un año

I have been in Colombia for one year, today.

It wasn't the worst bus ride I've ever been on

But I'd say that it's up there.

I don't live on a super busy street, but it's only a ten minute walk in either direction to get to one. I also don't live on a completely dead street, and usually it's pretty easy to get a taxi or catch one of the few buses that go down it.

I used to take a lot of taxis. I could never justify waking up an hour earlier to avoid paying the extra five thousand pesos. Now that I have to wait until September before I get a full month's salary, I figured taxis are probably the easiest thing to cut from my budget. And in a city with thousands upon thousands of buses, catching one shouldn't be so bad.

So I'm waiting for the bus this morning and constantly keep checking my watch as 10 minutes go by, then twenty minutes go by, then probably around the 28th minute the bus showed up. (This is an extremely long time to wait for the bus. You should really only have to wait like 7 minutes max.) And I never know if I should walk to the busy streets, or just keep waiting, or just grab a cab, because by the time I do then the bus would come, etc. It's a bit of a dilemma.

The bus was packed full, and I almost didn't get on because they absolutely could not squeeze one more person onto the bus. I pushed my way in, because there was no way I would wait for another one, as I was already going to be late to class by this time. So I'm kinda-sorta hanging out the door until the driver decided that he had to be able to close the doors. All buses here have turnstiles, but unfortunately they don't allow you to move, or stand very efficiently. So I'm jammed up against the door, trying hard to not swallow the hair of the woman in front of me, while balancing on the step and holding my heavy book bag. And to top things off, some lucky person that got on before me stepped in dog poo and brought it on the bus (which was not well-ventilated), and left most of it on the steps, right where I happened to be standing. This pretty much cut in half the area I already had to stand.

We sat in traffic for an hour plus, (it usually takes twenty minutes to get to my first company) and I didn't even get a chance to pass the turnstile. Unfortunately I still had to pay for my ride. I emerged gasping for air and triple checking my shoes. They were clean, but needless to say I was very late to my class. One student had arrived, but the rest never made it due to another traffic jam.

Rush hour SUCKS.

Bagel Time

...is the name of my new favorite place to eat breakfast. Nevermind that I get free breakfast at the school... they have toasted bagels with cream cheese!

The Scooter vs. The Moped

Apparently, there is a difference.

You see hundreds of scooters in Madison, no matter the season. In Bogota, scooters are what weave in between traffic (extremely dangerous btw) and how you get your domicilios.

See: Scooter
Mopeds on the other hand are, (who knew?), actual motorized bicycles. As in bikes with a motor attached. And, there is a large amount of people who ride/drive these things on the bike paths here thinking that they are actual bikes.

See: Moped

Con Artists

Of all the nomads I know, I have heard multiple stories about people getting mugged. I, most fortunately, have never even been close to getting robbed. Among the stories I hear, I think well, you were walking by yourself at night, listening to your ipod, not paying attention to your surroundings, holding your cell phone out for somebody to snatch, etc. I've never felt unsafe, but then again, I avoid all of the above situations. For two of my close friends here however, they were robbed in the exact same way and didn't realize they were being taken advantage of until after their stuff had been stolen.

On weekends in Bogota they have ciclovia which is when they close off a bunch of the streets in the city and people can ride their bikes, go running, and walk their dogs. My two friends (not at the same time) were riding their bikes by themselves during ciclovia when a fellow biker started riding next to them and just started chatting them up. This guy went on and on about how he runs a bike club and there are 9-10 people in it that ride together every week. So acting perfectly nice and chatty he offered each of my friends his business card. They rode a block away from the main bike path to the guy's "house" where his "brother" was supposed to meet him with the business cards. As they were waiting, the guy locked his bike and asked to take my friends' bikes for a quick spin. And with that, he rode away and never came back, leaving my friends stranded. Just their luck that they had left their money/cards/keys attached to the bike as well.

Upon hearing the story and looking back on it, you think, wow, how did I not see this coming? Of course, it could have been much worse, but the icing on the cake is that you actually believed that the person was being nice and genuine. The only thing you can really do is ignore the person sitting next to you on the bus, the guy waiting in the same line as you, your cab driver, and that person having coffee one table away from you. In our minds we feel like absolute jerks, but you never know what you are getting yourself into once you open up the door for conversation.

If only it were like Wisconsin where the only worry of having a rando start talking to you was that he was trying to hit on you.

Poop on my internet

My router has been failing to work for the past two weeks. I've been successfully connected to the internet now for about 20 minutes so hopefully it works long enough for me to post this. But I will be the first to admit that that is no excuse for not blogging.

I've been back in Bogota for three weeks now. I went home at the end of June for my school's short summer vacation. I helped host Alex's graduation party, saw my best friends, visited Madison twice, slept a lot, ate even more, celebrated the 4th, saw Gavin from the 10th row, went to the cabin, watched a lot of baseball, confirmed that my dog is actually crazy, went on a shopping spree on more than one occasion, and totally sucked the one time that I went running. I was sad to be leaving summer and my family, but part three of my Colombian experience was about to begin. (And my bank account desperately needed me to get back to work.)

When I left in June, that was the end of my AIESEC contract. I am now working as a direct employee with my company which means I'm now getting paid by the hour, instead of a monthly salary and am eligible for all the benefits that the teachers get. When I first got back I had one class and with other teachers also not having any other classes to teach I was really worried that my decision to contract directly may have not been the best. Within a week however I was given three new classes and now my schedule is fuller than ever. I have two new corporate classes at the intermediate level which so far I really love, and a new class at the school of 6th-8th graders. I like being this busy and am sooo looking forward to my August paycheck.

I'll get some pics up soon. Along with some more consistent updates.