Settling in to Bogotá

With classes yet to begin and knowing few people in Bogotá, I’ve spent much of my first six days in Bogotá in solitary ways: dealing with long lines and longer waits at the Administrative Department of Security to get my foreign ID; trying to figure out Bogotá’s often confusing public transportation system; reading up on the Colombian conflict in hopes of not seeming too out of it compared to my Colombian classmates; and, in general, exploring what will be my home for the next year. It’s too soon for me to drawn any grand, overarching conclusions about Bogotá, but I can say that I like the city a lot thus far. Everyone tells me that Bogotá’s greatness lies under the surface, so we’ll see what I discover in the next few months.

I am living in an apartment a block and a half away from Los Andes, in the center of the city, close to the maze of streets that make up the bohemian, historical center of the Bogotá, La Candelaria. The view from my fifteenth floor rooms is unbelievable, for sure the best I will ever have in a city, unless I change career paths and dedicated myself to the pursuit of money and a bachelor pad in a New York City high rise. (I’d love to post pictures, but my camera battery charger sits in Iowa right now, so it might be a few more weeks.)

I rent the room from an older woman, who house three students a semester. One, from Cali, has arrived, but has spent the last couple days at a friends place playing video games. The other gets here this weekend. Both are undergrads, meaning they are quite young—17 and 18 in this case. Maybe they won’t become lifelong friends, but I’m sure we’ll get along.

The señora, Rosalba, is sweet, worries about me, though gets a kick out of the way I’ve taken to the streets, buses, and taxis on my own. Her son, Javier, age 30, originally believed by me to be 24 or 25, lives in the apartment also and has been extremely friendly and helpful. For Linn-Mar graduates and Spanish movie fans – aka I’m only talking to a few of you – Javier looks like the love child of Gabriel Garcia Bernal and Chris Hicks.

My monthly payment includes food (and laundry), which is great. She’s good about explaining the various dishes to me and must think the United States a fruitless country, as my common response to anything about fruit is, We don’t have this one in the States either. (In many cases, English names for the fruits don’t even exist.) The one problem is that, apart from the large lunch, the food is not quite enough to satisfy my insatiable appetite. I’m trying to send a message in the first week to that effect, eating every last scrap of food on my plate, as quickly as possible, always accepting seconds—but, for six dollars a day for three meals, I guess I cannot complain.

All and all, the first few days in Bogotá have been good, though I’ve many focused on settling in. Exciting stories (as one person asked: Where are the drugs, promiscuity, and criminals with big illegal weapons? I wanna hear about you narrowly escaping the throngs of imminent death distracting the goonies with your wit and clever riddles while your lovely sidekick girlfriend kicks them in the groin.), I promise will come. With pictures.