Bogota, Colombia, South America

I didn’t get up to much today, except for checking out the area around my house hotel. It seems like a pretty good location in the Chapinero neighborhood in the city, with lots of restaurants and shops all around. I also did a lot of research on what to see while I’m here in Bogota, and also on a spanish school I can take courses at. It looks like all of the spanish schools start on a Monday, so I’m going to spend the next few days checking out Bogota, and then next week I’ll try to learn some spanish so it’s a bit easier for me to get by.

I picked up a Colombian sim card for the company UFF!, so I’ll be able to stay in contact with people I meet while I’m here. Luckily, one of the girls working at my hotel was nice enough to activate the sim card for me because I tried, but the person on the phone was talking incredibly quickly and there was no way I could have done it by myself. But now I’m connected and good to go.

I met Melissa outside of her office at 6pm and I thought we were just going to go for a walk and get something to eat. As soon as I met her, her mom pulled up in her Audi SUV and gave us a ride to their house. I got to see just how bad the traffic is in Bogota. It took us about 35 minutes to drive less than five miles. Melissa and I went to their local Carulla supermarket and picked up a few things for dinner and then walked to their house to meet her mom there.

It was a really nice night having dinner, drinking wine, and just chatting for a few hours. At about 11:30pm I got a taxi to bring me back to my hotel and now I’m ready to crash.