Week One

Hi it's me


The week has been well . . . so far . . .


Linnea is doing well, she loves her teacher; she says that Ms. Rachel plans fun activities and gives out candy. Linnea's doing good with friends, too. She has one from last year and already has one  friend she made already. She also has one boy who's annoying her.



Dad has been working a lot and is getting home late and leaving early. He has high expectations for me and I think I've been fulfilling them.












Mom so far is doing great with meeting her students and doing her usual routine. Mom, Linnea and I like seeing each other in the hallways, now that we're all in elementary.


I am doing good with my studies and specials. I like my P.E. and music classes so far I am doing good with Ms. Forman. I don't have much homework, yet. I've built all the Lego sets already
and I like them allot. I also got a new skateboard and I love it!  

           

                                                                                                       

                                                                                                       

                                                                                                           

Sister and Brother

Cat Haiku

Carrera 9 cat,

Doesn't your paw get tired

Posing with kids?

Lil' D's 10th B Day Party

Let the festivities begin!

Giant Pick-Up Sticks

cake!

waffles!

Popping balloons with the help from the sun and a magnifying glass

But using a magnifying glass to pop balloons quickly turned to burning leaves.  So we got some crayons and started melting them.  But the kids kept going back to burning leaves.   hmmmmm. 

smokin' leaf!

Parque Nacional Chicaque

Our weekend plans to go to a finca for a warm, lazy weekend by the pool fell apart on Thursday night.  On Friday, we tried to make a secondary plan, but nothing panned out.  So when we woke up on Saturday morning, we thought we would just have a Bogotá weekend, but that just didn't feel right.  So we started a quick search of places we could go that were close to the city.

That short search led us to Parque Nacional Chicaque.  A 40 minute taxi to the southern suburb of Soacha near one of the southern bus terminals took us to "la casa amarillo" where a bus would be there to take us the additional 30 minutes to the park.  We found the yellow house and the lunch spot that was next to it, so we sat for some arepas and empanadas while we waited for the bus to arrive.  Surprisingly, it was there and we were off to Chicaque.

Chicaque is a privately owned park established in 1990.  Within this small park, there are over 300 species of birds, 30 mammals and 7 different types of forests.

When we arrived, we paid our entrance fee and headed for El Refugio, our hotel.  Thankfully, we each had only a backpack for the overnight trip because we had a 45 minute hike to get to our hotel.  I guess we missed that bit of information when we looked over the website earlier that morning when making our decision to go there.

Linnea arriving at El Refugio

 Hummer

 Sunset from the deck looking toward the Magdelena Valley

 Morning view of the mountain face, Contrafuerte, from our room

 The forest trail called Bosque de Robles where we took a hike on Sunday morning.  Colombia is the only country in South America with oak trees.

The lower camping zone.  

 We decided to take a 4-wheel vehicle out of the park... 

 As we were waiting at the entrance of the park for our bus to take us back to Bogotá, we had to wait a bit, so we slipped into a restaurant for coffee and pastries.  The cloud surrounding the mountain top was so thick that the camera had a hard time focusing.

Halloween in Colombia

Have you seen the ghost of John?

Long white bones with skin all gone.

Ooohhh ooohhh oohh oohh.

Wouldn't it be chilly with no skin on?

We've been hearing this song now for the last few days from Dempsey who learned it at school.  It's a beautiful song but after hearing it 229 times, its level of creepiness rapidly increases.  

Halloween is surprisingly a big thing here in Bogota.  Last weekend, both in our neighborhood and in Simon Bolivar Park, there were people dressed in costume already.  There is a chain store that typically sells home goods throughout the year called Cachivaches.  But around the beginning of September, the costumes, wigs, vampire teeth and witch hats fill the store and most of your Halloween desires can be met there.  We were able to make our own costumes by getting some stuff from Cachivaches (witch's wig and hat, bat teeth, a top hat),  on the street (a cheap umbrella that was then cut for the bat wings),    "Smoking Ramiro's" (where Eric rented a tuxedo shirt, brightly colored vest and bib to look like President Snow from the Hunger Games) and the school drama department costume room.  We also randomly bought Linnea's witch dress at a seamstress shop in San Gil that was selling lots of costumes when we were visiting there a couple of weeks ago.

