La Calera

La Calera is actually it's own pueblo outside of Bogota, but it's also the name of the mountain that you can drive up to get really good views of the city. It's very popular at night, where friends park there cars, play music and celebrate - but there are also restaurants and vendedores that sell Canelaso, a type of hot tea, or any kind of snacks you could want...Here are some pics from last Sunday!

Refajo

Refajo is a mix of the two beverages above: Colombiana, a type of soda, and beer like Poker or Aguila...it's really good.

Mi Conejito!

Just another pic of my Conejito or "Little Bunny". Coco's ears are so big, when they're both sticking up he looks like a little bunny rabbit, and he likes to hop around, so it's just all too cute!

Bogota Graffiti

Feliz Cumpleaños Colombia!

Today is Colombia's Independence Day and this year is the 200th Anniversary. So it's a really big day here with lots of celebrations going on around the country - including a concert with Juanes tonight in Medellin!

But this morning in Bogota, Uribe and some other government officials opened a 100 year old time capsule that had been filled and locked back in 1910! Included in the vault were -

Lots of pictures - of the governers, plans of Bogota, monuments and other notable areas of the city and a panoramic of Bogota. The lyrics and music from the 'Himno Nacional', and the "Acta de Independencia Nacional", along with 32 other documents.

Happy Birthday Colombia!

Is there something wrong with this picture?

In Bogota, the answer is NO. People "drive" their horse and buggy around all the time.

The government is in the process of outlawing it because of animal cruelty (the horses all look very old - it's really sad :( and because the horses go much slower than cars, obviously, and it REALLY backs up traffic.

Trabalenguas

Here are some spanish tongue-twisters if you need help with pronunciation :)

Tres tristes tigres tomaban
trago en tres tristes tazas.


R con R cigarro
R con R barril
Rapido ruedan los carros en el ferrocarril


El cielo esta encapotado
Quien lo desencapotará?
Quien lo desencapotare
Buen desencapotador será.

Rock al Parque

Rock al Parque has been a Bogota tradition for the past 18 years. It is a FREE 3-day music festival that takes place every year during the 4th of July weekend (which is also a 3-day weekend here).

Saturday is Metal
Sunday is Reggae and Rock and
Monday is Rock

Most of the bands are Colombian, but they do bring in a few international acts like Ky-Mani Marley (the son of Bob), and from the United States MuteMath, Shadows Fall, Biohazard, Stick To Your Guns and A Place To Bury Strangers. I've only heard of Mute Math and sadly, they were not incentive enough to put myself in the center of this...


However, I did get to meet the band 'No Te Va A Gustar' from Uruguay. They were staying at the Hotel Tequendama and Oscar drove them around for a couple of days. Nice guys with a strange but cool Spanish accent.

Chiva Party Bus

This is a picture of a typical Chiva party bus. I often see these buses downtown on the weekends. A group can rent the bus, and basically there are drinks and music and it's a party! The bus just drives around for hours.

I just found an article in the NYTimes about a company that started this in New York. It was from 2008, so I don't know if they're around anymore, but the link is here if you want to read more.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/nyregion/02chiva.html

p.s. Considering how car sick I get from regular driving around here, I've decided to pass on the Chiva...

A Colombian Wedding

A few weeks ago Oscar's cousin Costanza got married. The wedding took place at Oscar's grandmother's house a few hours north of Bogota (it's a LOT hotter there). I found that it was basically the same at most of the weddings I have been to in the U.S. with a few slight differences.


The first difference, the guests were instructed to wear all white - P.Diddy Style. This isn't a Colombian tradition actually, just the bride's preference.


The wedding took place at 5pm in the afternoon at this church in the center of town. It was a beautiful day.


Another difference, in Colombian Catholic weddings it is customary for the bride and groom to have a Godmother and Godfather (Madrina and Padrino) soley for the wedding. They are pictured above next to the bride and groom at the altar. They take the place of bridesmaids and groomsmen and I think their only function is to sign the wedding paper.

The ceremonly was also a lot less formal than what I am used to. Lots of gathering in the front and picture taking.

Also, after the ceremony as the bride and groom leave the church, rose petals are thrown instead of rice or birdseed.


This is a picture of the reception area, in the backyard of the house. This picture was taken before the wedding, the sun had already set by the time we returned after the ceremony. The only difference in the reception is that the introduction of the bride/groom/parents and the toasts were all done as soon as the bride and groom made there way in. After that was dinner, drinks and lots of dancing. Oh, they also had salsa performers who came to dance in the midst of the rest of us - was really cool.

This city is huge.

This is probably coming a little late in the game...I tried in vain to find a map of Bogota on the Internet that I could post, but eventually had to wait until I found someone selling them on the street. Please excuse Coco's paw in the upper right hand corner.

