Fun Weekend around the City!

Wow, lots to do this past weekend, and it led to a crash nap late Monday morning after class.  I got to spend some quality time with friends, while getting to know some of the best of Bogotá.  Let's go ahead and start with Friday.

Friday:  Beer Station, Calle 116

So Friday wasn't a terribly interesting day.  I managed to go to the gym in the morning, and this time I felt a little better after the workout.  Nonetheless, I returned home after lunch, read for a while, and then took a nap.  Later, my friend Maria Paula invited me to Beer Station, a restaurant with locations all over Bogotá and in other Colombian cities.  Despite an epic rainstorm on the bus ride/taxi ride up to the place, we still got to Beer Station and didn't have to wait too long for an inside table.  I continue to be impressed by the quality of craft beers in Bogotá:  between visiting Bogotá Beer Company in La Candelaria on the first day of orientation and here, I never expected to find this stuff anywhere in South America.  Bogotá has proven me wrong.  Anyways, I had two different kinds of beer at the restaurant:  the Calima Roja and Tayrona Rubia.  I highly recommend the Roja, and the Rubia was ok too.

Saturday:  Andrés D.C., Calle 82

One thing I forgot to mention about Friday was that I met a friend for lunch who studied at my high school way back in 2008, my senior year.  I didn't know Felipe that well back then, but I got into contact with him after arriving in Bogotá.  He invited me to a birthday party Saturday night at a really nice bar a bit north of my apartment, Andrés D.C.  Like Beer Station, Andrés has locations in other parts of the country, but it's still a place to be on Saturday nights in the capital.  Fortunately, the birthday party had a table, and we were comfortable for the night.  As Felipe promised, the place filled up pretty good around 10pm, and then started to level off around 12:30.  He and his friends, for the most part, were from Cali, and I learned that caleños like to party well beyond the 3:00am cut-off for most Bogotá locations.  Kind of reminds me of Brazil a little bit...

In addition to having drinks, they all hit the dance floor and brought me along for a good chunk of it.  As most of you know, I am NOT a particularly good dancer, though I try, especially when a little bit of tequila is involved.  Caleños like to dance salsa, which involves all kinds of quick steps and spinning:  safe to say, my head was spinning after watching the first couple songs.  However, they were all really helpful, and I actually learned how to do a few simple things with salsa dancing.  By about 1:30, I was spent, and subsequently got a cab home.  Hopefully, sometime in the future, I can meet up with them again.

Sunday:  Usaquén and Family Lunch (Fontibon)

On Sunday, after church, I took the bus up to Usaquén to meet an American friend who helped me look for places in Bogotá.  She took me over to Usaquén, a former town now part of the capital.  This area is known for its old buildings and streets, as well as a pretty large fair that sells all sorts of arts and crafts and food.   I took some pictures with my camera, but I'm going to have to wait to be able to upload them, as I'm without my USB cord.  Anyways, I tried some food down there and had a look at the different things for sale, but I will be headed back there at least once before I leave for the States, as I saw some interesting gift ideas.

After Usaquén (way up in the 100's of streets), I elected to take the brutally long F1 Transmilenio bus ride to the Banderas stop, close to where my friend Harrys lives, in Fontibon.  On Sundays, the Transmilenio tends to be several degrees less convenient through the week:  unfortunately for me, I picked up the bus that has to stop at every stop on its way.  You can imagine, after a good 20-25 stops, how crowded a bus with capacity 160 can get, especially as people were headed basically the same direction I was.  Anyways, after I lost a good 45 minutes, I finally made it to the Banderas stop, and Harrys and his brother found me there.

Eating with Harrys' family was a great time.  Though I can't remember all their names (that's going to take a couple more lunches through the next five months), they were very friendly and inquisitive.  They wanted to know what I was in Bogotá for, where I was studying, what I was studying, how I got connected to Harrys, what parts of Colombia I had already visited, etc.  After lunch, I went out to the park next to the apartment and played soccer on asphalt.  It was yet another reminder that breathing at 8,500 feet can be lots of work, especially on a full stomach.  Anyways, I surprised myself:  not only did I not die, but I managed to score a couple fluky goals and make a couple lucky saves.  After dessert and a couple glasses of lemonade, it was time to go, and I got back home to teach around ten minutes after 7:00.

After such a jam-packed weekend, I was grateful to be done with my class today after 10:00.  It gave me a chance to recharge in the early afternoon, in a clean room that the maid already touched up before I arrived.  I'll be sure to write again this week, as I'll be keeping up with the gym and trying new foods and preparing to go to VALLEDUPAR on Thursday!  Talk to you all later.

