Photos Taken: November 03, 2022,
Published: November 12, 2022
It was somewhat gloomy during the early hours, and on top I was totally exhausted. Working for long hours and for consecutive days – every now and then – over the past few weeks, updating the blog relentlessly to correct its mistakes, cooking my own food, and doing groceries, and of course, cleaning the household; everything was keeping me busy – very, very busy – particularly over the last couple of days.
Out of all of these, the blog seems like the biggest one. Running this show all by myself appears to be a pretty big deal at the moment. It takes lots of efforts – maintenance, technology update, fixing typos and even rewiring some articles for better readability, and updating images takes a great deal of time, as it turns out. And hence, after the last episode it’s been a while since I was out and about for having some outdoor fun. And since it was long overdue, I still had to put aside my other priorities and despite my tiredness, today, I decided to spare several hours for the project.
This time I went to Hyde Park – one of my all-time favorite locations around Sydney CBD. Although in my visits to Hyde Park I usually sneak into Westfields after a while, today however, because of my exhaustion, 😩I decided to stay near the entrance to the Museum Station. I took a stroll once when I got here but ever since I didn’t move much. Watching some plants growing big with their fresh delicate leaves and walking under those tall trees, 🌳 I was rather satisfied by the freshness of the air and was totally enjoying the sight of the dark vegetation that was such a mesmerizing scene for my eyes! The tranquility, and also the noise – the muttered voices of the passersby and the rustling leaves along with the gentle breeze – all seemed very, very refreshing to my tired and exhausted self that I have been deprived of all these days or even weeks now.
And it was like half an hour or so when I met Laura near the entrance. She was about to enter the Museum Station when I intercepted her and after sharing the details of the project and watching her getting excited about it, we took a stroll to find some suitable places for the photo.
“So, where you from?”
“Colombia” – she added laughing.
She went on explaining that she is here currently for studying English which is very difficult for her.
“I think all this is a very hard prou-cess (process)”
“So, the process is good or bad?”
“In this moment? – bad”
Hearing about Colombia I remembered about one of my recent encounters a few weeks back and when I showed her the photo from my stream she started laughing even more pronouncing the name.
“Laura 😃”
When I asked: “What’s your name?” She exclaimed: “Laura” with more smiles.
“How come all the Colombian girls 👧 have the same name??” – I jokingly replied with some disbelief.
“Is your name Laura as well?”
“Yeeeahhhh”… “Laura Fernanda”
So, here is Laura Fernanda Rodriguez hailed from Colombia moving to Sydney several weeks back for her study.
“What’s your hobby?”
“What do you like to do??”
“In this moment … Study” (which I don’t think she really does)
“Because in this moment it’s very important to lear-nn (learn) English… lear-nn… lear-nn… English”
“Do you think you can learn it?”
“Yeah ummm”
“So, you think you can learn it?”
“You are good… you can speak”
“I am ner-vas (nervous)… ner-vas to speak English … because I feel too… I don’t know… the more course(s) (are in) English”
The Dimple:
Although we had language difficulties, she was however, very fun to talk to; her broken English along with her very distinct accent and my inquisitiveness (and jabbing) made our session very exciting and thrilling and of course, very rewarding. My prolonged fatigue and weariness was totally out of the scene by this refreshing exchange. I made a lot of fun about her dimple (see the video above) and it was one of the themes that repeated itself many times during our chat. Showing her one of the photos from my camera payback I made observation:
“I like this one… you kinda have a beautiful smile”
She replied “Thank you” giggling.
It was one of the subjects I find rather very close to my heart to talk about as it happened in the past during similar incidents.
She pointed out that in Sydney there are many Colombian people which I found kinda surprising.
“How come?” – I said adding “I don’t see them many around.” … “There are lots of Asians but not many Colombian”
She went on saying that there are indeed a lot of Colombians around CBD. Still baffled I added:
“Did you realize that she (my other encounter mentioned about) is from Colombia as soon as you saw her?” …
When she replied in affirmation, I asked about how she came to know about it, and she added:
“Colombian people are funny” … “Size small” (short) … “and they also like a” …
Then, making hand gesture I added: “face is round?”
“yeah” – she added.
“I have two sister(s). Jennifer and Nicole”
Among them Jennifer got a dog – Maremmano.
“She (Jennifer) is a noors (nurse)” – she added.
She then showed me the picture of her sister with the dog on her phone. “Professional Photography” – she casually added (as I was looking at the photo).
Shortly after I switched the conversation about food.
“I hate the pasta” … “I don’t like” … “I don’t like”
“I like chicken 🐔 meat 🍖 rice 🍚 vegetable and Broccoli 🥦” … “that’s it”
We talked a lot about movies as it seemed to be one of her favorites.
“Do you watch your war movies often?”
“Yum … one…”
“How often?”
“One day in every two weeks” … “And Wednesday”
“Why Wednesday?”
“Because it’s a fre-ee (free) day”
“You know like what is very interesting you don’t like horror movies…”
“No… no… no…”
“I don’t like” … “I hate” … “because I feel panic and ner-vas” … “a long time” … “after the last movie” …
“So, you don’t watch” … (horror movies)
“Romantic and war” … “that’s it” …
During this chat one movie she mentioned (which I looked up in Google later) is the movie called:
Embrace of the Serpent (El Abrazo de la Serpiente)
“Is a very important movie for Colombia” – she went on
“Because it is won the congratulations with the other countries.” … (it’s an award-winning film)
“With France and Belgium”
While watching its trailer one English subtitle caught my eye:
Before he can become a warrior, a man has to leave everything behind, and go into the jungle, guided only by his dreams. In that journey he has to discover completely alone, who he really is.
