Funny that you mention this as Quaddeuce has just posted this in my blog today :

-"Hey dub and fossilkid, what do you guys think of this site? https://baselang.com/
They claim they can take you from knowing 0 spanish to being able to have a 30+ minute conversation in spanish in 30 days. Sounds a bit too good to be true, no? They have good reviews though... And they have a school in medellín and I fly into medellín tomorrow. It feels a bit serendipitous. I'm really thinking of joining."

We have been discussing learning Spanish for the past couple days, so perhaps you would like to join the discussion and check out the helpful tips that (notably) Fossilkid also stated (not my travel thread) :

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1...l#post55803137

Sorry, don't want to feed my A.D.D., and since my trip is to Colombia (first stop Medellin) I'm going to limit my postings about Spanish language schools to this thread.

I've done a fair amount of research, and all of the Spanish language school in Medellin seem to get very good reviews, so maybe I can't go too wrong no matter where I enroll? That said (and I hope I'm wrong about this) the more I read about and research Medellin, the less excited I get about this trip. Everyone mentions how necessary it is to speak Spanish in order to enjoy Medellin...but I don't (speak Spanish that is).

This school in San Carlos (a small town about four hours from Medellin) looks interesting and they get rave reviews: https://www.spanishadventure.com.co/

It can be a positive and a negative. If the level of Spanish is low then you'll be forced to immerse yourself and learn things quickly which will help you learn faster.

As an example, I started my French learning in Montréal. Most of the young people there have a decent level in French and English and as soon as they detected my accent they would immediately switch to English on me. I appreciated the help, but it was difficult to work on my French. Then I went to France and started improving way faster b/c French people absolutely hate speaking in English so I had to live my life in French and figure things out.

Depending when your trip to Medellín is, you might have time to work hard on your Spanish for 3 months and get to a level where you can at least get by ok in Medellín, and then from there you can treat it as an immersion experience.

There is a private game where most of the foreigners and expats play. Stacks are about 300$-900$. Lot of action. Here is the official website http://marvinspokerroom.com/

According to their website you have to be invited to play there; I tried to contact them via the email address listed on their website, but it bounced back as undeliverable.

I'm in town for probably at least a few weeks...PM me if anyone wants to get together for a few beers, maybe even try to find a poker game...

I've been in Colombia for a little more than three weeks now...spent most of the time in Medellin and am now in Jardin, a very quaint town/pueblo about 3-4 hours south of Medellin in the coffee growing region.

I spent the first 4-5 days in Medellin just doing the tourist-thing...did the downtown free walking tour (HIGHLY recommended!), a tour of Comuna 13 (also highly recommended), went to several different markets, ate a dozen different types of unusual fruits....basically just exploring the city. Big fan Medellin's public transportation system (i.e. metro/subway, cable cars, and trams & bus system), a very clean, cheap, easy way to explore the city. Poblado is the rich, touristy-area of the city, but overall I thought it sucked. I much preferred Laureles and Envigado (birthplace of Pablo Escobar).

Not a huge fan of typical Colombian food (loaded with starches and carbs & can't find a green vegetable to save my life) but oddly enough ate at some really good Asian restaurants.

Played poker once at Casino Rio and twice at an expat home game (not Marvin's game mentioned above) run by an American guy. Quite an interesting game, lots of degening going on at the table. Free food & drinks...definitely an enjoyable game.

Spent two weeks taking Spanish language classes, helpful but not easy...definitely wish I had payed more attention in high school Spanish class!

Arrived Jardin yesterday, rented a motorcycle this morning and spent all day riding around, getting lost and exploring the countryside...had just an amazing day.

Overall really enjoying my time thus far...it sucks not being able to speak more Spanish, but the Colombian people are SUPER friendly. It doesn't hurt that the dollar is super-strong here, overall I'd say that Colombia is significantly cheaper than Mexico.

I'm too busy to write more, but will by happy to answer questions.

Nice update. I don't really have any questions, but am waiting for the next update, as there is a good chance I will be popping over in June-July for a short sting

Great update!

Totally agree that Envigado/Laureles are way better than Poblado. If you are in Jardín, that means you are about halfway to the Coffee Zone (Eje Cafetero in Spanish), which I highly, highly recommend especially if you can do the motorcycle thing b/c it's littered with cool little towns. Salento, Buenavista, and Valle del Cocora were my favorites.

Did you overnight in each of these towns, or did you stay elsewhere and just organize day-trips to the last three places you mentioned?

Salentó is the best of the bunch and deserves an overnight.

Buenavista I linked together with Pijao in a 1 day trip, you could probably also add Génova too.

Filandia is another interesting one that could be seen right before Salentó. Keep in mind, these are mostly very small towns, so depending on location you could probably see 2-3 in a day, I think there are like 8-10 towns in that vicinity, I forget all the names.

Valle del Cocora isn't really a town, but rather an area with tons of gorgeous super tall palm trees. But it's a whole day affair as you have to hike like 2 hours each way I believe to see everything. Just Google and see if it's something that interests you. I actually did a mountain bike tour to a lesser known part near Cocora with even thicker palm trees and it was a top 3 highlight in my 2 months in Colombia. I can give you the deets if interested, or most people just do the normal Cocora tour which originates from Salentó.

BTW, I did a huge thread about my Colombia/Peru adventures here:

Colombia/Peru Thread

Posts #136-139 are where I go into more detail about the stuff I just mentioned here. You might give it a read if you have some time to kill and want more ideas.

Thx Fossil, in retrospect I wish I had done more pre-trip research (including reading your posts) before arriving in Colombia!