Here are some of our highlights for halloween, starting last Saturday night at our building Halloween Party and at school today.

 2 ninjas and a witch

 The pumpkin line-up

 President Snow, Ninja, Witch and Bat

 Another 5th grate teacher and I representing the dark creatures of the fauna world.

Dempsey in the primary and elementary parade, where about 800 students filed through the hallway.

The parade also passed through Middle School where we saw Eric playing science professor.  He was dropping bubbles filled with smoke down onto the parade.

Linnea with her classmates: Gypsy, Wonder Woman and Bat Girl.

No Wonder!

We are just finishing up our first "year" (school year, that is) in Bogota, and this just came out today.

http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/economy/24532-bogota-is-53rd-mot-expensive-city-in-the-world.html

Bogota is the 53rd most expensive city in the world for ex-pats and 5th in South America.  Now I really can't complain...but living in a desirable city comes at a price.  Here are some of the conveniences we have enjoyed since moving here...

• Beautiful parks to stroll through on the weekend
• Ordering-in things like sushi, pad-thai, ice, beer, anything from the grocery story you want, a doctor, your prescription, and of course, pizza
•  An abundance of museums and restaurants
• Great local boutiques as well as recognizable brand name stores (when you need them)
• Inexpensive busses and taxis
• Great neighborhoods to stroll through from modern and new to the neighborhoods where "Bogota was born" where the buildings, cobblestone streets and architecture tell a story of long ago
• Great little towns to getaway to on the weekends

La Candelaria

              La Candelaria and Botero Museum




                                                                                                                                         

Near Lake Guatavita

But there are some things that we just can't seem to wrap our heads around...

•  a used car (that is pretty expensive) when the pica y placa restrictions mean that you can't drive your can 2 days a week (and it looks like it will be changing to 3 days a week) to counteract the terrible traffic
• The cost of eating out in the fancy restaurants (although we are finding lots of local joints in out neck of the woods) 
• The cost of our utilities
• Travel within the country by airplane

But these things that are less desirable are things that we can pass at this time in our life (well, I won't pass on utilities, but I just have to bite the bullet and pay them).  We really like it here and we'll continue to figure this city out and make it our home, for now.  It feels like this is a great time to be in Bogota and Colombia in general.  And the things we love are being outdoors, checking out and learning about Colombian culture and exploring the small towns and places off the beaten path.

Give My Regards to Broadway

This year, we had 75% of our family in the school musical.  We'll see if we can talk Dempsey into doing it next year.  From kindergarten to 12th grade, our tribute to Broadway was a whole school affair.  The show ran for 3 nights, and each night was better than the one preceding it.  

Pre-show pep-talk with the whole cast.

 Linnea in "Hard Knock Life" from Annie.  She has already committed to be in next year's musical.

 Us adults were  country folk from Annie Get your Gun.

We sang "Doin' What Comes Naturally".

A cat getting made up for "Mr. Mestoffelees".

Jardín Botánico José Celestino Mutis

Imagine a garden in the middle of a city where plants from every region, climate and altitude of Colombia can be found.  We spent several hours in the botanical garden today.  The garden was established almost 60 years ago to honor Spanish naturalist, mathematician and astronomer José Celestino Mutis.  The day was a bit overcast, so we were able to amble about the 19 hectare garden without much bother from the sun.  We were able to spot many plants that we had grown in our own garden in northern California and we also came upon a nice herb garden where we nibbled borage, fennel, and mint.

The first wildlife that the kids spotted was an orange cat.  We later saw geese and ducks and heard more birdsongs than we've heard anywhere else in the city.

 This concrete thing offered a lot of entertainment for the kids.

 We found a lot of edibles around this solarium where a yoga class was happening.

 Eric's next batch of beer has it's name...

 ...and here's the flower

 Cilantro, strawberries, chard, chives and tomatoes