Something I’m Thinking About: NE Bike Tour

I’m thinking about doing a bike tour loop up to Montreal and over to Detroit and Chicago.  I really want to see Detroit.  See how wild it is.  Packs of dogs roaming the streets.  Post-apocalyptic landscape.  Click on the image to see the Google Map.

Video: Cycling in Bogota

Here I am cycling in Bogota on Avenida Caracas.  The traffic was crazy with buses swinging in and out from the curb to pick up passengers.

Bike Tour Laundry System

My laundry system on the bike tour was excellent.  Every evening after riding, I’d hand wash my bike shorts and polyester performance-style shirt and they’d be pretty dry by the morning.  Then, in the morning, I’d wash the underwear I slept in and strap that down to the back of my bike along with anything that was still wet.  I had a cargo net that was perfect to hold the clothes down on top of my tent bag.  The clothes would dry in the sun and the breeze and they’d be ready to wear at the end of the ride.

This was superior to the laundry system I had while I was backpacking in Eastern Europe.  All I could do was hang wet clothes off the back of my backpack.  But then I’d have to throw the backpack under a bus, or on the floor somewhere, and the wet clothes would pick up dirt, and wouldn’t be exposed to the sun as much.

Ubate to Bogota (Colombia)

Getting into Bogota took forever. It stretches out so far that I was in the “outskirts” for a few hours. There were a few sections where I was on an interstate-like highway, but once I got in closer, there were bike lanes, and then a dedicated bike lane on the sidewalk. It turned out that the sidewalk bike lanes sucked since people were always walking in them, so I went back onto the road. But it was stressful on the road since it was jam packed with cars, and the cars switched lanes frequently. My awareness had to be at its peak.

Video: Bogota’s Bike Friendly

I don’t really agree with bicycle touring for a cause.  It seems lame.  It should be for fun and adventure.  This guy did a Ride For Climate.  I guess to raise awareness, or something.

Anyway, this video is pretty cool because it highlights Bogota, Colombia as a city on the leading edge of bicycle-friendly urban planning.

Chiquinquira to Ubate (Colombia)

At this point, I was really close to Bogota, and I had time to spare before Jessica’s arrival.

It was probably my favorite ride in Colombia. The countryside was inspiring, and I could take my time.

There were a bunch of roadside stops advertising fresa y crema — strawberries and cream. I stopped for a treat a few times. Apparently, I was in the dairy capital of the country.

I stopped in Ubate for lunch and found an excellent comedor. The soup and food were fine, but what really sent it over the edge was the drink. The lady poured me fresh mango juice. Thick mango nectar! I tried to pace myself with the drink, so that I’d have some by the end of my meal, but I had bad self-control. When the lady saw I was low on my mango, she refilled my glass, and left the jug on my table. I was in heaven. Unlimited refills of pure mango juice! I finished the jug.

It was still early when I left the comedor. I planned to make it a little further towards Bogota before I stopped for the day. As I walked my bike out to the road, some guys in the neighboring bar flagged me down and waved beer bottles at me. They urged me to sit with them, and they bought me beer. They spoke really fast, and their accent was difficult to understand, but I made out a few things. What they were most concerned about was what I thought about Chavez and Venezuela. Easy question to answer: Chavez esta loco hombres.

After three beers, I told them I didn’t want any more, as I was trying to be polite. One of them said something about a person who drinks beers but doesn’t pay for it. I didn’t really understand, but I felt that they might have been talking about me. When I left, I gave my muchas gracias’s and left some money on the table. However, they didn’t want it and insisted I take it back.

I decided to stay in Ubate for the night. Bogota was just a day away. I found a hotel with a TV for $5. When I turned on the TV as I was spread out on the bed in my cycling gear, Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade came on. I watched the whole thing and didn’t move. After washing up and hanging my shorts out to dry, The First Knight started. I lay there, zoned out. What a treat!

Restaurant Schedule in Colombia

My method for picking a restaurant was to look for the smallest, simplest-looking place that didn’t advertise pollo – Colombia has a lot of fried chicken places. The food would be fresh, the portions would be big, and the price was always cheap as shit. They’d give me a soup for starters, a natural fruit drink, and then the main meal with meat – I’d usually ask for carne asada, grilled beef – and sides like rice, yucca, beans, and salad. It would typically cost about 5000 pesos – $2.50.