So here is a little orientation. As you can see, Bogota is HUGE, MASSIVE, GIGANTIC, and home to over 7 million people! But my life is pretty much encapsulated in the circumference of these various objects. Bogota's streets are numbered - Calles go North/South and Carerras go East/West. On the map N/S is horizontal and E/W is Vertical. The top part of the map, or east side of the city is guarded by a beautiful mountain range, which is also very helpful in orienting lost pedestrians in the streets (kind of like the Empire State Building in NYC...)

Silver dot - is our apartment, located at Calle 133, Carerra 58.

Two blue dots - are my jobs. Top one is the doctor's office at Calle 134, Cr. 7. The bottom one is the house of the girl I tutor at Calle 111, Cr. 51

White dot - is my school, located at Calle 100, Cr. 19. With traffic it can, and does, take me one hour every morning to get from the silver dot to the white dot.

Pink dot - is where Oscar works - The Hotel Tequendama, located at Calle 27, Cr. 7. If it takes me an hour to go a very little distance, imagine how long it can take him to get to work. That's why he leaves every morning at 5am to beat the traffic!

I hope this gives you a feel for the immense size of Bogota. I know my area pretty well, but ask me to divert slightly off the beaten path and I would be lost in a heartbeat.

Bless You!

Here there is a custom for "blessing sneezes" that brings good luck...

When one sneezes for the first time, you say

1. Salud!

When one sneezes for the second time, you say

2. Dinero!

and IF one sneezes for the third time, you say

3. Amor!

Street Light Salespeople

In Bogota at any given stoplight you can find people selling EVERYTHING. This woman happens to be selling peanuts, cigarettes, gum, chips and candy. Other people cell cell phone chargers and covers, aprons, children games, dish towels, trash bags - literally anything you could want.

Sometimes if it's a long light, they will even leave whatever they're selling on your window. If you want it, you can pay for it, otherwise they will come snatch it back up before the light turns green. They have impecable timing.

Another thing that is very common is for salespeople to come onto the bus to sell their wares. I've seen people selling super glue, batteries, pencils, hand lotion, bracelets, food, etc. It can actually come in handy if you are in need of one of those things, and they're usually a lot cheaper than you would find in the stores. The hand creme I bought was 50 cents!

36 Hours in Bogotá

The New York Times ran this article about Bogotá today in their '36 Hours in...' series. (Link is in the title)

Some of the things are must-see's like Monseratte, the Gold Museum and Andres Carne de Res. I'll have to check the rest of the things out for myself.

Really, really cheap movies

Illegally copied movies are all the rage in Colombia. They are sold in various markets around the city for like $1.00 each. You can even find first run movies, like those that are in the theater at the same time! And these aren't "guy filming while in the theater" type movies, no, these are DVDs that have all of the functions of regular DVDs, scene selection, special features, language options...

I didn't buy the movies above, because that would be illegal...but I did watch them ALL IN SPANISH!

Backup Plan, The Hurt Locker, Law Abiding Citizen, Book of Eli, etc.

Small Smaller Smallest.

This is called a diminutive, which is used to convey the "smallness" of something. In Spanish this is done by adding -ito or -itito to the end of the word. Thus a small tree becomes "arbolito" and a small dog is a "perrito".

But the thing that I find so funny is when it is used to indicate smallness for something where smallness is already implied. Here in Colombia they do this ALL the time. Except here they use -itico instead of -itito to denote the "smallest". The two funniest examples for me are:

Poco (little): Poquito and Poquitico

Chico (small): Chiquito and Chiquitico

No suprise here

It's finally official. Juan Manuel Santos will be the next president of Colombia.

On what was a cold and rainy Father's Day during the World Cup, a little over 13 million people made it to the polls...

Santos took 69% of the votes and Mockus took 27.5%.

Rainbows!

A beautiful rainbow seen in the center of Bogota this afternoon...


...and then there were two!

"Que Pena" y "Vale la Pena"

"Que Pena" is an expression used to convey embarrasment, but in Colombia you can also use it to say "I'm sorry", or "that's too bad".

"Vale la Pena" is an expression used to mean "worthwhile". So if "pena" means ebarrasment or pain, "vale la pena" could be translated to mean "bring on the pain"

Colombia Rescues Two More Prisoners From FARC

General Luis Mendieta and Colonel Enrique Murillo, the two highest ranking officials held prisoner by the FARC, were rescued today after 12 years!

He's just too cute...

...I can't NOT post pictures!

Spice Boy

I will never get over the fact that every time David Beckham is mentioned on the local news here, he is referred to as Spice Boy....so funny!

Mundial!

So the World Cup officially started with the first game today. Last night however, thy had a prett awesome kick off concert which included performances by The Black Eyed Peas, John Legend, Juanes, Alicia Keys, Shakira and various African musicians.

