Getting to Know You

We have made it to our one month anniversary in Bogotá, and we are definitely in love.  Hopefully, it's the kind that lasts and not just an infatuation ;-)  We've been spending a lot of our time figuring out our new home.  Jeff started going to work and getting into that routine, while I worked on figuring out what to do with the girls until school started.

We tried an embassy sponsored get together at Chuck E. Cheese which is at one of the malls near us.  The girls had fun with some of the games there.

But it was loud, hot, and completely overstimulating, so, sure enough, after about an hour Elena completely lost it.  Luckily, there's a frozen yogurt place in the mall directly across from Chuck E. Cheese.  I asked Elena if she wanted ice cream, and suddenly, every thing was all better.  We sat and recovered for a while. 

Once my children were resorted to their pre-Chuck E. Cheese selves, we even got in some cute pictures with the Emoji movie advertisement and the E from SALE.

This mall also had a movie theater and some nice stores, so we may come back, but I think that was our one and only trip to Chuck E. Cheese.

We also tried out a weekly baby playgroup.  Elena was a bit old for it, but she found toys to have fun with.

The ladies were all very nice, and I think if Elena hadn't been heading to school, we probably would have stuck with the group.  Because, of course, all of this was about killing time until school started.  The girls got to come for a new student visit the Friday before their first day.  They loved it.

It was wonderful to see them so happy, and I was so proud to show them off.  By that point I had been working for a couple weeks at the school.  They had a four day week just for new staff, which was a lot of fun.  I got to know everyone in the new group well.  The school even took us all out to Andres D.C. which is an over the top restaurant in town.  They have great grilled meat, and they give you a bib, so that you can really get into it.

I was especially glad that they invited spouses.  They have people who come around performing and asking you to get up and dance.  It ended up being a really fun night out for me and Jeff.  

I'm working as a learning specialist in the school's educational achievement department.  Our work space is in a little house, and I have a corner desk that I can sit at when I'm not running from class to class.

I can't wait for our sea freight to arrive with all my books, so that I can fill those shelves.  It can get quite cold in our little room, so I was especially grateful when one day the provided snack was hot chocolate and arepas.

Teachers get the daily snack and lunch, and it's always yummy.  My favorite part is the crazy variety of fresh fruit juices they serve.  There are always two juice choices at lunch, and usually a third juice at snack.

There is only one slight draw back to my office location.  It's right next to Elena's classroom.  

The door to my office/house is in the back of the picture.  Elena has only been at school for two days, and she's already tried to come to class with me once.  Hopefully, she'll get used to seeing me walk by without trying to come with me.

When the rest of the staff came back to work after our new teacher work week, we had a big staff meeting, and then finished the day off with a big staff party at one of the nearby country clubs.  They set up all kinds of games for us to play, including tejo, which I've been dying to try.  It's kind of like exploding cornhole.

The bottom part has a substance like clay, and you throw heavy metal discs about the size of a hockey puck.  There's a circle in the middle, and you get the most points for landing in the circle.  That circle is surrounded by little triangles that contain explosives, and if you hit the triangle hard enough, POP!  It is required to drink alcohol while playing this game, so we took turns holding each other's drinks and throwing.  The picture above is the closest I got to either the circle or the exploding triangles.  I had better luck at a game called rana, or frog.  I was having so much fun I didn't take a picture, but it looked kind of like this.

You throw small metal discs.  You get different points depending on which hole you get the disc in, frogs are especially good.  I don't know exactly why I'm good at this game, but it turns out I am, and I had a lot of fun playing with a group of Colombian teachers who all wanted me on their team.  It was a nice way to end the evening.

That Saturday, we set out to get the girls their school uniforms.  The insanity is still a little too fresh for me to write about it in detail, but if I had it to do over again, I would have brought many snacks and maybe a stiff drink or two.  As it was, we barely made it out sane, and we had a ratio of three adults to two children.  Elena required chocolate to recover from us repeatedly trying to fit shirts over her head that did not have wide enough neck openings, and Vivian was pretty patient with the fact that just because two skirts had the same number on the tag, it didn't mean that they were the same size.  We finally found things for Vivian, and Piedad, our awesome new empleada, got a friend of hers to come over and help alter Elena's clothes which I got used from the school's PTA.  When Vivian did her trial run of her uniform, she was thrilled because she thought she looked like Hermione.

She started the day before Elena.  My bus leaves at 6 and theirs leaves at 6:15, so my mom took pictures of them on the first couple days.  She got this great one of the two of them on Elena's first day.

In return, I sent her pictures of them having fun at school.

It's nice being back in a routine.  We still have the weekends to explore too.  We finally got to one of the many Bogota Beer Companies, BBC, to try it out.  Jeff got a sampler, and I decided I liked the honey ale.  The girls and mom had fun too.

Mom actually liked her sandwich so much, she went back and got another one without us one day.  We've also settled on a favorite local Italian restaurant, San Giorgio.  It's just down the block and their pasta and gelato are delicious.  Elena gives it five stars.

We're also big fans of the pancakes at Masa, also just down the street, but we're willing to try more pancakes for the sake of scientific inquiry.

I think we're pretty settled on a our favorite bakery though.  It's called Eric Kayser, and their baguettes and pastries are fantastic.  Yesterday, I walked down to get some breakfast yummies, and the girls sat out on the balcony to enjoy their croissants.