Spent 3 nights in Jardin, mostly exploring the surrounding areas on motorcycle.

Somewhat surprisingly, for a fairly touristy town, there is no official motorcycle rental business in Jardin. I asked in 3 tour guide / travel agencies, and all three said no one rents motorcycles, but I doggedly kept asking around & eventually a guy who owns a bicycle repair / bicycle rental shop rented me his own personal bike (125cc) for 60,000 pesos (about $18) a day. It was a little under-powered for some of the offroad trails I took it on, and I almost laid it down once when it couldn't make it up a really steep dirt path I was on, but thankfully I managed to keep it upright as the bike & I slid back down, front wheels locked up but unable to stop.

Unfortunately the coronavirus hysteria got the best of me, and while I think I'm probably less likely to catch it in Colombia than I am back in the States, I've got elderly parents who (if they caught it) would need my help, so I cut my trip short & booked an early flight back home. Checked out all the airlines, LATAM was over $2K dollars for a one-way flight (WTF!?!) but the "Greyhound of the Skies" aka Spirit Airlines had a one way flight for $200 including baggage fees.

Spent my last full day in Colombia in Guatapé and walking to the top of Piedra del Peñol. The water in the reservoir was really down, so not as photogenic a spot as it would have been otherwise, but I enjoyed it, as I did the colorful but slightly too touristic Guatapé.

Arrived back in the States on Friday, stood in line @ immigration for max 10 minutes and then breezed thru customs, no one bothering to check my bags. Glad I got out when I did, from pics I'm seeing on the news there are massively long lines at immigration / airports this weekend.

Obviously I saw & experienced only a tiny bit of what Colombia has to offer, I hope to make it back there once whatever happens, happens, and things/life is back to normal.

Interesting times we're livin' in, hope everyone travels safe...

Glad you're back home safely and that Spirit came through for the cheap airfare!

How is your Spanish faring? Did you end up doing a formal school for a short time, private lessons, etc.?

My Spanish is faring about as well as Coronavirus outlook here in #1USA...not good! ;-)

I signed up for beginner group lessons at a new school in Poblado...and I was the only one who signed up for lessons, but instead of cancelling the class (as I expect most schools would have) they were like "hey, you signed up for group classes, not your fault that no one else signed up, see you on Monday!" so I ended up getting two weeks worth of private lessons (2 hours day x 5 days a week) for 250,000 pesos/week. Quite the deal, and though I think the teachers were quite good, I'm old, dumb, & not good w/ languages, and I think only about 10% of what they poured into my brain stuck.

I've got Ser vs Estar and IR/AR/ER verb conjugation down fairly well, but the tough part is just increasing my noun vocabulary. In retrospect I should have spent a couple of months studying online before arriving in Colombia. Now that I'm back & lots of free time on my hands (thx Corona!) hopefully I'll have the discipline to study for an hour or two a day before my next trip to S.A.

If I may suggest : combine pleasure with your studying and make sure to ALWAYS have Spanish subtitled to all your tv/movie viewings And furthermore, you can include some Spanish viewings with English subtitles. GL

Yes, subtitles is a great suggestion.

Once you get to a level where you can follow along with Spanish subtitles w/Spanish viewings, I would recommend that.

You could also look for language partners (maybe even cute women from whichever country you'd like to visit next) and chat a little bit each day or look for Spanish teachers and take lessons online.

You could also try putting post it notes w/the Spanish translation on items all over the household and force yourself to write stuff like grocery lists in Spanish to expand your vocab. I've found this constant real world re-enforcement better than just reading lists and trying to memorize that way.

lol, this is hilarious. haven't browsed travel threads in quite awhile, great to see marvin in the mix - he's such a character, back in 2015 or so he was coming to homegames we organized at the pokerhouse I was living, handing out business cards to everyone "the amazin marvin - professional poker player' or something like that.

super harmless guy, I'm sure he runs a great game - he just loves poker and embellishing on pretty much every story he tells. Glad he's making some profit finally at poker one way or another!

I saw some chatter about language learning in medellin, and couldn't recommend against that enough, haha. Their cadence and vocab really isn't found anywhere else. Its honestly the only city specific accent I could instantly pick out anywhere in the world if I hear a local talking, like just as strong as boston or NYC but even more specific, with phrases that nobody else uses. In tokyo a couple years ago I heard a bartender say like 4 words, and instantly asked, or more stated "you are from antioquia, right?" omeeee parce, que chimba ps el parche. the slang is nonstop and much more common in everyday life than any other country I can think of. It's almost like learning ebonics instead of english for a comparison

Bogota on the other hand is very neutral and easy to learn/understand. I love it, just not the best place to learn a universal form of spanish. Did you struggle at all with spanish there greg? Colombians always tell me I sound mexican, and mexicans tell me I sound colombian. I'm stuck right in the middle which is fine by me. Mexi slang runs super deep as well, but is more manageable with a standard baseline

Hey is there any poker players in Medellin , i will come in april there

Hey, coming to Medellin in a few days. What sites am I allowed to play there? Thanks

I was wondering the same thing... Does anybody have an answer to this? Google didn't help.

You can play WPN for sure and maybe some other sites. Ask your affiliate, they might help you out even if the poker room where you play atm doesn't allow players from Colombia. They might make an exception. Let me know if you wanna grab a beer.

chico network works. all the major "legit" sites, stars, party, 888poker do not work. ignition et. al don't work.

Hey, Just moved to Medellin for a couple of months. Looking to connect with other players down here. Send me a PM if you're interested in a grabbing a drink.

hey which poker rooms can you play in Colombia? gg? acr?