Laundry, Printing, Gym, etc.

Wow, the end of my first week of classes down here in Bogotá!  I still feel like I just arrived... maybe I'm still not quite accustomed to the Andean air, who knows?  I only had three classes, and they flew pretty quickly in spite of my brain's inability to comprehend three hours of Spanish in one sitting each time.  I have a little bit of homework (reading) to do this weekend, but I'm not that worried about it.  In spite of the work, let me share with you some more highlights of the tail end of the work week.

Laundry:  One mildly irritating thing about the Chapinero neighborhood is its ostensible lack of laundromats, or even full clothes-washing services.  I assume everyone must have washers/dryers in their homes/apartments, because I broke down to the point that I had to ask my landlady to help me find a place. She found one... but I never said anything about it being close.  There is a laundry service about 16 blocks south of my apartment, and another six blocks east.  Safe to say, I had to bus it there.  I want to give a big thank-you to all the people who did not bust out laughing at the kid on the Transmilenio who clogged up the aisle with a loaded laundry bag.  That's one small step for kindness, one giant leap for public decency.  Even when I made it Calle 57's terminal, I still had to hike six blocks east to get to the laundry service.  Those people along the way deserve a shout-out too for not getting all pissed off as I smacked them with a swinging sack of dirty clothes.

So I arrived at the place around five after eight (so much pride in waking up on a morning that I didn't have class!).  The website said they were open from like 8:00-7:00, so I figured I'd be their first customer... that would be incorrect.  They had a sign on the front door that gently pointed out that they were *still* on holiday hours, meaning they wouldn't open through the week until 9:00.  Great.  Now I've gotta find something to do for an hour and come back.  So, laundry in hand, I hike it over to a Juan Valdez Coffee and enjoy a delicious muffin and coffee while I explore the cheapie smartphone I bought last week.  After devouring about eight websites' worth of news, 9:00 rolled around.  Yay!  Now I can go drop off my clothes... wrong again.  Ten minutes after nine, the doors still weren't open.  What to do?  Still with clothes in hand, I walked back down to Carrera 7 and sat down at a local café for a big bottle of water.  I was dehydrated, so why not pump my body full of H2O to help me cope with the workout of carrying 20 pounds' worth of clothes?  Finally, around 9:45 I walked back over, and the place was open.

The one good thing about getting my laundry done was that one of the washerwomen in the place offered to switch over the loads for me to dry them, so I could have an hour and a half to myself.  Still satisfied with Transmilenio prices, I went home for a little while.  Ninety minutes and about $12 later, I had clean clothes.  It wasn't the cheapest venture, but I'll take it as a nice trade-off for all the cheap lunches and bus fares I've experienced.  Hopefully, in the future, I can find a more efficient way to get my clothes cleaned.  If not, this will be my typical Tuesday morning for the time being.

Going to the Gym:  Yeah, time to get back in shape!!!... not quite.  As you have heard from me before, Bogotá sits about 8,500 feet above sea level, so while getting into shape is a noble venture, the first couple times going to the gym have little to do with trying to regain muscle mass and boosting cardio.  The first time I stepped on a treadmill at the UniAndes campus, I reminded myself of how much I had to climb just to be able to get to the place.  I'm not even just talking about a physical climb... to be honest, it was a mental one.  Once I arrived at the gym on Wednesday morning, immediately I discover that there's a little more to entering the Centro Deportivo than just handing them your ID card.  No, no, no... in fact, not only do you have to visit the guy in the equipment room whose computer is the only thing organized amid a room of jerseys and equipment strewn all over the floor, but the guy hands me a medical interview form!  Incredible.  So now I have to take this form to another guy in another room to announce that, yeah, unfortunately, I'm a little overweight.  Still, no one needs to freak out when I decide to hit the cardio for a little while, at least I hope not.

Finally, after dealing with layers of bureaucracy just to enter the gym, I entered the gym.  UniAndes' gym is surprisingly... small.  I mean, it's a MASSIVE building, don't get me wrong.  However, floors two and three are dedicated more to low-intensity activities, such as pool (not the watery kind, that's on the fifth floor) and table tennis.  Fourth floor has treadmills, spinning bikes and tumbling/martial arts, and fifth floor has the weight room and what looked like places to use an elliptical.  Showering is kind of a mess, as 90% of the lockers aren't actually located in the locker room, but rather, out in the hall.  I had to do some magic to be able to get changed without losing anything along the way.  The whole experience makes me miss the Baierl Rec Center at the Pete, crowded-ness and all, but nonetheless I push on, as I need to get into shape.  I've been to the gym now two different times:  Thursday and Friday.  I did notice, at least, that running got a little easier on Friday, but recovery afterwards was still the same.  I found myself breathing semi-heavily just walking down the hill to get back on campus.  Fortunately, I've found some places to walk where less people can see me wheeze on a typical morning.

