Intro

So this post will be long, but that’s because I had too good of a time while I was in Popayan, Colombia for two weeks. It took me 20 minutes alone to just figure out which photos I was gonna include on this post.

As I mentioned on my previous post, yeah, I was basically scrambling to get everything together before leaving the US. Was I successful? Eh… partially. I got most everything done, but I finished packing up at 2AM on Saturday, June 15th, when I was set to fly out. I was definitely nervous before boarding the flight, and it didn’t help that I already lost some skin care products I had during TSA Checkpoint. But nonetheless, it was time to leave.

Travel ATL -> BOG -> CLO -> PPN

So the actual travel process was very long. I arrived in Bogota at 7pm, got dinner with my friend I was travelling with, before meeting up with two of his friends. It was at this moment (as with many others) that I realized I don’t know Spanish well enough to hold a conversation. My high school classes were not giving me the knowledge I needed to speak conversationally. But nonetheless, the night went on, I went back to my hotel, went through Bogota airport, got my nail filer confiscated at TSA Checkpoint, and flew out to Cali. Afterwards, I got some camarones (shrimp) [see Figure 1] with my friend and proceeded to make it Cali Bus Terminal, where we booked a bus ride to Popayan, as planned. Unfortunately, the bus broke down in the middle of the road and the next few hours were rough. But we eventually made it. I met some others and had dinner with them, and then called it in a night.

Week 1

So I was not ready for the week ahead. Mainly that the hotel I stayed at was right next to a church and that church bells go off at 5AM, 6AM, and 7AM. I woke up on the 6AM ones. I eventually got out of my bed and ready for classes. We stopped by a local church [see Figure 2] on the way to the University. I made it my goal to try to talk to one new person each day, and as the days went on, it became easier and easier, and eventually I made a lot of friends through the classes, discussions, and lunches. For the classes, Isabella Novik talked about f-vectors and h-vectors, while Matthias Beck talked about good old Ehrhart Theory. The seminars and posters were great, and I was struggling to comprehend everything at once.

After conference, that’s when it got fun. Monday we had a traditional opening ceremony where everyone was chatting over sweets and wine (I ended up buying a pizza afterwards due to hunger). Tuesday we had a salsa class, and trust me, after feeling exhausted at the end of the day, this was what I needed. It wasn’t really a salsa class, more just a jazzercise class, but hey, I like that too [see Figure 3]. We got drinks and food later at a local pub. I got arepas. Wednesday we did karaoke. Thursday there was the traditional ceremony, before that, I got ice cream, and during the ceremony, oh my god. We were treated to a traditional dance performance before the floor was open to us dancing, along with the traditional pipian (think of it if a sweet potato was salty) tamale, empanadas, pineapple juice with corn, and tons of aguardiente. I ended up playing a percussion instrument before the band leader invited me to take shots with him. This night was wild [see Figures 4a, 4b, 4c]. Friday I hung out with my Georgia Tech friend before he left the next day and went to a very overcrowded bar. Keep in mind that almost every night also had after-parties as well.

Figure 1: Shrimp in Cali, right before the bus ride. Figure 2: Cathedral in Popayan, where we took first photo.
Figure 3: Post-salsa-dance-class-photo! Figure 4a: The most wild dance night I've seen. Figure 4b: Pipian tamale.
Figure 4c: A video of the dance. I'm playing percussion.

Free Weekend

Saturday I ended up playing basketball with some other students in the morning, eating lechon (roasted pig), and passing out on my bed. I took the rest of the evening easy given rain in the area. I took on Colombia’s take on English Breakfast, the Bandeja Paisa [see Figure 5]. It is huge. I thought I could eat it all. I was wrong.

Sunday I woke up and did a tour of Popayan with my tour guide. Since the museums were closed, we ended up doing a hike up to Tres Cruces, literally translated as Three Crosses [see Figures 6 and 7]. I had some of the best lemonade (both sour and sweet at the right levels, reminded me more of tangerine than lemon) and ate a small lunch of a fried potato stuffed with rice. Beautiful. I went home, took a nap, got two dinners with friends (hey, I just happened to walk into a second group that wanted to get dinner as well), and prepared myself for the next day. Also, I had the salpicón payanés [see Figure 8], which is like an upgraded strawberry smoothie, and it was wonderful.

