Eyes on Kenya, a good critic to this blog!!...

Well I really have to admit that I’m not really into the blogging world. For some people it is really easy and enjoyable to sit in front of a computer and start typing to the WORLD their own life experiences and opinions about particular, national or even international issues. I’m more the type of girl that would rather go out with friends and have that kind of interesting and controversial conversations in “private”, or to send particular e-mails or message to a determine group of people… but anyway, It’s done what it needed to be done.

I’ve been talking in this blog about one of the things that I like to do most in life, TO TRAVEL, I have to say that I’m really lucky to have the family that I have; the way my parents always remind me the importance of knowing a WORLD farther than the place where we live, or from where we come from.

What I’ve told you so far about my trips around the world is not even ¼ of the places that I’ve been to, nor the experiences that I’ve had there. However, even though I’ve been in many continents, countries and cities, I’ve always wanted to go to Africa. Due to that, I’m because I’m planning already another trip around the world at the end of this year; I’ve been checking some blogs related to Africa and particular life experiences of others in this particular exotic continent. Just looking around, and reading a little bit of this… a little bit of that… I found this blog called “Blog Africa” (http://www.blogafrica.com/) that talks about news, but like relevant news all around Africa and its variety of countries. The blog has many posts about politics, economy and so on. They are all very interesting, and a few ones let you link to articles in different newspapers related to issues commented in particular ones.

I personally enjoyed the one about Kenya and the problems that they’ve been recently having over there. The post is called “Eyes on Kenya” by Jannek; It shows a YouTube video of the local police over there shooting at innocent people. It is just shocking. Maybe I felt more connected to the situation, and touched by the unfairness there, because similar things have been happening in my country in the past few years; the police just do whatever they want and forget completely about human rights.

I think this blog that I found is more than a way for the creators to express the human repression spread around Africa; This blog, I believe, represents the necessity that they have to show to the world the reality of the countries, without being stopped or threatened by the governments or any other powerful organization that may have relations with the media.

I’m a person that constantly says the phrase “to be seen to believe”, because I do believe that the impact of a message that is wanted to be transmitted to the people will be better received by images than by words, and this YouTube videos posted about Kenya in this Africa Blog talks by itself. I guess is for that reason that the blogger did not write more than 1 line to describe the situation.

I’ll let you all see the video posted there, so you can as well see a little bit more of the reality of the world, farther than our own life's reality.



I still have to say that even though Africa is such a complicated continent, maybe full of poverty and complicated sickness, I’m still looking forward to go and travel all around it; even maybe record interesting videos to show to the world. Africa definitively has to be my next stop.

Cali, Colombia!!..

I went to Cali in December 2006 for 2 weeks; I went there to visit my best friend while I was living in Belgium, the same one that went with me to Germany, Luxemburg, Paris, etc etc.

I know that Colombians tend to have a bad reputation around the world with all the problems with the guerrillas, cocaine and drugs in general, but avoiding all those stereotypes I really have to say that Colombians and Venezuelans are THE SAME THING!!.. well, we just have a different Spanish accent.

I met the Colombian girl, Adriana, in Belgium, and since the first time that we spoke we had a connection; all the stereotypes and jokes against Colombians that we had sometimes in Venezuela flew away, and we just understood and felt how similar we were in many senses. Once the exchange student year finished and I went back to Venezuela I started to work to save money to go visit her as soon as I could. I stopped the university in Venezuela in 2006 as soon as I knew that I was going to come leaving here, so I started to work full time as a secretary in an office until I had enough money to pay my trip to Cali, Colombia.

I spent more than one year without seen my friend, and I was just dying to see her. At the same time I have to say that in Venezuela, Colombia, Cuba and other many Latin American countries around the Caribbean, we dance salsa music all the time and all around. As a result, I am really into that music, I’m saying this because Cali has one of the best reputation in Salsa music around Latin America, so I was desperate to go dancing in Cali and experience, by my own, how good the men over there dance. But anyway, I ended up, after 3 month working full time, having enough money to buy my ticket and visit my friend. I was pretty proud of myself because it was the first time that I was actually leaving the country earning my own money, and paying my own things.

Cali is a disaster; it was like traveling to another city in Venezuela; so I really can’t say that I didn’t feel like home. They were constructing a new Tram called “MIO” all around the city, so many streets were closed, and the other ones were collapsed with the crammed traffic. But I did have a great time anyway, as I said before, I really don’t mind to be in messy cities, I’m used to, Caracas is a completely mess, and I love it anyway. So, I went to the zoo in Cali, they have the same exotic animals that we have in Venezuela, so I wasn’t really amaze, but I had a great time just walking around and talking with my friend like in the all times.

Travels don’t always have to be about going to tourist places and taking pictures of everything, even though I did go to a few tourist or typical places. This trip meant A LOT to me; I had the opportunity to meet my best friend’s family and experience the way she lives in her own country; we had some typical Christmas reunions with all her family and close friends, and we even participated in a "FREE HUGS" campaign around Cali, where I not only had the opportunity to hug random people all around the streets, but to share and talk to them; I found that experience one of the most open minded experiences in my life, is a shame that I don’t have pictures of that day, only a t-shirt with the “Free Hugs” words written in Spanish.

