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Saturday, December 12, 2015

It's Colombia, NOT Columbia

One of the most commonly misspelled countries in the world, there has been a movement afoot since 2013 to educate people about the proper spelling of Colombia's name.

Maybe it's because many people are familiar with the Canadian province of British Columbia that it's easy to get the "o" and the "u" mixed up.

But then we have noticed on various forums that people also often misspell the Colombian Bridge that goes from the outskirts of Laredo, Texas over the Rio Grande into Mexico.

There was a CNN video story published yesterday...

http://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2015/12/11/colombia-vs-columbia-latin-america-rising-spc.cnn

When we were in the Bogota airport the other day, we had noticed some coffee mugs for sale (for $12 USD each!) with the logo "It's Colombia, NOT Columbia".



So, this is our contribution to the campaign. Consider yourselves educated. :-)

We didn't do much yesterday. Caught up on some computer work now that we have a decent source of internet. Part of that involved some exciting news that we're working on for the month of February and in to early March. Can't tell you about it yet, but it looks like it's going to come together. We're going to be doing it in Mexico though, so we're happy about that!

We walked down the hill to the big Exito grocery store and did some shopping since we're staying in one place for a few days and we have a kitchen. So we bought some groceries and took a taxi for 5,000 pesos ($2.25 CAD) back up the hill.

While there, we had some lunch at the cafeteria. Just a couple of empanadas and a small salad. For 3,000 pesos ($1.35 CAD) each.

In the evening, Ruth made a shrimp stir fry for dinner when our couchsurfing host Andrea got home from work. Then, we showed Andrea some pics of our trip to South Korea in October of 2014.

Not sure what's on the agenda for today. Andrea has to stop by her work for an hour or so, and afterwards we might go to the free Botanical Gardens here in Medellin. They're supposed to be really good. Then this evening we're hoping to see some of Medellin's Christmas lights displays, rated by National Geographic as one of the top ten cities in the world to see Christmas lights.

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22 comments:

  1. So nice to have a kitchen and make your own meals.

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    Replies
    1. Yes, it is a nice change over the last few weeks.

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  2. I am certain I have misspelled it :) Sounds like you have made another friend with Couchsurfing. So nice to get to meet locals instead of just doing the tourist thing.

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    Replies
    1. I am sure most of us have misspelled at sometime or another.

      The person are staying with is the same one that we stayed with when we first arrived to Colombia but it is nice to she her again.

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  3. I'm enjoying my virtual tour through Colombia. You make it all sound so easy. Don't know if I'd be brave enough to couch surf.

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    Replies
    1. So glad you have been enjoying the trip. It's not always easy, lots of research to do, especially for transportation and accommodation, Kevin does a great job with that.

      We have couchsurfed over 50 times and have never had a problems. We find it a great way to meet locals and learn more about the area. Every couchsurfer has a profile along with references. Kevin is very picky about finding one that is suitable and compatible for us before contacting them. Here in Colombia many of the couchsurfing hosts are a much younger crowd and that is not our thing so that is why we have only done the couchsurfing here in Medellin.

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  4. I'm guilty of making that spelling mistake. Good to know I'm not the only one :-)

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    Replies
    1. We made that mistake once with a Colombian a few years ago and we got told about it, haven't made that mistake since! ;-)

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  5. Thanks for the education. I have been misspelling it all my life!

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  6. The adventures continue. ..thank you for your continued enlightening descriptions. .hope all is A1 & OK in the rash department. .cheers lesalp.blogspot.com.au

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This adventure is almost at an end but another will start once we arrive back in Mexico on Tuesday. :-)

      The rash has almost disappeared but does still bother him at times. He knows from past experience that it will be at least one to two months before it is totally gone.

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  7. I bet that shrimp stir fry was amazing!

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    Replies
    1. It tasted great and had lots of veggies in it! :-)

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  8. Love your header photo. You have a knack for capturing the real beauty of the places you visit.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you so much Lori. Kevin definitely has a good eye for it.

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  9. Replies
    1. Glad we could help. :-) We were educated on this ourselves about a year ago by an Colombian.

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  10. The founding fathers were so enamored with Christopher Columbus (Italian: Cristoforo Colombo; Spanish: Cristóbal Colón; Portuguese: Cristóvão Colombo)
    some wanted to name the country Columbia or United States of Columbia. As you can see the country of Colombia was a variation and was once United States of Colombia (current Panama was included here too. You can also see where Colon, Colones etc. all come from. It's all from CC.

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    Replies
    1. Founding fathers of the US. British Columbia is a variation too of the same concept.

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    2. Ever wonder why it's DC or District of Columbia yep all from CC.

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    3. Thanks for that history lesson Bill, it sort of makes sense. Hopefully this post will help to educate more people into spelling Colombia the correct way. :-)

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