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!