Never Have We Ever Been So Bad at Never Have I Ever...

On Saturday we ventured to “El Centro,” the center of town, and known in the guide books as “La Candelaria.” We met up with AO, a historian we met at a party back in NYC last year and with whom we stayed in touch and spoke to when we were contemplating this ciudad for our little adventure. We spoke only in Español, which meant that we only understood 60-70% of what was being said, but having a historian take us around was quite the treat. We travelled around the lovely Plaza Bolivar, with it’s old (Catedral Primada, Capitolio Nacional), and the new (Palacio de Justicia – rebuilt after being stormed by guerillas and an attempted re-taking by the army in 1985), and a whole lot of pigeons. We never understand feeding pigeons as a pastime, but some peeps are apparently really into it.

Catedral Primada

Palacio de Justicia

Capitolio Nacional

AO took us to a café for some tamales, and chocolate santafreño, hot chocolate, with…cheese at the bottom. Yes, cheese. When in Bogotá…

After more sights and an introduction into the cultural world of Bogotá (Museums! Concerts! Exhibits!), we headed back to the Casa for dinner with Tia M. After dinner, we called the cousin of ND, and she offered to come pick us up for some drinks at her friend’s place. Of course, soon enough, we were playing “nunca he hecho,” which for you non- Español speakers is better known as “Never Have I Ever.” In normal situations, only understanding 60-70% of what is being said, though not ideal, is not really a huge problema. However, when one drinks after thinking something means something else, it is a problema because then we are asked for a story, and have no idea what, or better yet, how to even say it. But we got a great lesson in slang that will unfortunately not be on our placement examen tomorrow at school.

After learning the proper words for “tacky,” “trashy,” and “classy,” we headed with a crew to a rooftop discoteca in Zona Rosa (“classy”). Before entering though, we went to the supermarket and bought and shared rum in a small juice-box, on the street (“trashy”).

At the club, no chicas were talking to us, but one amigo promised to take us next week to a place with more chicos, so we stuck it out and had a great time dancing to basically the same 80s playlist we stole from EKK’s “Pure 80’s” CD she probably got from one of those CD drives in high school (“tacky”). (KIDDING, so classy.)

Sunday and today were a bit more relaxing…we basically watched a bunch of dubbed movies, cheated with 1 hour of Mad Men (not dubbed), and visited some museos in El Centro. Class begins mañana! We are currently picking our best back to school outfit and luckily we have new glasses to appear v. serious.

Hasta Pronto!