Figure 5: The bandeja paisa. I could not conquer it. Figure 6: The journey up to Tres Cruces. Figure 7: View from the top at Tres Cruces.
Figure 8: Salpicón Payanés (the pink drink) with another pipian tamale. Figure 9: Me with the Georgia Tech cohort that came to ECCO. Figure 10: Los amigos.

Week 2

I then woke up again Monday to start it all over. This week’s courses were taught by Hal Schenck (wanted to give a rough and very fast overview of toric varieties and h-vector theorem proof - I wish he had two weeks to teach, because he had a lot of intuitive ideas, just not enough time to process them) and Cynthia Vinzant (talked about matroids, log-concavity, and the famous theorem by Branden-Huh saying polynomial is completely log concanve if its corresponding Newton polygon is M-convex). Unfortunately, towards Wednesday (especially Wednesday since I got sick then), everyone started losing energy so by Friday we were barely processing. But I will be looking over problem sets and notes from these courses for some time after the conference. But enough about that, more fun things.

Monday cheered on Colombia as they won against Paraguay and then watched Costa Rica tie against Brazil [see Figure 11]. I was also introduced to Colombian Fried Chicken aka Frisby’s. It’s good. Tuesday our group walked to the top of a hill nearby the university and we had a nice dinner afterwards [see Figures 12 and 13]. Wednesday I was sick, but I somehow felt energized enough to play volleyball and watch soccer with everyone [see Figure 14]. I ended up eating the Eduardo Santos (ice cream cake, local Popayan speciality) afterwards [see Figure 15]. Thursday the conference was winding down, but I had lunch with my friends [see Figure 16] and by the end, I had arepas for dinner and danced one last time with my friends. I also encountered this llama/alpaca [see Figure 17].

Figure 11: An enormous beer tower as we watched the Costa Rica v. Brazil game. Figure 12: A group photo from top of the hill.
Figure 13: A nice dinner. Figure 14: Group photo at the University Sports Center.
Figure 15: The Eduardo Santos, a local dessert. Ice cream cake with fruit and nuts. Figure 16: Post-lunch photo in front of Popayan Sign. Figure 17: Kendrick Llama. Or is it an alpaca? I'm not sure.

And just like that, it was over. I paid for my hotel, called a taxi, did problems one last time with some friends, ate lunch at my go-to spot nearby, shopped around for souvenirs, and then it was time to go. I played ping pong with phone paddles (random idea someone else came up with) before boarding a taxi and heading home. Unfortunately, the trip home (Popayan -> Cali) was NOT smooth, as my bus broke down AGAIN and I ended up making it to the airport one hour to my flight (I was originally planning on getting there with 3). After an overnight layover in Bogota, I walked around the Bogota streets and just took in the air. I then made it to the airport, tried some soup and limonada de coco (reminds me of Milkis), and made it past TSA Security… I ended up losing my sunscreen and my anti-itch ointment. Said goodbye to another participant Felix on the way to my plane in Bogota Airport, and before I knew it (two movies later), I was back in Atlanta. Hot, sweaty, muggy Atlanta. This was at 11PM too how could it be THIS hot at 11PM?!

Conclusion

I didn’t even talk about the small moments I had, going to the church, walking through the streets at night, receiving a souvenir from a worker at the Popayan bus terminal (thank you Diana), eating chicarron ice cream, it’s too much to write. But I will just conclude by saying that this was one of the greatest experiences I could ever have as a graduate student and I finally felt by Day 1 of the conference that all the flight bookings, all the packing, all the nervousness I felt about going to a country that wasn’t the US or South Korea, was all worth it by the time I left. In particular, all the organizers and participants were friendly, approachable, supportive, and just in general fun to be around. I can keep talking more but my overall impression is yes, go to ECCO if you can, it’s amazing and I now understand the hype.

Para concluir, gracias a Colombia, los participantes, y especialmente los organizadores por la comida, baila, canta, y los momentos inolvidables! (Durante este conferencia, mi español mejoré sobre veinte percento y ahora yo pruebo teclear en espanol cuando posible.)

Back to regular schedule.

I am currently in Los Alamos, NM, for the next four weeks (in fact, I had exactly one day to repack my suitcase for Los Alamos hahah so I had very little transition time. It could be worse, I know people who have been going to conferences back to back even longer than I have). I expect to blog again right before I depart but so far internship work has been good and rewarding. I’ve had time to also do spare tasks for Georgia Tech, prepare for the semester, and write this blog post. But this conference (ECCO 2024) for sure will remain the highlight of my summer.