If it was possible, I would have gone for this type of meal three times a day. However, what I found out was that it was only available at lunch time. These little restaurants would close at around 5pm, and the only options at night would be street food, like grilled weird cuts of meat, perros calientes, hamburgesas, pizza, and fried chicken.

So I adjusted my schedule. I didn’t eat much for breakfast, maybe a few pieces of bread from the panaderia. Then I’d eat lunch at around 11am, so that I could have an early second lunch before the comedors would close.

Santana to Chiquinquira (Colombia)

All climbing. Slow go.

As I got higher, the air got really crisp and cold. It was a huge difference from the high 90s heat I had to deal with a few days back when I was in the lowlands.

I stopped to eat in a small town. It was Sunday and there were tents set up outside the church. Old women were cooking strange cuts of meat on the grill. I surveyed the options, and settled on a black sausage. It was a surprise when I cut it open – meat and rice mix inside the sausage wrapping.

A family there took an interest in me. The dad sat his young son on top of my bike saddle. They offered me some chichi, which is a fermented corn drink – odd texture. Now I’m Facebook friends with a few of them.

I was only a few miles outside Chiquinquira when it started to pour. I hurried in under an overhang with another guy. He was an older man wearing a tweed-style suit and cycling on a single-speed. He admired my bike, and I complimented his, although a single-speed seems like a terrible idea in that area.

The rain eased a little, so we left. We went about 500 meters when it started raining again, so we took shelter at a gas station. I yelled at a passing cyclist to get out of the rain. Mucha agua! Venga! After some waiting around, we got some tinto (black coffee) and shared good feeling. Another Facebook friend.

I made it to Chinquinquira and I found a shitty room that cost 8000 pesos ($4). Lumpy mattress and cold.

Hanging Meat!

San Gil to Santana (Colombia)

Stats: 57.65 miles, 11.7 avg, 38.3 max, 5 hours

Henri and I left at 6 am on his motorcycle. Henri had put my bike in his friend’s delivery truck the night before to be dropped in San Gil. On the ride, Henri kept talking and pointing things out along the way, but I couldn’t really hear him with the wind, or understand him when I did hear him — Spanish.

We rode up steep, winding roads through the Chicamocha valley. I saw some cyclists descending, but I didn’t see anybody climbing it.

We got to San Gil and picked up my bike and bags. Delivered as promised! Great convenience.

I followed Henri on my bike, as he brought me through San Gil. We stopped at the intersection where we’d be splitting up, so we could say goodbye. Henri had tears in his eyes. I told him how good he’d been to me, and that we were amigos. We gave each other a big big hug, and I told him to send Henri Junior to me in Philadelphia – that he’d be welcome anytime. He really appreciated that, and we gave each other a few more strong pats.

As I rode off on my bike, I got really pumped up. I guess it was the new freedom I felt on my bike after staying with Henri and his family for a few days. And I was pumped about the mountains. I was jamming on my iPod, and dancing on my bike, singing along. I got goose bumps listening to “Undone (The Sweater Song).” It brought back memories of earlier days and I loved how American it was (“Are you going to the party after the show” … “Take it easy bro”).

There wasn’t any traffic on the road. It had all been cleared off because of a cycling race. Luckily the guards at the checkpoints didn’t stop me. I got out of the way as the peloton of cyclists came down the mountain. I think they enjoyed seeing me crawling up the mountain on my pack mule as they were going about 40 mph passed me.

I made it to Santana just before it started to rain. I found a $5 room, and took a shower. I wandered around the town and got some pastries and beer at a panaderia. An old drunk guy wanted to talk to me. His name was Jose Maria. He spoke really quickly, and I kept pardoning myself for not understanding. He kept talking to me anyway.

Then a stumbling drunk named Miguel came in and sat down with Jose Maria and I. Miguel shook my hand and held onto it as he asked me about what I thought of Venezuela. All I told him was that I thought Chavez was loco, as I didn’t know much about what was going on between Colombia and Venezuela. They enjoyed that.

Miguel was really weird though — holding onto my hand, keeping me captive, and trying to pull me forward. After a bunch of questions that I didn’t understand, I excused myself, paid, and said goodbye.

Bucaramanga (Colombia)

Henri brought me back to his home. Odil, his 26-year-old wife, Henri Junior, his 16-year-old son, and Andrea, his five year old daughter, were all there to greet him. It was a big, passionate greeting as Henri Junior gave him a big hug and a kiss on the lips. Later, I realized that this is what happened every time he returned, even when he was gone for just a few hours.

