggage claim. Lauren’s bag comes of the slide early and then the people start to dwindle down and my bag still hasn’t shown up. My heart started racing that my bag didn’t make the quick turnaround in Panama and I wasn’t going to have my Oprah outfit that I had planned to wear. Finally, I swear it was the second to last bag, my bag came down the sled and we rushed off to get a cab and pick up the tickets. We planned to take the cab to Radio City Music Hall to pick up the tickets and I would stay with the bags and head off to the hotel to check us in. Lauren texted me 10 minutes later that the line to pick up tickets was literally two blocks. I think this was when Lauren started realizing just how big a deal Oprah really is. Once she texted me a picture of our tickets and our wristbands I could breath a little easier. When she got to the room we showered and then headed out to meet up with the first set of the many friends we were scheduled to have meals with. This one was in China town and we tried Soup Dumplings. Turns our Soup Dumplings is one Chinese food I actually like. After our sleepless night in the Bogota airport and our busy day in NY we just headed back to the hotel after dinner and went to bed. 

Day 9 - 10 – Our night in the Bogota airport

After our dinner at the Cevicheria Lauren and I went back to the hotel to clean up before our flight to Bogota. Of course the Hilton in Cartegena would be participating in the hour for the earth and every light in the entire hotel was out and everything was lit by candle light.  We took quick showers and then jumped in a cab to head off to the airport. As our luck would have it we got another interesting cab driver, this one lived in Colorado (so he spoke great English) but that also meant he spent the entire cab ride telling us about his crazy religion, how he tried to be a monk, his divorce, his plan for the future, and the way he wanted to die. When he passed the airport enterance and started reaching for his glove box I thought Lauren and I were in for a lot of trouble, but he was just absent minded and wanted to pass along his card incase he could be of any help to us. We jumped out of the cab and headed straight into the airport to see if we could grab an earlier flight. Security in Colombia is surprisingly minimal and we hustled onto a flight boarding in 5 min. As we were boarding the flight we noticed numerous people taking pictures of themselves on the tarmac, climbing the stairs to the plane and then inside. We kept commenting that this would be the airport that we could board the wrong flight since everyone just kept pushing us in one direction. Lauren kept asking every employee we saw along the way to make sure we were headed to Bogota. Lauren and I had a good  laugh about our adventure getting to the airport and then we sat in our seats which literally were so far back on the flight we boarded through the back door. We landed in the domestic terminal and needed to get to the international terminal for our next flight. When we asked how we get to the next terminal we were told that we needed to take a taxi. Lauren and I looked at each other wondering how far away could this terminal be and then we found out it was 10,000 pesos equaling almost eight dollars. So we got into the taxi line waited to get a taxi and then when we told them where we wanted to go they literally looked at us like we were crazy. But we drove the 2 min drive to the next terminal, got out, paid the 10,000 pesos and hurried to Copa to check in our bags for our flight the next morning. Unfortunately, they closed and we were forced to hang out in the Bogota airport all night with all our stuff. We picked a seat with close proximity to the outlets and hunkered down with our laptop and ipads. Lauren had plugged her Boss headset charger literally 5 steps from where were sitting and within 10 minutes someone had stolen it. On the bright slide Lauren made friends with every police officer in the airport and we had our own personal surveillance for the rest of the night. What can you expect from the 3^rd most dangerous city in the world. Our night in the airport went pretty quickly, we watched movies on our ipad, ate McDonalds sundaes, mcflurries, McMuffins, and Mcd Arepas (yes we went to McDonalds twice within 5 hours). Once 3 am came around we could check our bags in and we tried to head through customs. So security within Colombia is pretty easy, but security to leave the country is almost impossible. We went through the traditional bag check process where our luggage was scanned, than we went through a stage where everything in our carryon was sniffed (literally everything was pulled out and smelled) then we were patted down and finally allowed to board the airplane to Panama. So we thought we were clear of anymore screening, but this was not the case at all. Once we got to Panama we had 40 minutes to deplane and get onto our flight to NY. We once again waited in line to have all our carryon inspected; they wouldn’t even let Lauren take the water she bought in the airport on the plane. Comfortably in our seats ready to head of the NY I finally began to have faith that we would make it to the NY before the 5 pm deadline to pick up the tickets. 

