Holiday season miracle

So, those of you who follow the blog religiously have been asking me, "WHAT WAS THE MIRACLE??!!" Time for the story.

I was waiting in line at the Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores (if you don't understand that, try this app) - 4 hours in total. Fortunately, I'd thought to bring the ipod with me, but unfortunately, I forgot to bring headphones. Whenever I have my ipod and am bored, I always check to see if I can steal someone's unprotected wireless internet connection. Sadly, labor in Colombia is very cheap. This means that 99% of people hire someone else to set up their internet connection, and thus, the vast majority are password-protected.

Time for the.... HOLIDAY MIRACLE! Linksys-named wireless internet connection! No password! I only had 1 bar, though... The connection went in and out, lasting long enough for me to download Angry Birds Lite and see what all the fuss is about (I still don't get it), but cutting me off right as I started this blog post (ohhh, the irony...).

After 3.5 hours on the ipod, I was finally called up to the desk to learn whether or not I was lucky enough to be granted my request for a student visa. Time for the.... SECOND HOLIDAY MIRACLE! The visa is supposed to cost $40. For some reason, mine was free.

Why are we getting student visas, you might ask? Turns out that in Colombia, you can work legally (no limits on the number of hours per week). We signed up for a year's worth of dirt-cheap random classes at an institute in Bogotá, and now I am a proud owner of a Colombia student visa.

Colombian Locker Room Etiquette

Following up on Robin's post regarding random-stuff-Colombians-do, I thought I'd write a brief post about a cultural difference between the United States and Colombia: locker rooms. About a month and a half ago, I realized that I hadn't really done any kind of physical activity for several months, so I decided to give in and join a gym. Of course, the cheapest option was a year-long membership, so we'll be in Colombia at the very least until October of next year.

The gym is very nice, on par with the usual offerings in the 'States, and even has a sauna. The locker room however is a little small, and that brings us to the real topic of this post. In the U.S., locker rooms are full of saggy old men, hairless muscular men in tight briefs, and every body type in between. Modesty is optional. Usually, in life, when you're trying to be invisible, you look down. You quickly learn not to look down in American locker rooms.

So, the first (and only) time I walked naked to the shower in the gym, I got a few looks, and thought to myself "that's weird." I got changed, and thought nothing of it, but the next time I went to the gym, there was a middle-aged woman cleaning the men's locker room. Ahhhhh. Because of the 24hr. empleada service, and because most empleadas are women, modesty reigns in Colombian locker rooms. This theory was torpedoed when I saw an empleadO walk out of the women's locker room. WTF. Don't they realize that they could just swap? In any case, this means that the only penis that I've seen in Colombia (besides my own of course) is Brett Favre's.

The Transmilenio

We've already mentioned Bogotá's bus system. You know, the private buses that will swerve across four lanes of traffic to get their $1300 peso fare (~$0.75). Well, then there is the Transmilenio. This is the "rapid" bus system that has designated bus lanes and stations, much like an above-ground subway. I use quotation marks because it is often the slowest form of transportation in this city aside from walking. It's usually really crowded and stuffy, thus its nickname, Transmilleno (a pun for you hispanohablantes out there).

I have never more appreciated American culture than when boarding the Transmilenio. In DC people actually follow the rule of "let people get off before you get on the bus." But nooooo here in Bogotá, everyone literally pushes to get on the Transmilenio. And then bitch about how everyone pushes to get on the Transmilenio. God bless the old ladies and people in wheelchairs.

But I have never more appreciated Colombian culture than what I learned today. I have often noticed that when a seat opens up on the Transmilenio (a rare and cherished event), people will stand in front of the seat as if they are going to sit down, wait 10-15 seconds, and then sit down. I'm talking about people of all ages, races, social classes, etc. and could never quite figure out why the hell they did that. Old people who can barely stand! Pregnant ladies! Young men! What was the common thread here?

So I finally asked Paula (no, not my sister) and Andrés, my go-to sources for all things Colombian culture. And you know what their response was?

P & A: "You know, the seat is really hot after someone stands up. You have to let it cool off."

Me: "SERIOUSLY????"

Andrés: "Yeah, I always wait a little bit to sit down. It's really uncomfortable to sit down on a seat when it's really warm."

I couldn't stop laughing for at least five minutes. I mean, I had all sorts of theories conjured up, the one I thought most probable being that (in this Catholic/Christian country) people were praying before they sat down. But in this cold city, people don't want to sit down because the seat is warm?