Odil stayed at home and cleaned and cooked. When Henry returned, she was his servant, bringing him food and drink. He sat at the table, and she sat watching TV. Henri wanted more drink, so Odil got up to get it. Henri kept the purse – as soon as she would return from buying something at the store, she would give him the change.

Henri Junior was a really genuine, nice guy. It turned out he spoke good English too, and after only 3 months of study. He and I got along really well and it was hard to believe he was only 16. Henri Junior helped me by translating between me and his dad.

They had a chess set at the house, so I invited Henri Junior to play. I was well-practiced at this point from all the chess I’d played with Antonio, the Italian. I crushed the teenager a bunch of times.

Henri would take me out in his truck to show me around, but it seemed there wasn’t much to see in Bucaramanga. He kept bringing me over to his brother’s house where they would sort out some business as they both worked for the same company. I was just waiting around. It kind of sucked.

One day when it was raining, Henri drove recklessly through an intersection at high speed. A car pulled out, and we smashed into the side. Henri got out to talk to the woman, and after a few minutes, he came back with $100. Instead of calling the police, or exchanging insurance information, the woman just paid him cash. Culture.

I stayed for three nights. We brought in a mattress that Henri had in the back of his truck for taking naps, and set it in Henri Junior’s room. They took good care of me. As I was tooling around on the internet during the day, Odil would make me food and set it out on the table. She anticipated my hunger. I’d take a dip in the pool, and come back to find a snack waiting for me.

Henri kept calling me gringo. I told him it was a negative term, and I didn’t like it. He said it wasn’t offensive, and it just meant “American.” He kept saying it.

Henri brought me around to meet different people he knew, presenting me to them, kind of like I was his gringo. “Look at this interesting gringo I found.”

Henri wants to send Junior to the US at some point, so that he can master English. He asked if I would take him in and even write a letter to get Junior a visa. It’s sort of a lot to ask, but I like Henri Junior a lot. He’s such a genuine, well-behaved guy, so I don’t think there’d be a problem. I hope he comes up.

Henri introduced me to his friend, Jose, who spoke some English, and Jose´s son was even better. We went over to Jose’s house. Jose said to me very genuinely, “This is my home. It is also your home.” He invited me back for dinner the following night, as he and his family “want to speak to me more,” but when the time came, Henri didn’t want to go. I think Henri didn’t like it much because we were speaking in English, and he was left out. It’s understandable – it’s how I felt most of the time.

Webcam shot

The following morning Henri would be going to Barbosa, in the direction of Bogota, on his motorcycle to make a delivery. He wanted to try pulling me along up the mountain. I was game to try it although it sounded pretty dangerous. So we did a trial run in Bucaramanga. I got set on my bike, and grabbed the rail on the back seat of his motorcycle. When he took off, I couldn’t hold on. He accelerated too fast, and it would have been too unstable anyhow. Then we tried having me sit on the back of the motorcycle holding the bicycle as it rode along side us. That went well until the bike went over a bump in the road. It jumped up, and I tried to control it, but I couldn’t get it stable again – it was hopping all over. It would have made the motorcycle unstable if I had held on much longer, so I had to let the bicycle drop. I was pissed, and yelled in anguish. Henri laughed. I ran back to see the damage on the bike. Luckily, it was still in good shape. I think the handlebar tape might have gotten a little more destroyed, but that was all.

So Henri figured out a different plan. He had a friend who would be making a delivery by truck to San Gil that night. San Gil was on the way to Barbosa, and it was the first major town after getting up the steepest part of the mountain. Henri would send my bike and bags with his friend, and then Henri and I would leave early in the morning on his motorcycle, and he’d drop me in San Gil to pick up my bike and bags. It was a good plan.

Trust Test in Bucaramanga

Henri and I arrived to Bucaramanga, but he had to drop off his delivery. It would be bad if his company found out that he had picked up a hitchhiker. So Henri pulled up to a corner, unloaded my bicycle from the back, and told me he’d be back in a few minutes. Tranquilo. I’ll sit tight right here.

Weird Colombian Fruit: Tentacle-skin on the inside with larvae-like seeds that you eat.

