Saturday, October 16, 2010

It Took Us Only 36 Hours to Befriend the Entire Legal Lesbian Community of Bogotá

Well we had had quite the day on Friday. After resigning ourselves to the fact the citibank is going to charge us 3% of every ATM withdrawal we make, we took out some cash and then headed north with Tia M and her daughter's amiga A.

El Campo

We headed to a "cultivo," essentially a rose farm and packaging factory about 40km outside the City, which reminded us a little bit of that scene in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (original) where Veruca's dad has the factory going through the chocolate bars to find the golden ticket.


A Rose By Any Other Company Would Not Smell As Sweet

We learned that many of the roses we see and buy last minute at the bodega for mom or someone's performance originate in Colombia, and que bonita!


Baby Rosa


The Finished Product

After a lunch of 3 Empanadas with fresh salsa (yum), we headed to the Zona Rosa/Zona T, where there are shopping malls filled with texting teenagers, much like our hometown of Strong Island. On the escalator, A asked us if we had a novia, and we said, "Uhhhhh." She then got the hint and started explaining where all the gay bars were and which ones were trashy.

Of course, the mall had, not one, but two Juan Valdez Cafes:


Juan was not there, unfortch.

We then contacted AP, who our friend TS in New York introduced us to on Facebook, and she invited us out for Salsa dancing, after some empanadas, natch. It turns out AP is a lawyer in Bogotá and she and her partner hang out with lots of other legal lesbians, who all love Salsa dancing and being very nice to random foreigners. Now, we thought we had rhythm, but AP and her girls were finding the beat in bizarre syncopated rhythms that we could barely comprehend. Salsa may have originated in New York, but it's not the New Yorkers who can keep up. AP also mentioned that her human rights org might need some research help, so now we not only have gay friends here, but a possible internship.

So far, the empanada count is at 5, but expect that to change very soon, folks.

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