Day 9 - Pool, Fort, Old Town and Hasta Luegos

We started off the day at a relaxing pace with everyone meeting at the pool in the morning to get our last day started in the sun and got two new members of the group, Sarah and Krishna.  So for just a few excing hours Seven Girls in Columbia turned into Eight Girls and Krishna...how about those Manderson odds? The group split up when Krishna and Sarah came over from there home to hang out at the Hilton with JPeng and Vivian, Rachel, Katie, Kat, Lauren and I went and explore the San Felipe Fort and the Old Town. The Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas located about 20 minutes from Old Town was the greatest fortress ever built by the spaniards in their colonies. We walked through the different levels of the fort through the tunnels that were constructed to move people and provisions. The tunnels were also constructed in such a way as to make it possible to hear footsteps of the approaching enemy. After the Fort we went to the Old Town to take a walking tour. We saw the Puerta del Reloj, Plaza de la Yerba where the slave trade was held, Convento and Iglesia de San Pedro Claver, Plaza de Bloivar, Palacio e la Inquisicion where the Punishment Tribunal of the Hold Office was from 1610, Catedral, Iglesia de Santo Domingo, and the Iglesia de Santo Toribio de Mangrovejo. After our walking tour we met up with Krishna, Sarah, and JPeng at the Sofitel hotel and had drinks to escape from the heat of the day and looked around the beautiful hotel constructed within the walls of a monastery. After our break we went back out into the sun to see Las Bovedas the old dungeons that have been converted to little souvenir shops. 

While we were taking our self guided tour around the Old City and the San Felipe Fort - Sarah, JLoco and Krishna hung out at the pool. As you can see from the picture Krishna became one with the waterslide and reverted back to his elementary school days. All Sarah wanted to do was lounge, relax, and do nothing which was working great until a bird pooped on her! If it only happened yesterday then she could have bought a lotto jackpot ticket and won big money ... What would be the first thing you would buy if you won the lottery?? For Krishna, it would be a jet to come back to Cartagena whenever he wanted! 

We split up again when Lauren and I had to leave earlier than the rest of the group to head to an early dinner and then to the airport to get to NYC to see all Lauren's friend and my friend Oprah. Lauren and I returned to our favorite restaurant from the trip the Cevicheria (one of Anthony Bourdain's picked from he show in Cartagena). After dinner we walked through the streets of old town and got caught up in a wedding march through the streets. 

Krishna kept up the blog on what everyone was doing in Cartagena the extra night and filled in his concluding thoughts on our last spring break. 

Tonight, we said goodbye to two lovely ladies, Beth and Lauren, who are off to NYC to hangout with Oprah!! It will be a once in a lifetime experience for both of them and well worth the trip. The good news is that they have been replaced with two crazy kids who skipped finals week to climb Machu Picchu in Peru before coming to Columbia. After saying goodbye to Dinesh, Sireenah, Kevin, Georgie, and our wonderful butler, Jovi aka Alfred, Sarah and I moved into the Hilton or as the Columbians say "il-Ton".  After we "hugged" Lauren and Beth goodbye we sat down to a very mellow dinner where Vivian ate everyone's fried plantains, Kat ate all my potatoes and JLoco devoured a humongous fried fish. Tomorrow most of us depart back to Estados Unidos for the start of our last quarter of business school... worst case of the "Mundays"! 

While the past two weeks may have had its ups and downs with the language barrier, confusing cab drivers, pesky street peddlers, rain, and food sicknesses, we have had an amazing time exploring Colmbia and I think when we reflect back, it will be pretty memorable Spring Break vacation. Columbia is an amazing country that is rich in history and culture as well as interesting people, so I think I can speak for everyone when I say we will be back! Our international adventure was filled with new exciting experiences, fun unique arts, catchy music, lots of food and most importantly GREAT friends. All good things must come to an end, but I will leave you with something my best friend taught me a very long time ago: "It's not where or what you are doing, but who you're with that matters." 

Until the next adventure,

Krishna aka Jairo Romera

Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas from afar

Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas - Kat, Vivian, and Katie inside the fort

Old Town Cartagena

The wedding parade the Lauren and I got caught up in - 

so fun watching the dancers lead the procession

As promised  - Mud Volcano pictures (ie this is the mud volcano)

Vivian, Lauren, Rachel, Kat, Sireenah, Katie, Georgie, and I inside the mud volcano - for some reason I just look paler inside the mud volcano than usual

Krishna living up is youth on the waterslide

Jenn, Sarah, Rachel, Katie, Vivian, Kat and Krishna at dinner on their last night in Cartagena