Catching up

2009 has been off to an eventful start. The apartment is slowly acquiring furniture, my Spanish continues to improve, terrorists bombed a Blockbuster a few blocks from my apartment and directly across the street from a restaurant my friends and I eat at regularly, I got to see my first bullfight, watch the SuperBowl for the first time from outside the United States, CrossFit Bogota continues to grow at an impressive pace and I just became an uncle!

I know it has been nearly a month since my last update, but I've been busy working on the new business and haven't had the time to provide any colorful updates on my experiment here in Bogota.

Bombing
A week ago, a bomb blasted through a Blockbuster store on Kr 9 Cll 82, which sits directly across the street from Bagatelle, a brunch restaurant my friends and I frequent on at least a weekly basis. The bomb blew apart the garage and most of the front floor of the building. One 25 year old woman, and a man, were killed when the bomb exploded, and another 20 people were injured. I took the photo (left) the day after the blast when I was walking back to my apartment from my English class further north.

I was sitting in my apartment working when I heard the bomb (my apartment is a 7-8 minute walk to the bomb site, or about 6 blocks). It rained most of the day, accompanied by thunder and lightning, but the rain had stopped a couple of hours earlier. My initial reaction was "Thunder? No, not raining. Bomb? Maybe." Then about a half hour later blackberry messenger and SMS messages from friends asking if I heard the bomb and if I was all right. Ernesto returned to the apartment from Andino Mall, where he heard the blast, and asked if I knew about the bomb.

Unfortunately, I guess this is par for the course these days. I was in New York during both World Trade Center bombings, and spent 40+ hours at Ground Zero on 9/11, so I'm all too familiar with this crap now. Though this was the second significant bombing in Bogota in a month as the FARC (aka The Guerrilla) tries to let the world know they are still a force to be reckoned with despite their being largely tamed by the Colombian military in recent years under Uribe.

Here's more info if you'd like to see official news about the incident:

• CNN Story
• Bloomberg Story

But it looks like the authorities have made arrests related to this deadly event. And just yesterday another FARC attack, this time in Cali, killed several police officers. Oh well, TIC!

Ole!
Well, now I finally earned the right to shout "OLE!" This weekend I got to see my first bullfight. And it was also my first return to La Macarena, my first neighborhood in Bogota, in some time. As we walked up to the Plaza del Toros, I saw the window of the room I rented in Sept/Oct.

I planned on making it a dry Sunday, but I forgot two very important items: 1) Colombians don't need an excuse to drink, so bullfighting provided an opportunity for them to cook up all sorts of concoctions for their boda bags, and 2) it was Superbowl Sunday!

Now, I haven't drank from a Boda Bag since the days of the fraternity and sorority Horseback Riding date parties back at Michigan, but streaming alcohol into your mouth from them from as high as you can turns out to be the norm at a bullfight. It was amazing, everyone shared with everyone else. And of course, everyone had some different mix of alcohols, so the result was quite a mess. But in spite of my inebriation, I was able to snap a few solid photos from my camera phone, which I humbly share with you below.


The coolest match, if you can call it that, was the Portuguese-style matador who fought the bull on horseback. His name was Joao something, and he put on an amazing show. At least on two occasions, the bull chased after the horse he rode, yet the bull barely grazed the horse's ass as Joao taunted the bull.

I suppose the saddest part was that after the fights, the bulls all end up being killed and then their meat sold at a butcher, and I didn't get to go buy any meat for my bbq from that butcher! Instead, we had to rush north to watch the Superbowl.

Futbol?
We arrived at a friend of a friend's apartment, where they had a keg! I hadn't seen a keg since leaving the US of A. It was a sight for sore eyes, or watery glazed over eyes as was in my case from all the boda bag drinking at the bullfight. Anyway, I barely even knew who was playing in the Superbowl this year since I have seen maybe one or two football games, and still don't have a TV in my apartment (I will when I go to NYC and bring one back!).

The party was full of Americans from the embassy, mostly military guys, and it marked the first time I felt like I was in the US while in Bogota. However, the chef they hired, and the cuisine served definitely tipped me off to the fact that I was not in the US.

CrossFit Bogota on the move...
Things are going well with CrossFit Bogota. There are nearly 30 paying members now, and I launched the new website a few weeks ago at www.crossfitbogota.com.



In the process of putting together the website, I learned some basic CSS and XHTML coding concepts, and taught myself how to use Adobe Photoshop at a basic level to create some images for new T-Shirts as well as the favicon for the website pictured above right. Not bad for a newbie. There are some great photos on the website as well. And CrossFit's main site now has a link to us in their affiliate section. We hope to send some good photos shortly for them to post on the website to give us some visibility.

And I have just about finished the construction in the terrace. Budgetary restrictions have forced me to delay finishing the project until I return from NYC. I am trying not to convert USD to COP unless I have to, although, the current conversion rate of nearly 2450:1 is tempting me to make a lump sum conversion now to lock in that great exchange rate. But I think the COP will depreciate further in coming months so I'm in no rush to convert. Nor am I in a rush to rent a locale (retail space). While there is no doubt renting a locale would increase my membership base significantly, it would be a little foolhardy to rent now while rents are still at highs. As the economy cools here I plan to take advantage of the strong (in a relative sense) dollar and the weakened economy here to lock in a good lease for the locale.

Transmilleno
I recently heard people refer to the Transmilenio transit system as Transmilleno ("lleno" meaning "full" or "packed"). I thought that was rather funny, and accurate. The trainbuses always seem to be stuffed full of people, and Colombians tend not to show the NYC Subway ettiquette of moving onto the platform if they're in the doorway to let people get out. Colombians also seem to not care about letting people out, instead trying to jam themselves in while people are trying to get out. Very few people tend to move more than a slight lean even if you say "permisso por favor." I fear many of these folks wouldn't survive long in NYC.

Relaxation.
My favorite new item for the apartment is my hamaca (hammock). Every morning when I return from my morning CrossFit and English classes, I enjoy a homemade fruit smoothie and warm bowl of oatmeal rocking back and forth in the sun while listening to some Bob Marley "live in concert" on the iPod sounddock. In fact, the other morning I took a photo from the hammock, which is hung out on the front balcony. The view is prettier than this photo suggests as I can clearly see the lush green mountain in the distance.

Now it's time to prepare for a flurry of guests over the coming few weeks, and an upcoming trip to NYC for a few days.