An Etsy Wedding

First off, I'd like to offer up a disclaimer: this post will have very little to do with Colombia.

Many of you know that I LOVE to buy stuff online. Ebay and Amazon, after gmail, are probably my most-visited websites. Etsy, though... Etsy is a GOLDMINE for wedding-related paraphernalia. Before our wedding, we had a very hard time finding a ketubah that we liked. We pored through website after website of generic judaica-y-looking ketubahs that were devoid of personality and special meaning to us. The text was standardized, the picitures were standardized; the process was about as personal as buying a book off Amazon. On Etsy, however, we found the ketubah of our dreams. Papercut, colorful, customizable, and, as an added bonus, much cheaper than the other ketubahs on offer. The artist's name is Jerise, and if you liked what you saw at our wedding and are getting married soon, I highly recommend that you send her an email.

While we were on this pre-wedding Etsy binge, Robin decided that she wanted to buy me a wedding gift. I was a bit confused, then excited to receive a gift, and after a little while we stumbled across some handmade map cufflinks. What could be more appropriate to Robin and I than maps? Each cufflink has a different map, Athens in one and Washington, D.C. in the other. Of course, I wore them to the wedding, and they're still the only pair of cufflinks I own.

I loved my wedding ring. 18k yellow gold comfort fit milgraine 6mm wide 2mm thick size 8.5. It was awesome. It was a little big, and Robin always nagged me to send it off to get resized, but due to a combination of laziness and an unwillingness to be separated from my ring, I never did it. Now my wonderful band rests somewhere in the sewer system of Popayán, Colombia, a victim of having fallen down a sink. Jobless and quickly burning through our savings, the idea of paying the premium for a recycled metal didn't exactly excite us. I turned to my trusty Ebay and found the exact same ring (except 1.3 mm thick instead of 2 mm) available for a fraction of the price (though still not a negligible amount).

That's when we turned to Etsy and found the ULTIMATE (no, not frisbee) green, recycled metal wedding ring.

Just Around the Corner: Wilder's Pizza

Welcome to Part I of my new blog series: Just Around the Corner.

I love our neighborhood, La Macarena. It's really the first place I've lived that has felt like a true neighborhood (in a different sense of the word than the neighborhoods of Dunwoody). By "true" neighborhood, I mean that we know all of our neighbors, namely the shopowners. I know where my money goes.

The Just Around the Corner series will feature a different small business owner each post. I'm using the blog as an excuse to sit down with the dueños of La Macarena and learn more about our neighborhood. As a bonus, y'all get to learn, too.

There is really no other place to start than with Wilder of Wilder's Pizza. He opened up Wilder's Pizza in La Macarena about two years ago. Before he started his own pizzería, Wilder had been working for ten and a half years around the corner at Monapizza, the rival neighborhood pizza joint. The interview was conducted in Spanish, but I've translated it here for you gringos.

Have I mentioned the ridiculously tempting pizza smells that torture us every day as we walk in and out of our apartment? I mean, this place is literally two doors down.

RCT: Why did you want to open your own pizzería?

Wilder: I wanted to be independent, to bring in more income.

RCT: Where did you learn to make such delicious pizza?
Wilder: At Jeno's Pizza (a pizza chain in Bogotá). But our recipes here are all our own.

RCT: How many times a week do you eat pizza?

Wilder: Every day! I never get sick of it. Lasagna is my favorite thing on the menu - the one with mushrooms, onions, bacon, chicken, and cream. But I only eat that about once a month or so.

RCT: How has La Macarena changed in the time that you've been working in the area?

Wilder: There are more businesses, more restaurants. Lots of foreigners come from all over the world. I have a lot of foreign clients here. But of course I also have lots of Colombians from the neighborhood who are regulars. It’s a Bohemian barrio, lots of painters, artists, journalists, politicians. Now lots of tourists are coming in, lots of foreigners; it wasn't like that before. Also, it’s a lot more expensive to rent in this neighborhood now. The estrato has increased from 3 to 4 or 5. This restaurant is estrato 4. (Editor's note: The Colombian government ranks socio-economic classes on a scale of 1 to 6, with 1 being the poorest of the poor and 6 being the richest of the rich. Your estrato determines how much you pay in taxes, and the price of utilities varies widely depending on which estrato you live in. We live in estrato 3.)

RCT: Is there some kind of association of businesses in La Macarena?

Wilder: No, there are just independent small businesses.

RCT: Does the city of Bogotá or the Colombian government provide any kind of support to small independent businesses?