I leave you with a song to get you in the spirit

Plaza de los Toros

Some pictures for you to enjoy of the bullfighting ring in Bogota.

Zipaquira!

Zipaquira prides itself on being the number one tourist attraction in Colombia. And I have to give it to them, they have something pretty cool to show.

Zipaquira is a small mining town a little over an hour outside of Bogota. They mine SALT. I don't know how many miles of salt mines they have underground because it was all said to me in Spanish - and, well, they don't measure in miles here...but I know it's a lot!

The actual "tourist attraction" is made up of four parts:


1. The Salt Cathedral is the most impressionable. A guide leads you underground through the stations of the cross. Each station is unique and different, depicting the artists rendition of the station. At the end is the "church" where mass is actually held every sunday.


2. After the Salt Cathedral, you end up at the Mine Route. On the mine tour you learn how the tunnels are made to extract the salt. The guide also has you walk through tunnels in complete darkness, using only your sense of touch and hearing to get through to the other side.


3. Third is the Museum. I'm not exactly sure what I was supposed to learn...maybe how the salt was extracted long, long ago before TNT.


4. The last attraction is the rock climbing wall, which unfortunately I was not aware of, so I didn't have the right type of shoes with me...

Final verdict is Zipaquira is a MUST SEE for anyone visiting the Bogota area.

Results.

Elections were last night, and...as expected, but not as the media would have led you to believe, Juan Manuel Santos of Partido de la U won with over 46% of the votes. Compared to 21% for Antanas Mockus of Partido Verde.

What you probably don't know is that if in the first round election the front runner does not win over 51% of the votes, they have a second round election one month after the first - with only the top two candidates on the ballot.

So nothing is final confirming Santos as the next president, but with only 21% of the vote, I think Antanus Mockus should concede and save us from having another ley seca.

It's Election Time...

...and you know what that means??

LEY SECA!

Ley Seca means Dry Law...and here in Colombia, when there is a national election, ley seca is implemented for the entire weekend. So starting today at 6pm until Monday morning, no establishment in Colombia is allowed to sell any alcohol of any kind.

The law is intended to promote security during volatile election times.

but p.s. it's not always during elections. Aerosmith played a concert here a week ago and Ley Seca was implemented in the surrounding 20 blocks of the park where they played - also to promote security. When Metallica was here back in March, all hell broke loose, rioters, looters, etc. They didn't want that to happen again. And it didn't from what I hear, all went pretty smoothly.

New York Times profiles Bogotá

T Magazines latest travel issue has a profile of Bogotá. Check out the story and cool photos here

'Sacar la Mano'

This expression is used when something has broken. Our Xbox broke last week so I would say:

El Xbox sacó la mano la semana pasada.

Literally translated, google says this means "hand out", but in reality, for me, this means no more movie watching on a whim...

:(

Something tastes fishy

These chips come in a variety pack that we buy. So I enjoyed them several times without really thining about what they actually tasted like. The taste was familiar, but weird in a good kind of way.

Finally, after several weeks, it dawned on me - tocineta is bacon. Ha, yeah, I guess that was the familiar taste.

'Chicken in a Biscuit' anyone?

Cyclovia

The Cyclovia happens every Sunday and Holiday. Some of the cities major streets are closed to cars and made available for pedestrians, bikers, skaters, etc - until 2pm. Bogota is already a biker-friendly city, but the Cyclovia is an even easier way to enjoy some outside activity.

This stretch of the Cyclovia is about a 5 minute walk from out house. We took Coco out for a stroll on Monday (was a holiday here).

The Cyclovia has been so successful that other cities are starting to adopt it - New York's Summer Streets.

?

So something has been confusing me lately...If 'mama' means mother and 'hija' means daughter, then why do husbands call their wives 'mija' and parents call their daughters 'mamita'??

I hear it all the time...

Jugo de Piña

Fresh juice is hugely popular in Colombia. They drink it at every meal - the most popular kinds are mora (raspberry), mango, naranja (orange), and Colombia specific fruits like lulo and guabana. Mango was my favorite until I tasted piña the other day. I was so good I had to learnhow to make it at home, entonces...

My recipe for delicious fresh pineapple juice...requires only pineapple and water.


First cut the top and the sides off of the pineapple. Then cut into cubes.


If you use half of the pineapple. you should add 1 liter of water - this will yield 3/4 liter of juice. If you use the entire pineapple, add 2 liters of water - and this will yield 1.5 liters of juice,

Add the cubed pineapple and the water to the blender. And blend on the first setting for about a minute.


Then, holding the strainer over the pitcher, pour the juice from the blender. You will probably need to stop halfway through and press the juice through the strainer.

I reserved the pulp, but haven't decided what I will do with it yet...

Once you've poured all of the juice into the pitcher, wash the strainer out and strain again.

...and that's it. Delicious fresh pineapple juice.