We're continuing to enjoy the weather and the parks, although it cracks me up that the girls like the exercise equipment better than the playground equipment.

One of the best parts of getting to know this incredible city was having my mom there to share it all with us.

She had to go back home eventually though.  Yesterday was her last day, and she and I went on a shopping marathon.  We explored the Santa Barbara Mall, which is a fun labyrinth of stores.  While we were wandering, we found an absolutely adorable rain set for Elena with boots, a coat, and an umbrella.  The mall is in the Usaquén area which is known for its big Sunday market.  We couldn't make it on a Sunday, but they have street vendors out every day of the week, and mom and I bought Colombian souvenirs and lovely Colombian bags.  This one is mine, happy at home now.

Mom, of course, got a red one.  Her main mission though was a custom made leather jacket, which we did not find at the mall, so we got in another Uber and headed to the leather district.  It's a couple blocks of leather stores, one after the other.  We had gotten a store recommendation from a friend at the embassy, so we headed there.  The man who owned the shop was great, even though he spoke very little English.  Mom tried on several different coats and finally settled on the style and color she wanted.  I'll pick it up when it's done, and it will be here waiting for her when she comes back in October.

When we got back and showed Elena her new rain gear, she insisted on modeling it immediately.

My mom and I rested a bit, and then went out for one more shopping expedition.  There's a Colombian artisans' store nearby, and we walked there to look at what they had.  I had been trying to figure out how to store extra toilet paper in our guest bathroom, since there is no cupboard under the sink.  We found a beautiful, handmade solution.

We finished off Mom's last day by taking her to the P.F. Chang's near our place.  It may seem like a strange choice, but we walk by it all the time.  It's huge, and it has these huge horse statues outside, so we're always talking about it and wondering what it looks like inside.  Plus, Mom likes their Mongolian beef.  Elena was thrilled for an opportunity to wear her new rain gear out, even though it wasn't raining.

The inside was indeed large, and the food was good.  Everyone ate well, and we were grateful we had to walk it off on the way home.  Elena turned out to be the best prepared of all of us, because it was raining lightly when we left the restaurant.

Mom left early this morning, and we miss her already.  It was wonderful to have her support while we got to know our new home.  We've got a lot of things figured out now, but there is still more exploring to do, and we've invited her to come back anytime to keep exploring with us.

Our New Apartment in Bogotá

We have been in our apartment a week now.  We moved in last Friday with all our suitcases.  Our air freight and internet connection came on Monday.  We are still in a state of mild chaos, but we are beginning to make it a home.  We have several pieces of furniture we want to return to the embassy, and several more pieces that we've requested.  We're also longing for our sea freight with all our rugs and pictures that will make everything cozier.  But, with all those caveats, here's a quick tour of the apartment, which has the potential to be an incredible home for us.

One of the things we're still getting used to is that the elevator comes right up to our apartment.  There are two apartments per floor, and two elevators, one for each side of the building.  You need a special key to get the elevator to come up to your floor, both from inside the apartment and from inside the elevator.

When you're inside the elevator, the elevator doors open to a closed wooden door with a deadbolt lock and a regular lock, so getting into the apartment means struggling with two sets of keys while hoping that you don't drop them in the crack between the elevator and the floor.  Also, you have to make sure you "turn off" your floor, otherwise other people can get there.  We're getting used to all this.  We've seen several other apartments with this feature, so it's not unusual for Bogotá.

We're actually quite lucky, because we have a little entry area, before our next door, which is mostly decorative.

We've put a chair there, and ordered a coat rack, so we're hoping to make it a nice entry area.  Once you go through the decorative door, you're looking into the living room.

Again, there's a lot we want to do with the furniture, but at least they have nice, dark brown furniture here, rather than the mustard yellow that was in most houses in Bangkok.  We appropriated some of the living room furniture for the study, which we've decided to make a TV room.  It's off to the right.

We're not allowed to use the fire places, and they have these huge ugly signs glued to them saying they're only for decorative use, so we decided to just put the TV in front.  We got the TV at Price Smart, which is Costco in disguise with a few local touches.  For example, they sell machetes.

The study area also has tons of built in bookshelves, so our books will have a nice home once they get here.

To the left of the living room, is the dining room.

The door on the left in that picture leads to the kitchen, which is narrow, but very big.

There's an open area at the end near the window where we'd like to put a little table and some chairs.  Off the kitchen is the laundry room and the "maid's" room.

The "maid's" room is actually Mom's room right now, because she's staying with us to help take care of the girls until school starts.

All the doors are a little confusing.  There's also a bathroom between the kitchen and the entrance to the bedroom "wing", and we are still having trouble going in the correct door.  The bedroom area has its own decorative door which opens into a little foyer.

We've requested a small desk to put there, so that Vivian has a homework area that's not completely removed from the rest of the house.  Our bedroom is right off the foyer.

There's space in there for a desk for me, and we also have a huge master bathroom and walk in closet.  The girls' rooms are down a little hall.

There's a space between the two rooms that we've turned into a play area, much to Elena's delight.

We got a rug at Price Smart too, just to make it a nicer play area.  Vivian's room is to the right.

Elena's room is to the left.

Elena is on an air mattress for now, because we've put her mattress in Mom's room.  Both girls have bathrooms and built in closets.  

The apartment has good security and a few amenities like a lap pool and a small gym.  We're very happy with the location and the layout.  Now, we just need to make it home.