Wilder: (chuckle) No, not really. To get support from the government, you have to pay higher taxes. (Editor's note: I wasn't really sure what he meant here.)

RCT: How has Bogotá changed in the years since you have lived? You're from Bogotá, right?

Wilder: Yes, I'm from Bogotá. The parks have changed, there are a lot more now. TransMilenio (rapid bus lines) changed the city – it’s a lot quicker to get around the city now. There are lots more malls. Before, if you needed to buy something, you went to street vendors, and that was dangerous. Robbery was a lot more common, it never felt safe to buy from the street vendors. Now there are malls everywhere and it’s safe; you can buy whatever you need in just one place.

There isn’t as much trash in the street, people are more educated about keeping the city clean, it’s much cleaner now. People have learned to actually put trash in trash cans. Before about eight years ago, there weren’t trash cans in the sidewalks in the same way there are now. And the city has grown, there are lots more people here than there were before.

RCT: Why do you want to learn English? (Note: Wilder always tries to practice his English with me every time I walk by the pizzería. Think of the Colombian equivalent of my father.)
Wilder: Well, mainly because I like speaking English. Lots of foreigners come here. I like speaking English with them. I taught myself. I often see words in English on signs around the city, so I write them down and look them up in dictionaries when I get home. I love listening to music in English. I love 70’s and 80’s music. I like listening to Gloria Estefan's songs in English.

RCT: Has Wilder's Pizza been successful?
Wilder: Yes, the restaurant has been very successful because lots of people know me in the neighborhood. Since I'd been working here for many years before, everyone already knew me.

RCT: What are your future plans for the restaurant?
Wilder: I have plans to open another pizzeria, of course! Of course I want to expand. Eventually, I want to open a restaurant in La Candelaria (historic neighborhood to the south), and I'll be expanding the one we already have here in January or February.

Selling my soul for $10/hour

Yes, yes. I know that some of you would argue that this is actually the second time I've sold my soul. And, well, Mark, I really don't have a comeback for that.

Today, Robin and I went to an English-teaching institute called Smart to see if we might be able to make some money and teach some English lessons. Over the last couple of weeks, we'd heard that October through December is kind of a dead season for teaching English, so our odds of finding work would be slim. As a result, we decided that we would focus our energies on lining things up such that when we come back from the 'States in January, we'll be ready to start working.

Fortunately, Smart has an immediate need for English teachers, and the guy who interviewed us even asked if we could start tomorrow. Good news, right? Even better, they'll sponsor us for a work visa, and, depending on my negotiation skills, might even pay for it... Now, of course, none of this is written in stone -- no contract has been signed, I'm not actually going to start working tomorrow (of course a phone call went unreturned), and this does mean that an 8-hour work day would be 6-9, 12-2, and 5-8. Fun, I know, not to mention the weekend work...

Robin worried that this meant we were "selling out," acting as our own dream assassins. I reminded her that we would only be selling our souls if we stopped looking for other work (preferably something where we could speak Spanish/where Robin could do GIS). At the end of the day, being able to work in a country legally and prevent your savings from dwindling away to nothing is definitely a good thing.

Once upon a dinner party

So, we've continued with our tradition of hosting ridiculously large dinner parties here in Bogotá. In many respects, this is the most important thing we can do to try to find a job. Networking is the best way to hear about work, so there's added reason for us to make lots of new friends, beyond the fact that we're trying to build a community for ourselves. It makes it a lot easier to cement friendships when we can invite everyone we know over to our apartment almost every week. Besides, who doesn't like delicious free food?

The only problem with this approach is that there isn't really much of a dinner culture in Bogotá. Most people eat a huge lunch and a very light dinner, and most of our friends work late into the night during the week. As a result, we had a "late lunch" party instead of a dinner party on Sunday. I made empanadas for the first time, and they were the most amazing things I've ever eaten. Shockingly, we didn't run out, and I've been able to snack on leftovers that I've kept frozen. We went to a play (awful, but we got a free glass of wine) yesterday with the vet who works below our apartment, and he said that there are lots of types of empanadas in this country, but his favorite is Jerry's empanadas. On the other hand, the challah that I tried to make didn't turn out quite as well. Robin's convinced it failed because I didn't compensate for the altitude, but the extra hours and hours that we let it rise probably didn't help either. In any case, all the goyim loved the challah and said it tasted great.

We're making steady progress on the friend front - gradually meeting new people, meeting their friends, and then inviting them all over for food. Little by little, we're living the dream. After inviting 40 people to the late lunch on Sunday though, it might be time to start being a little more discriminating.