Printing:  As with most of my experiences with Latin American universities, one distinct advantage is that you're not shelling out your first grandchild's inheritance to buy your textbooks each semester.  Generally professors will ask you to photocopy chapters of given books, and it's your responsibility to find it in a vocabulary or some other external (away-from-university) source.  In UniAndes' case, they have this nice little shop called HaceCopias, which is about half a block away from the Mario Laserna Building, essentially UniAndes' home base.  Although the print shop is convenient in that you can get most (I emphasize, most) of your reading materials from there if you need to photocopy them, it doesn't mean it's cheap.  I had to put up another $12 just to get the week's worth of reading materials for two of my classes.  I'm on my own for the third:  fortunately, I found articles for that class using Google Scholar and PittNet+.  The lady there was pretty friendly, and laughed when I told her where I was from and what I was doing at the school.  Apparently my Spanglish was amusing to her.

As I rush to catch yet another Transmilenio bus to get the hell home, I remember that it's a privilege to be down here.  I'm representing my school and my country in a place that, as I've heard, doesn't see as many Americans around as I originally thought.  Nonetheless, the city's been good pretty far, and I have not only learned a lot about it, but also a lot about what I'm made of.  This is truly a study abroad experience that is already making lasting memories.  I wish all of my Pittsburgh friends a good night from Bogotá, and I hope you all stay warm!  And to all of my friends outside of Bogotá and Pittsburgh, that you all sleep well too!  I'll be updating again next week with more amusing blog entries.

Food and Prices and Whatnot

So I've officially cleared one week here in Bogotá, and things are going pretty well.  I've lived relatively frugally the past few days, opting to eat out just once a day while downing the occasional mortadella/cheese sandwich to hold me over during the other meals.  One Friday afternoon, however, I decided to go a little over the edge and try the local fare.  I found myself getting stuffed over the dish above, called bandeja paisa.  While it may not seem like a lot of food on this mediocre-sized plate, I can assure you that it's far more filling than you can imagine.  The rice and beans are hard to finish off in the end, and the meat, egg and arepa in the middle were more than I bargained for.  Nonetheless, I polished it all off, much to the amazement of my friends, and I promptly fell down on my bed at home for a nice nap once I got there.

Speaking of bandeja paisa, it was also most likely the most expensive meal I've eaten here in Bogotá so far.  Anthony Bourdain wasn't lying in Parts Unknown when he said that people from Bogotá enjoy eating out, especially for lunch.  I can see why:  it's no secret that you can get a relatively filling lunch for the equivalent of about 7,500 pesos, or about $4.50.  That includes meat, rice, a couple different kinds of salad, soup and a glass of juice.  I can live with corrientazo for the time being, for sure.  In addition to restaurants, I've found that the basic necessities in the grocery store are affordable as well.  I can get a pack of lunch meat ham and sliced cheese for under $5 as well, and up to this point it's like making sandwiches American-style. Liter-and-a-half bottles of water rarely graze $1.25, making it easy to stay hydrated in my apartment (My apartment, unfortunately, doesn't have a kitchen sink, which means I won't be enjoying Bogotá's renowned tap water anytime soon).  The bus rides on the TransMilenio are pretty cheap too:  at between 1,400 and 1,700 pesos per ride (both under $1), it's not hard to get around the city.  If I make a mistake somewhere in transit, I don't have to pay for another ride until I physically leave the terminal area anywhere.  It has its inefficiencies, but it's very good for the time being.

Wikipedia's picture, but same exact weather conditions during my walk!

Today was also the day that I went to the DAS building about 30 blocks north of my apartment (Calle 100) to apply for my cédula de extranjería.  I got there nice and early, as I figured the bulk of their traffic would arrive right before lunch time.  The process was pretty self-explanatory:  as I had all the documents in line, I just had to fill out a form and turn it in with my documents.  Beyond that, however, the wait was a bit silly. I had to wait a good 30 minutes for someone to bring me into a room to fingerprint me, which I didn't mind much because that kind of thing takes time for any customer.  However, after that, I was sent to the third floor to wait for them to turn my passport back over to me.  There I waited about 90 minutes for someone at a desk to stamp my passport, write a couple symbols in it that I didn't understand, and tell me to come back in 15 days to get the physical card.  I took 90 minutes out of my day just in transit to take care of that, and gave up another 2-3 hours of my time waiting for them to take care of my passport.  That's one aspect of Colombian bureaucracy that could do better, in my eyes.

