CARTAGENA

First I want to say how much i love Colombia. I've been there 3 times in the last year. The people are so full of passion, and all treat us amazingly. If you ever get the chance to go there.. Jump all over it.

So lets explain the whole set up. Basically, they fly in people from all over the world to compete. Take care of food, hotel, and flights. Then.. they call up sponsors and say, hey we got people from all over the world here, would u like to sponsor this event. Pretty smart stuff.

So, free trip to go skate in Colombia, that's the good part. Here's the bad part. This race is the last qualifier for their national tryouts. So they have to be training pretty hard. However for us, we're basically sitting in the middle of winter, and outdoor training is little to none. So, i read online how joey lost and all sorts of other stuff. Joey skated very similar to the way he skated last year, maybe a little better, and yet somehow he snuck out 7 golds medals at the last world championships. But don't get me wrong... The Colombians are amazing. There's several things that really stick out. First of which being depth. From top to bottom they're all good. There's no one that just can't keep up. The 2nd thing that really sticks out is they're technique. They all skate right. In the US you see people out there and sometimes think, did they ever get coached?? In Colombia even the slowest skaters skate the right way.

To me skating is a lot of times way more than winning and losing. This is the 2nd year we've gone to Cartagena to race, and I haven't skated good either time, not even close to skated good. But this trip is so great b/c of the people you get to meet. The Colombian people are some of the nicest on the planet. They always seem to be happy that you are there. Also, like I said they fly people in from all over the world. They brought skaters in from Venezuela, Italy, Argentina, New Zealand, Chile, Belgium, Korea, and the USA. The first few days all the countries pretty much just hung out with the people that spoke the same language as them. However, after a few days, we sorta got around all that. By the end of the trip we seemed to be eating every meal together, went to the beach together, and even played a game of mini water polo with something like 5 countries represented. One cab ride someone brought up how amazing it was that people from 3 different countries were riding together in a cab, in Colombia. It's super cool when u sit back an think about it, but when your there, your just sorta hanging out with your friends.

Of all the cool things we did, and all the cool people I met there's one thing that really sticks out. On the way to skate the road part of the competition we drove through an area of "houses" that made my jaw drop. These one room houses were probably about the size of some of you guys bathrooms, smaller than some. They were basically built around a swamp. Mostly the walls seemed to be made of plywood, some were made out of old signs. There were some houses with wholes in their roofs. Any house that had electricity had it run directly from the power line into the house. But it looked like not many of them had electricity. There were times when my family struggled for money. But we didn't miss meals, and my parents had an opportunity to make sure myself and my brother were provided for. Seeing how bad some people have it puts into perspective how much we take for granted. So next time you get mad at your parents b/c they didn't buy you your new shoes or cell phone or whatever.. just realize that there are people in this world who really do without. And your probably not one of them.

Ok That was posted a week later than i wanted. I'm pretty sick right now, and that's gonna get explained in a blog or 2 but i want to wait till I'm all the way better(yeaaah i'ma loook like an idiot).. i got 1 more I'ma try and finish 2night.. but it might be 2morro before it's done. Talk to you guys soon