A Word From Zack

Wow, my very first blog. Its tough to follow an act like Brandon Binder when it comes to describing in detail how this trip is going and how I cannot grow hair on my upper lip. I am reminded almost daily between Binder and Mike Grady about how 7 year old Colombian boys can grow more facial hair than me. Awesome. Other than being immasculated every day, the trip has been amazing. Even though it feels like this trip just begun (because of our brief stop over in the US between Belize and Colombia) we have met some pretty unbelievable people. 

In Belize we had the pleasure of meeting some awesome ex-pats from the US including a couple that was originally from the Bay Area who just had their first child. Jules and Tyler would talk about how difficult it was for them to pick a name and when they thought about what kind of a person he would turn out to be they landed on the name Legend. Just to really drive the point home, they gave him the middle name Cornell so their first born son's name is Legend Cornell. We had the pleasure of meeting the young guy and needless to say, Brandon and I are convinced he WILL live up to his name. 

In Miami we stayed with Brandon's cousin Kristen and I got a good sense for what Maria Binder was like when she was my age. Just like Maria, we were welcomed into her home with comfortable beds and tons of food. The Antonidas' really know how to host family and friends. Between my Uncle Fo in Belize and Brandon's cousin, we have been very lucky to see family in our travels.

Our first stop in Colombia was in Bogota where we spent the last couple of days and nights taking in the sights and size of the city. Colombians dont speak very much English so we have been trying our hardest to communicate with them. We moved to a new hostel last night where we met all walks of life and learned Colombia's favorite drinking game which I cannot pronounce let alone type out in Spanish. We were hanging out with people from Seattle, Colorado, Colombia, Switzerland, Australia and a few others I cannot remember. 

Just to validate that this is an incredibly small world we are staying in a new hostel in Medellin tonight and all 3 of our dorm mates are from San Francisco and one of them lives 3 blocks from where we used to live in Russian Hill...annnnd he used to work for Advent Software where Brandon worked for three years before we left for this trip.

Hope everyone is well and we love reading your emails and comments on the blog so keep them coming.

Zack