My First Week in Medellín: Honest Notes

Day one: I slept fourteen hours and woke up convinced I’d made a terrible mistake. The apartment I’d rented from photographs was smaller than the photographs, the water heater produced a thin ribbon of lukewarm water, and the hills — the famous, beautiful hills — meant every walk home ended in a climb I wasn’t fit for.

Day three: the woman at the corner tienda corrected my Spanish gently, twice, then gave me a free banana "para la subida" — for the climb. I stood on the pavement holding it, absurdly moved. It’s a strange thing to feel homesick and welcomed at the same time.

Day five: I found the metro. Clean, quick, quietly loved by the whole city — people here talk about their metro the way other cities talk about their football clubs. I rode it end to end with no destination, watching the barrios stack up the valley walls, and something in me settled.

Day seven: the water heater still didn’t work. I no longer cared. I’d learned three streets, two greetings, and one bakery. It wasn’t home yet. But for the first time, I could imagine it becoming home — which, I now know, is how all of this starts.