Thursday, September 6, 2012
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
5 things I miss about Europe
1. Seasons - on the one hand it is nice never to be too hot or freezing cold, but I am starting to miss changes in weather, light, precipitation, atmosphere, and the clothes I get to wear. While I am longing for hot summer days, summer clothes, and having barbecues outside right now, I guess between November and January I will be loving the 12 hours of daylight and 18 degrees temperature we have here every day. But then, the grass is always greener on the other side!
2. Walking and cycling to places around town - Bogotá's pollution and traffic make this a rather unpleasant enterprise.
3. Laugenbrötchen, naturtrüber Apfelsaft, Bouillet...
4. Improvising your daily schedule and activities without depending on traffic. For example, you can't just say, let's go to the movies or for a drink on a weekday at 6 PM because there is no way you will get anywhere on time. Plus if you happen to have pico y placa (see entry on Traffic) you can't use your car anyways and it can be sheerly impossible to get a cab by phone during rush hour. So it's always a safer bet to plan when you want or have to be where and prepare accordingly.
5. A more "middle-class-friendly" lifestyle - this one is hard to describe and I don't mean to create any false impressions. With the stark social and economic differences in the country, you are somewhat obliged to follow an all-or-nothing principle. Without mentioning education or health, which don't really leave you a choice as to public or private here if you want better quality (and which I used to take for granted as free where I grew up), you don't really have places like IKEA or Aldi which offer good quality products affordable for everybody. Of course there are plenty of cheap places around (how else would the vast majority of the population be able to cope) and certain things, especially services, are ridiculously cheap compared to France or Germany, such as taxis, domestic employees, hairdressers... But in other areas (furniture, baby equipment) you don't get too many low-price but good quality options.
2. Walking and cycling to places around town - Bogotá's pollution and traffic make this a rather unpleasant enterprise.
3. Laugenbrötchen, naturtrüber Apfelsaft, Bouillet...
4. Improvising your daily schedule and activities without depending on traffic. For example, you can't just say, let's go to the movies or for a drink on a weekday at 6 PM because there is no way you will get anywhere on time. Plus if you happen to have pico y placa (see entry on Traffic) you can't use your car anyways and it can be sheerly impossible to get a cab by phone during rush hour. So it's always a safer bet to plan when you want or have to be where and prepare accordingly.
5. A more "middle-class-friendly" lifestyle - this one is hard to describe and I don't mean to create any false impressions. With the stark social and economic differences in the country, you are somewhat obliged to follow an all-or-nothing principle. Without mentioning education or health, which don't really leave you a choice as to public or private here if you want better quality (and which I used to take for granted as free where I grew up), you don't really have places like IKEA or Aldi which offer good quality products affordable for everybody. Of course there are plenty of cheap places around (how else would the vast majority of the population be able to cope) and certain things, especially services, are ridiculously cheap compared to France or Germany, such as taxis, domestic employees, hairdressers... But in other areas (furniture, baby equipment) you don't get too many low-price but good quality options.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Museo del Oro
Visit to Bogotá's Gold Museum, which hosts the world's most important Prehispanic gold craft collection. The exhibition takes you around the different Precolombian cultures and their heritage of mostly gold, but also stone, pottery, copper, textile, and wood creations. The most famous item is probably the Poporo Quimbaya and the Balsa Muisca representing the El Dorado myth.
For more details, feel free to visit the Museum's website.
For more details, feel free to visit the Museum's website.
Friends
This weekend we received a beautiful baby gift from Japan for our soon-to-be-born French-German-Colombian son (yes, we found out that he will be able to have all three nationalities!). Not only does this prove Colombian postal services might work for parcels after all (unlike what I have been warning friends and family about in the past months...!), but also shows we have amazing friends all over the world. The lifestyle we chose has made it challenging to set up a "conventional" circle of friends physically close to us, but over the years we managed to build some very unique friendships with very unique people - though we are scattered across all continents we know we can count on them.
Thank you so much Nana!!
Thank you so much Nana!!
Friday, August 17, 2012
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