Other than that, I don't have much else to report today.   Tomorrow I'm going to try my hand at laundry, as I'm running low on socks and underwear and need to resolve that pronto.  I bought a small bottle of what looks like Colombia's answer to Tide, so I should be golden. Then I have class tomorrow night.  Talk to you all later!

Week 1: Bring on the Classes!

So I'm sitting here Monday afternoon after my first class, waiting to get ready to tutor and give a few classes tonight.  My first Spanish-language, three-hour seminar went pretty well... for those of you who know me at Pitt, I like to participate in class.  In Spanish, it's no different, just with a little bit of a language barrier.  However, as the topic was public policy, the professor pointed to me a couple times to explain how our system is a little different from the Colombian one.

Beyond that, I had to do some errands today.  One fun thing about Colombia is that apparently the visa isn't enough to be able to stay here more than three months:  in fact, you have to obtain an alien resident card (cédula de extranjería).  Fortunately, the international coordinators at UniAndes gave us a neat little list of things to pick up in order to facilitate the process, so I spent a good chunk of the afternoon moving back and forth between Chapinero to get what I needed.  On top of a pretty hefty money order, I had to get new passport pictures done and practically my whole passport relative to Colombia photocopied.  After it was all said and done, I lost a good chunk of change; however, if that's the most I have to spend here, I'll take it.

Today was an absolutely beautiful day here... upper-60's, partly cloudy, and a slight breeze as I walked to class this morning.  Once I'm totally accustomed to the air, this should be a pretty nice weekly routine.  I've been up since about 5:10 this morning, as I had a 7:00am class, so it was an early ride on the Transmilenio.  Though I didn't board at any "peak hour," I found myself crammed on a J bus on the way to school.  From about Calle 26 to the school (Calle 17), I thought for sure I was going to lose my backpack, as I had it low on my body and in my hand, crammed between at least two people.  Fortunately, however, nothing happened, and I made it to class about 10 minutes early.

Tomorrow I don't have class.  My schedule works out that I have two morning classes (Monday and Thursday, 7:00am) and one evening class (Wednesday, 5:00pm). Therefore, after getting my cédula, which I hope doesn't take long, I should have nothing to do.  I'm gonna have to try to find a laundry place, as I'm running low on clean clothes.  Apparently I missed the people who take the entire apartment's laundry and cleans it.  At any rate, I should be fine.  As long as I get my clothes back by Thursday, heck... I might even hike it up to the UniAndes gym after my Thursday class!  That's it for today:  talk to you all later!

Two Days of Orientation, One to Go!

Hello again!  I have a nice big window from my apartment, so I decided to snap a picture with my phone yesterday morning.  During the past couple days, I have been at orientation for UniAndes.  The ride to La Candelaria isn't terrible from Chapinero, but it is a long one, and you have to make a connection in between.  Fortunately, I have a couple helpful friends, and one printed off a trip plan for me to get back and forth.  Arriving at UniAndes, one can't help but notice that it's built on a hill - Pittsburgh, you've struck back, you little devil...

This is a bird's eye view of the campus (near) and downtown, from one of the higher points on the UniAndes campus.  Fortunately, like Pittsburgh, it's got a series of pathways and stairwells that make the campus navigable.  There are over 80 buildings at UniAndes, and I believe most of my classes are in the same area, which saves dozens of awkward questions to German Shepherd-wielding policemen on campus.  That's the other thing:  UniAndes has a lot of security guards.  I know the neighborhood UniAndes is in isn't the best in terms of crime, but I'm glad to see that almost everywhere you look, there's a policeman or private security guard watching.

I've also had the chance to get to know the group better.  I am one of two Americans among the ranks of exchange students this semester, and at least 1/3 of our group is French.  We have a few Australians, as well as at least one from Brazil.  It seems quite common, after a couple days here, to grab a beer after class, so I've had the chance to meet more people along the way.  Aside from another doctoral student, I'm the only one I know of in the political science track, but I'm sure that will change once I sit in classes and see other foreign students.  

Other than that, I don't really have much to comment on today.  I saw rain for the first time, albeit a small sprinkle.  I'm told to watch out more for that as the semester goes on.  I'll try to post something tomorrow as well; hopefully I have the chance to enjoy the afternoon with friends and good food!  We'll see.  Have a good night, everyone!