I went to Venezuela after two weeks of cooking Christmas cookies with my friend, dancing salsa every night and meeting more and more important people in her life. Since the day I left her there, in the airport, and I went back to Caracas I’ve been looking forward to spend another 15 days with my friend, It doesn’t matter where, I just want to be with her.

NEW YORK CITY, the Capital City of the WORLD

Last year, before coming to live here in Sydney, I went for a few days to New York City, my ex-boyfriend and ‘love of my life’ lives there so I decided to visit him for a few days before leaving the American continent.

I went in winter, so I found a whole chilly city full of snow and freezing wings. I got there after 3 days full of farewell parties and familiar reunions in Venezuela, but I wasn’t really sad, not because I was not going to miss my people, country and life style in Venezuela, but because I really love to travel, and I was really happy to be meeting again my ex-boyfriend and vacationing in NYC, the capital city of the world.

The first day we didn’t go out, I was quite tired with the trip and all the emotional days back in Venezuela; it was too cold outside anyway, so I didn’t feel like struggling with the cold; I’m from a tropical country that means that we don’t have different seasons during the year, only raining and droughty, so I’m not really into cold weathers.

Anyway, I didn’t have more than 4 days to stay over there, so that means that I didn’t have much time to travel all around the city, go to New Jersey, and of course, went out at night to different parties, however, I had a great time.

I love the cities at night; all those lights from different buildings coming from everywhere just tend to captivate me in a way really hard to explain. Caracas, my native city, is one of the most messy cities around the world, but at night I found it just beautiful. The same happened to me with NY; I love messy cities, where you need to struggle to get a sit in the train or spend hours stuck in the traffic trying to get to a place or to an appointment on time; that is NYC, a chaotic city with more than 8million people trying to live peacefully between them.

I was staying in the Bronx, but not like the Bronx in the movies, where you find only gangsters all around and people that you shouldn’t mess up with. It was a quite and nice place just crossing the Broadway Bridge. I was staying with a Dominican family, which is my ex-boyfriend’s family, so that made it even better. Dominicans have one of the most funniest Spanish accents ever, and they are, just like most of Venezuelans and Latin American people, really familiar and affectionate, so they treated me like another member of the family.

I went to almost all the tourists’ places, and I loved each and every one of them. I went to the Empire State building, Time Square, Rockefeller Centre, Staten Island Ferry, American Museum of National History, Central Park, Grand Central Terminal and even to the ground zero, where the world trade centre used to be located. What a big and amazing city. The Central Park’s lake was freeze; the Statue of Liberty, which I found one of the most smallest and disappointed statues ever, was closed so I just saw it from the Ferry; and one of those days I had the opportunity to watch the sunset from the top of the Rockefeller Tower.

I just have to say that once I went to Berlin I though that I had found the perfect city to live sometime in the future, but after I went to NYC, Berlin became just a second option. NYC definitively has my heart and I’m just looking forward to go back there, but this time, for good.

Paris!!.. une ville d'amour!!

The first time I went to Paris was the first time that I went to Europe, in 2003. I couldn’t speak French at all, and I was just doing a tour with my family around 6 different countries around west-Europe. We stopped in Paris for about 4 days; I have to admit that I didn’t like the city that first time that I went. We were staying on a hostel in one of the suburbs around the city, the place wasn’t really nice at all, it was quite dangerous actually, I know it may sound funny that kind of comment coming from a Latin American girl, but seriously, the suburb was really dodgy. I guess that was one of the first reasons why I didn’t enjoy 100% the time in Paris.

It is always easier to get in love with a city or even a whole country if you speak their language, which is the opposite that happened to me with Berlin, where I was barely capable of swearing in German. But French people tend to be nasty and impolite with the people when they are not in the mood, especially with tourist that can’t speak the language at all. So, I didn’t feel really welcome to the city like in the way I felt in cities like Madrid, London, Roma, etc, where the local people tend to be really nice to tourist. But anyway, even though I was quite disappointed with a few things in Paris, I did felt in love with the Eiffel tower and some different tourist places such as Notre Dame, Champs Elise and the Museum of Louvre, which I found amazing.

The 2nd time that I went to Paris was two years later; I went for a weekend with my best friends; we all spoke French already, and we can all definitively say that we had the best time of our life. Paris was just awesome, and I have to say that my experience over there was completely different after I spoke the language and I was able to communicate with the local people. We went to Sacred Coeur, where we talked for hours with the merchants, bakers, painters, etc. what a lovely people!!!...

My best friend in Venezuela lived in Paris for 3years when she was little, so she was the most excited one in the group walking around the city. The first night we went to have dinner (crepes, of course) close to the Eiffel tower, and at 10pm we appreciated the white intermittent lights that they normally turn on for 10mins all around the tower, it was just amazing. I have to admit that since that trip to Paris with my friends that city became part of my top 5 of best cities around the world. Paris definitively is part of my heart.