We Have Llegar-ed!

We have arrived in Bogotá! La casa where we are staying is full of wonderful people and wireless internet, so we think it's going to be a great stay here. We don't start our clases de español until Tuesday, so there is plenty of time for exploration and we hope to have much to report very soon.

Everyone on the plane on the way down here was enfermo (that means sick), but we changed the direction of the little air nozzle thing every time someone coughed to blow their germs back towards them, which we think might have worked. Also, we just drank some really fresh fruit juice of some sort, so we think we might be OK for now.

Of course, every line we chose today was the slow moving one - and that was not just our perception. Literally the other security line at JFK moved at 2x the speed as ours, and the other immigration line at BOG moved 8x as fast. But given what our country does to foreign visitors, we cannot be too mad. We just felt bad because Tia M (our hostess) was waiting for us with the cutest sign ever. Also, we did not get off to the greatest start since we didn't understand a word the immigration officer said to us (though he let us in, so we might have done OK), but we got our grove back with Tia M, which is good because she just yelled at us when we said one word in English by accident so we don't really have a choice.

Mañana it's off to the banco and telefono store and learning not to get lost.

Eating Our Way Through Chicago

Basically we have not stopped eating since we arrived here in Chicago. Our friend JO sent us a Chowhound post he wrote after a recent trip here, which has served as a helpful guide. It also helps that we are staying with JL, whose mother describes him as a cross between Zagat and a GPS, but who himself says he's better than Zagat. We do not disagree.

Despite our love of the very tasty Vietnamese, Sichuan and Indian food here (we are partial to the foods from Asia), we have really enjoyed our introduction in the Lettuce Entertain You® family of restaurants. First we hit Mon Ami Gabi® in the stately Belden-Stratford with KMZ and JL, and even though the waitress hurled insults at JL's choice of steak, we had a delightful time. On Saturday, we loaded up on carbs with CH, JL and ZH at R.J. Grunts as CH prepared for the Marathon (despite the fact that CH didn't eat anything and JL, ZH and we were not actually running the marathon). R.J. Grunts is famous for its Salad Bar, which apparently was the first of its kind. CH was not impressed, but anywhere where you can put processed shredded cheddar on your salad and top it with Thousand Island is heaven for us.

We have so taken to the Lettuce Entertain You® brand that we have started to collect the collectable wallet sized mini-brochures from each Lettuce Entertain You® establishment we frequent (even though ZH collects them even if he HASN'T been there, but we don't judge). We cannot in fact wait to come back here in December to start expanding our collection at places like Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba!® and Wow Bao®. For our friends in the DC metro area - note that you have four options yourself, so we hope you will try out these establishments if you have not already. We have also joined the Frequent Diner Club®, and cannot wait to achieve Silver Status like JL (though it probably didn't hurt that he was Bar Mitzvahed at at Lettuce Entertain You® establishment - but we are sure he would have gotten Gold status if his Bar Mitzvah had a theme).

And with that, our time in Chicago has come to its end. In addition to the food, we enjoyed the crazy 70-80 degree weather over the last 7 days, and we trust this will be the case when we return in December, especially since such weather results in greater numbers of nice corn-fed boys running along the Lake sans shirts. A big shout out to JL and ZH for hosting us this past week - and their lovely Miss Meaty, whom we have named best cat for her failure to make us sneeze or cringe in fear.

Back in NYC tomorrow for a brief 36 hour layover.

The "Vowel Song" in the Alphabet Musical We Did in First Grade Would Have Sounded Different Here...

Early on during our freshman year of college, we went to brunch in a dining hall with some friends. JH was there, and many of us got from the service line a couple of those well known round flat things usually made from a box and served in the mornings with syrup and maybe some butter and fruit. Once we sat down, someone asked JH what he called said round flat doughy breakfast item. “Oh, flayaaapjacks,” said he.

First of all, we had never heard pancakes referred to as “flapjacks.” But more shockingly, we had never heard the aah sound pronounced “aaayaaa” before. This is because we didn’t really know any Midwesterners until then, and never imagined that anyone would distort the /æ/ phoneme in such a manner. (JH to this day denies this event ever happened, as if he could scrub out the history of his aaayyyaaccent the way he actually has actually (or nearly) eliminated the traces of said aaayyaaaccent.)

Now that we are spending more than just a layover in this town, we are hyper aware of the aaayyaaaccent around us. “Have you seen Baaayyaad Saayyaaanta?” one friend asked another. On the local news yesterday, a small plane crashed into a local gym, and one resident said, “I caayyaan’t believe no one was hurt.”

Our cousins in London and India will tell you that we tend to adopt the accent of those around us when speaking, so we are quite fearful for what we will sound like by the end of this week, and more fearful for what we might sound like after we come back from our travels and live here for a whole year. Also, our own last name contains an /æ/ in the first syllable, so when we start introducing ourselves with the aaayyyaaa distortion, please send help.

We Will FINALLY Have a Dishwasher! Our Un-moisturized Dry Hands Thank Us.