A New Chapter, A New Country, A New Blog

Hi, everyone!  A warm Good Morning from beautiful, Bogotá, Colombia (adjectives interchangeable)!  It's my second morning here, and I've really got nothing to do until an afternoon orientation session, so I figured I would update you all on how it's going so far.  It was a heck of a day trip to get down here - roughly 7:00am to 11:00pm Monday night I moved between three airports - picking up nuggets of wisdom along the way.  I learned off the bat, quite bluntly, never to travel internationally using United.  Five months of my life simply wasn't going to fit in a fifty pound checked bag, a backpack, and a newly purchased duffel bag to transfer important clothing that put my checked bag over the limit.  Where I would have been ready with virtually all my toiletries and a couple granola bars to hold me over before visiting a grocery store [thanks, Mama Hill!  A shame it had to go to waste :( ], I now have to buy a lot of it down here.

One bittersweet highlight, however, of flying United is that you have access to in-flight DirecTV.  I practically saw the entire Duke/Virginia game Monday night in crystal-clear, 6" screen fashion.  The catch:  it's $7, and the DirecTV leaves you hanging after you leave U.S. airspace, forcing you to put up with whatever movies the airline throws at you.  I personally settled for "We're the Millers," not a bad choice until you realize that little kids behind you can at one point see a half-naked Jennifer Aniston.  I still got a couple good laughs out of the plot, and I didn't have to hear the kids pester their parents all evening for snacks.  On balance, I'm not looking forward to the flying experience in June.

But let's get more into Colombia.  My friend Harrys picked me up from the airport within 10 minutes of arrival, so I didn't have to feel the urge to punch the guy who approached me for the third time asking if I'd like to take his "executive" taxi to my location.  Staying overnight in Harrys' family's apartment, I found out very quickly how weather in Bogotá is.  I will start by saying it's been beautiful for the 36 hours I've been here; however, mornings are quite cold.  It heats up during the late mornings, but I could not help but reach for my sneakers and sweatpants after rolling out of bed at 6:30.  I don't want to jinx it, but I have yet to see rain, another nice touch to the city.  I'm sure it will come.

Harrys helped me out a lot the first day.  We got my apartment all situated:  it was a bit of a chunk of change to start, but hey, I'm here, and in a pretty nice neighborhood, Chapinero.  I would upload pictures, but alas, I've forgotten my USB cord, made specifically for Olympus cameras.  Basically, I'll use it to take a bunch of pictures through the five months here, but ultimately the real-time ones are going to come from... wait for it... a prepaid cheapie smartphone.  That's right, I have moved into the 21st century and purchased a smartphone.  I still have to add a little bit of prepaid coverage, but I can still access Facebook and places with wifi for the time being.  He also showed me important parts of the neighborhood, which helped me to get a survey of the area.  Over the next couple days I will do a little bit more exploring, as I have to figure out how to get to the university efficiently using the Transmilenio bus system.

After I said goodbye to Harrys in the afternoon, I got ready to meet my friends Diana and Gustavo at the Transmilenio again.  We went to a shopping mall over in what I believe was the western part of the city and watched some fountain displays and talked more about the city.  I'm glad that I have some people already in the area who can help me with little questions and concerns as I go.  I returned home about 9:00pm.

Some initial reactions to Bogotá:

1)  Bogotá has a lot more access to American goods than anywhere I ever visited in Brazil.  Also, it is cheaper.  I've spent quite a bit of money here so far getting situated, but I was impressed last night walking through the mall and this morning at a Bogotá grocery store.  My apartment isn't the best situation for cooking/preparing meals for myself, but at least I have some bread, ham and cheese for sandwiches if I get hungry, all of which were easy to find and resembled what I would buy at IGA in Oakland/Pittsburgh.  I also found fresh fruit and a reasonably-priced bottle of store-brand, natural orange juice.  We'll see later how the stuff tastes.

2)  Transmilenio is a pretty good bus system, even at its peak hours.  Now I know, I haven't been crammed into a bus like sardines yet... but Transmilenio has been a really cheap and efficient way to get around the city.  These buses definitely go faster than anything I've ever been on in the States.  I have to figure out the schedules better, though, if I want to get back and forth to school at a reasonable hour.

3)  The people are a little more serious than I had expected.  It's not necessarily a bad thing - heck, I consider myself a serious person - but people in the stores and in the restaurants do not seem to be in a good mood most of the time.  Maybe I just need to see more of the city, but I'm guessing that life here is more businesslike than in São Luís or Florianópolis. I'm still excited, nonetheless, to meet my classmates and other Colombian students and get their perspective on life here!  I'm sure there are tons of restaurants that I need to try, plenty of people to meet, and tons of culture that shows off the happiness of the Colombian people.

Anyways, these are just some preliminary thoughts.  I'll try to update on a regular basis, and if you don't find my pictures here, you'll find some on my Facebook.  Have a good day, everyone!