Nuevos Amigos

This morning we woke up early and said goodbye to our friends from North Carolina. I felt bad for them, their flight to Colombia had been their first time on an airplane, and they were not looking forward to flying back home, especially with a new baby. We took some great pictures with them, including an adorable one of the two babies together. We showered, ate breakfast and hung around in the living room, played on the computer and basked in the baby’s adorableness. Oh, and we gave him a real bath today – thank goodness he liked it.

After lunch (an awesome frittata with artichokes and spicy sausage like a chorizo, we called cousins of our friend (the one who originally told us about FANA), to say hello. We made arrangements for them to come and pick us up at the hotel at 2:00. It was a little strange for us to be meeting people we never met, not to mention people that don’t really speak too much English. I was a little nervous about what would happen. E & A arrived with their 20 something (and gorgeous) daughter C who did most of the translating. We hit it off with them immediately. They came and sat for a few minutes and held the baby while we broke the ice. They even were nice enough to bring a gift for the baby. Then they offered to take us around the city to see a few things. We went to a HUGE shopping mall and walked around. Like home, the mall is filled with huge Christmas displays. The theme was all kinds of deer – antelope, gazelles, you name it. Huge stuffed ones were everywhere. The funny part was that all the children were playing in the fake snow – most of them have never seen snow in their lives. We bought some Colombian coffee from a place called (what else) Juan Valdez Café and sat out on an open air veranda that overlooked some of the city and the mountains. We sat and talked to each other about the differences between Bogota and New York City. There are many things that are exactly the same. After we became more comfortable with each other I tried to talk a little more Spanish to make it easier to communicate rather than have Carolina translate everything. I told E (in Spanish) that if she spoke slower I could probably understand her. So she started talking REALLY slow like I had brain damage “Teeeeeneeeemoooossss fruuuuuttaaa blaaaaannnnccaaaa” I started laughing hysterically and told her “not that slow”. She was trying to ask me if we have this very sweet white fruit in America that is very good here. No, no white fruit that I know of. So after that it got a little easier, they spoke bad English, we spoke bad Spanish and all was well. After the mall we walked around this small area outside that had a few craft booths. Nothing that caught my eye. There is one area that has a ton of bars, including the “Bogota Beer Company” gotta love it. Then we drove to the most beautiful park. It was just getting dark outside and C was telling us that at night it lights up with Christmas lights. No sooner had she said it then all the lights went on at once. It was totally amazing. Every tree was filled with these big ornaments glowing with light. There was a HUGE Christmas tree all lit up. It really was a beautiful sight. It made me a little homesick, because we know that we are missing the Christmas season at home. With the warm weather here it doesn’t really feel like Christmas. But it really did tonight.

After the park we drove around a while. You know I had to ask the question “Where can I buy yarn around here?” Yarn was a word they did not know. I tried to explain knitting with no luck. Finally C lit up and said “Yes! From the Sheep!” Yes woo hoo! In Spanish it is called las lanas, and she asked how to say it in English. It was hysterical listening to her practice the word wool, which came out more like wooooool. Anyway, you’d be happy to know that there is a store one block from our hotel. I looked in as we drove by and it seems to have all kinds of trimmings and things, not just a yarn store. I’ll have to check it out soon. We came back to the hotel just in time for the baby’s next feeding. A and E insist on spending more time with us to show us the city. They said that they feel bad that we “have no one” here. They are very proud of their city (rightfully so) and want to show us around. We are planning to go to a flea market tomorrow afternoon, we are told there are some good Colombian goods there to buy. Oh, and we told them that we wanted to buy a cross from Colombia for the baby’s room. A said that if we would like, he would paint us a wooden cross himself. How special is that? We feel bad taking up all of their time, but we do appreciate being able to get out and see things.

Apparently on Sunday’s here, they close down some of the main streets and open them up to pedestrians. We are told it is a good day to take a walk with the baby. Maybe we will do that in the morning. There is a big mall nearby (Colombians love their malls, they are huge and they are everywhere) and it is lit up for Christmas, so we will walk there one night. We were told that it is perfectly safe to walk in our area. We were surprised at how modern this city is. We were told it was very poor here, but it is not at all like that where we are. Like any city, there are poor sections, but there are very chic stores here, big designer names everywhere. We did see a lot of the same stores we have too, like Dunkin’ Donuts, Tony Roma’s ribs, L’Occitane, Nike, Tower Records (we bought a Colombian Christmas CD), and many others.

It’s about 8:30 pm and we are now in our room chilling out. Dinner was pork loin, rice and roasted eggplant, onions and tomatoes, with the sweetest watermelon you ever tasted for dessert. We went right to our room after dinner…this house can get pretty noisy from all the people coming in and out, and we need some quiet time. The boy is doing well …we left him with the maids while we were out and he did just fine. I remember thinking when we were out that it was weird that we had a child waiting for us back home. Weird. My throat continues to be a problem, I sound like a frog now. I eat cough drops like candy. I can’t get enough water in me (which means I always have to pee ) and my lips are always chapped. I seem to be the only person having a problem though. Probably my resistance was down from the crazy 5 days before we got here.

So, another day down. Time goes slowly here but we are trying to enjoy this place as much as we can. I want to be able to tell the boy about everything we saw. It´s difficult to post pics here,and I´m not even sure if I´m allowed yet. Coming soon, I promise.