Henri left me on the corner, and as he pulled away I got a sinking feeling. I barely knew this guy, and he’s got everything I own besides my bike – clothes, tent, money, and passport! Maybe this is his trick. Pick up a hitchhiker, establish a little trust, and then drop them off and never return. I figured I would have to pawn my bicycle to get some cash, or else try to find some charitable person that would take me in while I waited on a new debit card to be sent to me. Waiting for Henri’s return felt like a long time. But he came back!!

Having a lot of trust in people is something I learned from my backpacking trip in Eastern Europe, and it was working out for me on the bike tour too, but this time around I put myself in an extremely vulnerable situation. I’m glad it worked out because it would have validated a lot of people’s thoughts about Colombia (and Latin America), and acted as a warning to never do a bike trip. Henri was a good guy, and I shouldn’t have doubted that, but I should have at least gotten my wallet and passport.

Aguachica to San Alberto, Hitchhiked to Bucaramanga (Colombia)

Stats: 49.28 miles, 14.4 avg, 33.9 max, 3:25 hours

The mountains began after I passed through San Alberto. After biking 40 miles through intense heat, I was struggling up the hot incline. I wanted to quit, but I felt I had to get to Bucaramanga, about another 40 miles away. I stopped to rest in some shade, and I put my thumb out to a passing truck. It didn’t stop. Destiny, I guess. I had heard that hitchhiking was difficult in Colombia. So, I got back on the bike. 100 yards later, I passed a stopped box truck. The driver taking a pee, and as I passed he said something to me. I asked if he was going to Bucaramanga. He told me to get in. Flow like water.

Henri was really friendly. He joked around and asked me lots of questions, and I did my best to understand and answer them. After a few minutes of getting to know me, Henri told me that he could give me another ride the next day as he’d be driving his delivery truck further towards Bogota, and that I would be welcome to stay at his house in Bucaramanga with his family.

Henri was reckless on the road. He didn’t have any patience as he’d overtake cars around blind curves. He risked both our lives frequently. At one point, there was a huge line of semi-trucks struggling up a bend in the mountain. Henri boldly went for it. I braced myself up against the back of the seat as we spent 15-20 seconds in the oncoming lane. His intuition worked.

Video: Cycling through Small Colombian Town

Here’s a clip of cycling through a small town in Colombia, a little outside Aguachica.  I was testing out my new handlebar camera mount.

San Roque to Aguachica (Colombia)

Stats: 78.09 miles, 13.3 avg, 5:50 hours

I wanted to get a camera mount for my handlebar so I can record some video. I walked around to find a hardware store that would have a 1/4” bolt. When I passed one, a guy yelled out, “What do you need?” in English.

Joao was a Brazilian tattoo artist. He spoke good English which helped me a lot to explain my complicated needs of this camera mount. He took a big interest in helping me and had lots of ideas how we could do it. I didn’t like a lot of the ideas he had, like just super-gluing the end of the bolt to the handlebar mount, but I let him run with his idea of shaving down the head of the bolt so it could wedge into the slot of the handlebar mount.

Joao found the right size bolt and the right length, went over to a garage, and then he used a grinder to shave down two sides of the bolt head. Then he wedged it in, and it seemed pretty good. But we also added a zip tie to give the plastic of the handlebar mount extra strength, and a nut so that I could tighten it up to the camera when it was pointed in the right position.

I bought Joao a drink for his effort. He said he should patent the design.

Aracataca to San Roque (Colombia)

Stats: 104.73 miles, 15.5 avg, 6:45 hours

Since I had stayed an extra day in Aracataca, I wanted to get as far as I could to get back on schedule to make it to Bogota on time to meet Jessica when she arrived. I left Tim at 7:30 am, stopped at a panaderia to get some bread for breakfast, and then got on the road.

Northern Colombia is mostly flat but the heat was intense. It was at least in the high 90s and I was feeling like I was going to explode under my helmet. When my body temperature became unbearable, I would hurry to a spot in the shade, and throw off my helmet and sunglasses with urgency.

After going over 100 miles, I was happy to stop in San Roque. It was a tiny town close to the intersection of two roads. I got hotel for 7000 pesos ($3.50) which included a private bathroom and a fan.

I walked around the town looking for some jugos naturales – I lived for these things. Every chance I got, I stopped for one. But San Roque was barren. People stared at me as I walked by. I’m sure they were wondering how this lone gringo got here, and why he was staying. I asked around about the jugos, and I was directed to an empty table outside someone’s house. An older guy came out and I asked if he served jugos naturales. He said he did. I told him I wanted a mora, which is like a blackberry juice. He scurried off to a nearby store to get the supplies, and I waited. This was typical of Latin American small business – really casual. Not keeping supplies in stock, and not having any change when you paid with a pretty small bill, like $10.