Apartment hunting in Chicago already seems a lot easier than New York. Not that we would really know what apartment hunting in New York is like, since we have actually never really done it. Right after college, we went traveling around the world for three months (just like this three months except less singing without musical accompaniment) and left our roommate EKK to do all the work. When we returned, we were all, "so EKK, what is the deal," and she rolled her eyes and told us where (and with whom) we were going to live. (Thanks EKK!) When, three years later, we moved to the UES of Manhattan, the apartment was already occupied by our sister, so...we already knew where it was. That said, we have heard many of you incessantly complain about apartment hunting and are besties with a v. prominent New York broker so we can only imagine the headaches and heartaches the process causes.

Anyway, the first thing is that apparently the landlords here pay brokers' fees, so it's already a win. Second, instead of walking around the City all day or shoving to get cabs, you get driven around in the broker's SUV. Third, THESE APARTMENTS ARE HUGE. I mean, there was one giant duplex that I couldn't furnish if I tried WITH an outdoor deck and working fireplace. Why did we slave away in NYC all this time? OUTDOOR DECK PEOPLE!! WORKING FIREPLACE! Can you imagine turning a place down because it's too BIG? We did that yesterday.

However, our main concern about apartments, we have realized, is how long we will have to be outside before getting on a train or bus during the months of January-March and November-December. As some of you may know, we are not a creature of the cold and so our very survival here is at stake. Apparently, though, anything goes here with respect to winter coats, we we are totally going to get that down one with the hood that goes down to one's ankles that we have yet to see worn by a man, gay or straight.

But maybe New York transplants here are the trendsetters? We can hope.

We Had Alicia and Jay-Z's "New York" Stuck in Our Head All Day but Now We Must Move On to Either Chicago the Band or Chicago the Musical.

Well, since we are now jobless for a fixed three-month period, we have decided to put the fun back in funemployment and, yes, you guessed it, BLOG AGAIN! We know you have been waiting for this day for months, and it is now upon us, Praise Xenu.

Right now we are at a Chicago coffee shop at a communal table with no straight people and no one not wearing cute eyewear or using a Macbook Pro. Put another way, there are 5 gays at this table and all of us have adorable glasses. Yes, this includes us, who, after months of staring at Westlaw.com all day has developed a slight near-sightedness. We often longed for the day we would need glasses because we imagined we’d look cute and trendy in them, and now that day has come, and we must say, we were right, we do in fact look cute and trendy in them. We thought about getting Brad G type glasses, but settled on some rather severe women’s frames instead from the v. cheap but v. trendy Warby Parker. Now people take us seriously as a lawyer, but that perceived seriousness is counterbalanced by the fact that we are not presently employed or in any way involved with the law. Also, we are constantly cleaning these things, so after a few more smudges we may start to regret this whole Clark Kent transformation. But for now, we can read things far away and see with clarity, and take them off slowly for dramatic effect, so there.

Anyway, many of you may have heard us incessantly talking about our travel plans and imminent move to Chicago for the year of 2011, and now instead of hearing us yap about it, you can silently read about it on a daily basis as we document our adventures in Colombia, Peru, London and India, and our eventual transition to this windy City.

This week will involve some apartment hunting and getting to know the various neighborhoods. For example, we already have learned where Oprah's apt(s) are, and we have told our broker that we want to live in one of her guest rooms so we can ensure our receipt of tickets for the FAREWELL SEASON and finally meet Nate B. We will keep you posted!

Until then,

xoxo

Fishwatch

My Voice for The Voice...

An audio file of me singing the solo and trio of New Hymn by James Taylor, a cappella...

Pick me, pick me!

It Hurts Our Liver to Even Write This...

Since we last spoke, we have (1) run a half marathon, (2) retaken to the bottle, and (3) welcomed a new family member in the world. Each in turn, people, please have patience.

(1) The Half Thon was a very fun experience, we hope to recreate it at some point, or move on the the full one. After reflecting on this event and the "sprint" triathlon we did a few years ago (half the olympic distance), we are beginning to think maybe we are best suited for half things since they sound really hard ("oooohhh, a triathlon," and "ahhhhhhh - a Marathon!"), but really only half the effort goes into it. But maybe it's time we undertook the whole thing, at the very least, just for shirts to wear later. We'd also like to give a shout out to our dad who also ran the race and did very well.

(2) Since the half-thon is over, our half (or fully) dumb idea to give up booze during training has ended. Since the race was a week ago, we have obviously been out drinking 7 times, wanted to die the morning after at least 6 of them, and have seriously considered going back to train for something if only to be spared this horrible feeling in our heads, stomachs, and elbows. We started off with beer with meals, and graduated to wine after work, but this weekend it was all standards and class thrown aside, and we went for the $2 mojitos and $4 well drinks on Friday and (free) watermelon gin fizzes on someone's roof the next day. Our liver was not ready for these kinds of things and now hates us.

(3) Our cousin had a baby! She is so cute, we die, and now want 1209382 babies of our own asap. Baby daddies out there - call us!


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