Webcam shot in my residencia in San Roque

Aracataca (Colombia)

Tim brought me into his tiny apartment. Front room > Hallway > Bedroom. The two rooms were tiny cubes with a tiny bathroom in between off the hallway.

There were a few odd things about the bathroom. The first was that there wasn’t any door on it. So Tim might walk by the bathroom as I was taking a poo. Another weird thing was that the water was on for only a few hours each day, so Tim had a garbage can underneath where the water trickled out – out of a faucet that was high up on the wall, like a shower head. But it was nothing like a shower head. Even when the water was on, I tried to turn the handle to get more flow, but it only trickled.

Tim said I could sleep in the front room on the concrete floor. I pulled out my sleeping pad and sheet – it was so hot, I didn’t need a sleeping bag.

I showered in his humble, door-less bathroom. I stood there, exposed, dipping a basin into the water bucket and pouring it over me.

There was no furniture in the front room except a white patio chair. I offered Tim the mangoes I picked up off the road earlier that day. We sat outside – Tim on the patio chair, me on a concrete block – eating mangoes and entertaining a couple of the local crazy people who came up and wanted to talk. One guy kept shouting a word, like “Tica! Tica!” which didn’t mean anything, and seemed to want Tim’s t-shirt.

We walked into the center of town, a couple of blocks away, and got some jugos naturales. The ones I got in Aracataca were probably the best I had in the entire trip, and they were $0.60. It was incredible. Tim and I sat there drinking the nectar of some weird fruits for a while. I treated him to seconds.

Tim had a plan for eating within a tiny budget – his money comes from tutoring English to a few students (definitely not in demand in Aracataca), and selling his poetry on the street. He brought me to a meat stand where they grilled weird cuts of meat. I ate some nasty shit. Some tough, weird-textured thing, like the lining of a stomach or something.

Tim told me I could stay as long as I liked. I got a sense that Tim was lonely in Aracataca. It was a really poor place, and most of the people were uneducated. He told me that there are places to rent there that cost only $25 per month. Although Tim was a little isolated, he planned to stay there until it became a huge tourist attraction. He believes that Aracataca, the birthplace of Gabriel Garcia Marquez is the true Macondo, the fairytale place that Marquez wrote about in his books. Tim believes that heaps of tourists will visit and he’ll be able to give them tours, and start a hostel. I figure he’ll be waiting a long time.

Tim came out to Colombia from the Netherlands to start a trip through all of South America, but he spent a year in Santa Marta, and six months already in Aracataca. He’s really taking it slow, but figures he’ll get around to seeing other countries eventually. He hasn’t been home or seen his family for about two years. And he told me an interesting fact about the Netherlands. It’s not correct to call it “Holland” because Holland is a province within the Netherlands. A lot of the Dutch immigrants that came to the US seeking religious freedom were from the Holland province, so that’s how the misnomer evolved.

The following day, Sunday, he and his friend had plans to float down the river, not on a boat, or an inner tube – just float with your body. I joined them. We walked a few miles up the river, working up a sweat, and then we got in. It felt awesome. The river was really shallow though and we had to prop ourselves up over the rocks most of the time. It took us about two hours to float back to town. At that point, I was exhausted, and ready to get the hell out. As we approached our exit, there were crowds of families making soup on the banks of the river. Apparently it’s a Sunday custom.

When we got back to Tim’s place, we realized that we’d left his white patio chair outside when we left for the river. It was gone. His only chair. His only piece of furniture. He was pretty disappointed since he didn’t have the money to buy a new one. So now his only option for sitting was on the concrete block outside his place.

Tayrona to Aracataca (Colombia)

Stats: 78.83 miles, 13.6 avg mph, 37.2 max, 5:45 hours

As I was hiking out of Tayrona National Park, I was anxious to see if my bike was still at the guard’s station. I didn’t like leaving it there, but I had no other choice – I just had to trust it. When I arrived to the station, my bike was there, but not the pannier I had left. My heart sank, and I stumbled through trying to ask for my “bolsa.” After a few tense minutes of searching around, the guard found my pannier locked in a cabinet.

On my way back towards Santa Marta, the road was littered with mangoes. They lay in the gutter along the road, and no one seemed to want them. Starving for food after being in Tayrona for a couple of days, and with a big appreciation for mangoes as an exotic fruit, I stopped and loaded up with as many mangoes as I could fit in my panniers. I left with about fifteen.

I passed Santa Marta and got on the road towards Bogota.  580 miles to Bogota.

My goal that day was to get to Aracataca, the town where the famous writer of 100 Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, was born. While I was in Santa Marta, I had contacted a hostel through CouchSurfing in Aracataca that offered free camping to see if they’d be available to host. They hadn’t gotten back to me by the time I left for Tayrona, so I assumed it wasn’t going to work.

Late into the afternoon, a cyclist passed me going the other direction. A few minutes later, he caught up to me. He had turned around on his ride to cycle with me. Cristian was a 26-year-old psychologist who was living in Aracataca. He rode with me 10 or so miles, the rest of the way to Aracataca.

I suggested we get a drink, so he brought me to a restaurant that had a lot of photos and paraphernalia of “Gabo.” I was tired from the ride, and Cristian was frustrated with my poor Spanish. As we sat there, Cristian was discussing something with the owner about a Dutch guy in town who spoke English. The owner sent someone to get the English speaker.

A tall, Dutch guy in his mid-twenties with a shag of blond hair showed up. Tim seemed really spaced out, but he spoke English really well. “I think you contacted me a few days ago, and if you like, you can stay with me. It’s not a problem.” He was the CouchSurfer I had contacted!! The only English-speaker in town, and the only CouchSurfer in town. I guess the odds were good.

Agua Pluma

Every time I would stop to fill up my water bottles, I would have to go through the same routine. I wanted to know that the tap water was okay to drink, and I had to explain that I didn’t want to buy bottled water.

“El agua esta bueno para tomar?” – The water is good to drink?
“No, no quiero agua para comprar. Solo agua regular” – No, I don’t want water to buy. Only regular water.

Many times it was slow to get my point across. I needed a key word.  I needed the word for “tap water.”

On my way up the mountains to Tayrona National Park, I stopped at a roadside snack shop and got a Pepsi. While I was there, I wanted to get my bottles filled up with water, so I went through the same routine. The lady didn’t understand that I didn’t want to buy water, but I had noticed a hose that was giving them a constant flow of water from the mountain, so I pointed to that. “Ahhhh, agua pluma!”  Agua Pluma!!  That was the word.  After confirming that it was good to drink, I filled up.

Tayrona Camping Meal

When I got back, I really wanted to eat my pasta, but I didn’t have a stove. I asked a couple of guys who were walking by if they had one. They were two jovial American guys, Matt and Tim. They said they had a stove, so they invited me to come over to their campsite later.

When I arrived, I found Matt and Tim on top of a huge rock playing guitar and singing. I joined them on top, and Matt offered me an Argentine tea drink. We laughed a lot and got into some deep discussions about our hopes and dreams.

Claire and Jose were Matt and Tim’s neighbors at the campsite who were going to make dinner too, so we decided to combine forces. Jose was from Argentina and he was dating Clair who was from England. I hate English people. Jose started a fire, and Clair wanted to know what we were going to cook. I had my two small bags of pasta. “Oh,” she said, “I was going to cook pasta too, but if we’re already cooking two bags, it’s probably more than enough for five of us, right?” I told her that I was really hungry and I could probably eat a whole bag myself. So a compromise was struck: “Well let’s cook your pasta and if we want more at the end of it, we can cook up my bag.” I knew this wouldn’t happen. After cooking over a fire, and eating, no one’s going to want to start the whole process over. And I couldn’t stake claim on her bag of pasta for myself if I was the only one who was still hungry. Claire knew she would win. “Oh, and you have sauce too. Great.”

We sat around the fire drinking cheap rum as we cooked the pasta. The most notable point in conversation was when Matt asked Jose if he noticed a difference between American and UK English. I don’t even remember if Jose was able to answer. I just remember Claire jumping in to say that American English is incorrect and difficult to understand, and that Jose was learning “proper” English. She was saying this to an American audience – Matt, Tim, and I. I personally hate the sound of an English voice. Most English accents are ugly, and a few non-native English speakers have told me that it’s difficult for them to understand the UK English accent. But I wouldn’t have told Claire that because I know it’s rude.