Taganga Episode VII: Wrap-Up

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This week is "Taganga Week" at Xave's Xlog. Check it out:

Taganga Episode I: The Trailer

Taganga Episode II: The Town

Taganga Episode III: Wildlife

Taganga Episode IV: Cacti

Taganga Episode V: Sunday

Taganga Episode VI: The Recovery

What a week at the old Xlog! How did I stretch one weekend out of town into 7 full days of blogging, you ask? Well, it takes a special talent. I just have a knack for finding the boring in everything. Anyway, today's post is devoted to mentioning smaller things that weren't worthy of their own full post.

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I don't eat fish. Or any seafood. The reason is simply that I don't like it. However, I've never liked seafood, so I eat it so rarely I don't even know what some things taste like. Therefore, I've made it my mission to try some seafood while I'm living on a coast. So, on Saturday night, I had this for dinner:

This is a very common meal 'round these parts: fish (I don't know what kind), with lime to squeeze on top, coconut rice, patacones (fried green plantains - green meaning they're not sweet plantains), and a salad consisting mostly of lettuce and onions.

And at the risk of sounding totally cliché, it wasn't that bad! I almost ate the whole fish. I probably ate parts I wasn't supposed to eat, too.

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Anticipating I would do some hiking while in Taganga, I brought my running shoes along in addition to my sandals. But I forgot to bring socks. Good work, Dave. So, as it turns out, climbing a steep foothill with no paths while wearing sandals isn't the greatest idea. There were several occasions in which I nearly became an avalanche. H

Speaking of avalanches, here's a formation I found which I assumed to be the work of avalanches.

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I had a fun time getting home on Sunday. First I took a small bus from Taganga to Santa Marta, followed by a moto-taxi to the bus terminal in Santa Marta, followed by an inter-city bus to Barranquilla. All of these things were documented yesterday.

That wasn't the end of the journey, though. After retrieving my iPod, I was determined to figure out how to take the bus back to my part of Barranquilla rather than paying for a more expensive taxi. This proved difficult, as I got wildly varying opinions from the locals.

After a cat and mouse game of seeing the bus go by on the other side of the street and going to that side only to watch a bus zip by where I had just been standing, I decided to see how much the moto would cost. The first guy I asked flat out refused to go to where I wanted to go. The second guy quoted a price that was almost as high as taking a cab. Soon, I somehow found myself among a group moto drivers, asking all of them simultaneously if they would take me where I wanted to go at the price I wanted to pay. This was an unproductive bargaining session, because I just kept saying my price, and I'm pretty sure their response was something completely incongruous. Here is how the conversation might have gone (honestly, I have no idea):

Me: I need to go to Buena Vista.

Them: We don't go to Buena Vista.

Me: How about 5000 (pesos)?

Them: That's way lower than we would accept, even if we did drive people to Buena Vista. Generally, if you're trying to convince someone to perform a service for you that is outside of their regular duties, it's not a good idea to make your offer less attractive in an attempt to convince them to perform said service.

Me: What if I paid you 5000?

Them: You already said that.

Me: 5000? Yes? No?

Them (to each other): Maybe he means 5000 dollars? I wouldn't put it past this guy to actually pay us 5000 dollars.

Me: Do you go to Buena Vista? What about for 5000?

One of Them: okay, just get on, I'll take you to, umm, Buena Vista, yeah, haha, that's right. Cough.

Me: 5000, right?

That Guy: yeah, um, right.

So anyway, That Guy drove me a few blocks (for 2000 - $1), and then waited with me for, I assumed, a bus. Turned out he was waiting for a new form of transportation I hadn't even been on yet - a taxi with a little trailer on the back of it, and several people already in the taxi, so it was really carrying like 8 people. The moto guy said something to the driver, so I assumed I'd be taken to Buena Vista.

Nope. I got about halfway there, but not before one of the guys in the trailer almost got in a fight with the driver over, well, I have no idea, obviously. But I did exchange eye rolls with the guy beside me. Even if I didn't know what was going on, I played the social situation to a tee. Smooth, Dave.

Anyway, I had no idea where I was when the cab driver told me he wasn't going any farther (i.e. when he kicked me out), so I just found a cab, which was the thing I was trying to avoid in the first place.

In the end, in getting from door to door, I took a small bus, a moto, a big bus, another moto, a shared taxi, and a private taxi. 6 things! That's a lot.

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E and K (twice) both blogged about Taganga, so if you just haven't gotten enough over the past seven days and 8 million words here at XX, check them out. We didn't spend much time together over the weekend, so they have lots of different stuff.

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This isn't Taganga-related, but sometime in the last couple days, the little visitor counter on the right side (if you scroll down) crossed the 1000 mark! Sweet, thanks guys! (And that's just 1000 since I installed the counter, which was 3 or 4 weeks ago.) I'm sure most of those are mom and me though.

Also, after a 2 or 3 week absence, I finally got internet at home today. So that means lots more bloggggggg!

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Finally, here are some more pictures from Taganga.

Upon climbing the foothills beside Taganga, I was amazed to discover I could see Santa Marta. I suppose I shouldn't have been so surprised since I knew it was only about 5km away, but I was so disoriented when we arrived I had no idea which direction we had come from, so suddenly seeing a huge city just over the hills was a pretty startling sight.

It thought this house looked like Lego.

A shot of Taganga from above.

A cool tree.

Triangle hills.

Taganga Episode VI: The Recovery

Note - this blog is automatically imported into facebook, but unfortunately it loses some formatting in the process. Click here to visit the real thing.

This week is "Taganga Week" at Xave's Xlog. Check it out:

Taganga Episode I: The Trailer

Taganga Episode II: The Town

Taganga Episode III: Wildlife

Taganga Episode IV: Cacti

Taganga Episode V: Sunday

After Sunday's activities I took a quick swim in the hostel pool, then packed up my stuff and headed out in search of a bus stop. I quickly found myself on a little van bus, sitting in a seat directly next to the door which stayed open (or didn't exist?) throughout the winding, somewhat mountainous drive back to Santa Marta. Eventually, after everyone else had exodused, the bus driver told me to get off, assuring me the bus station was nearby, and I'd just have to take a cheap moto-taxi. I had never taken one before, but it was fast, and fun, and soon I was on a bus back to Barranquilla. (note: these buses have air conditioning, a TV constantly going, and drinks/snacks available, and cost less than a $5, and this is a 2 hour trip we're talking about. Greyhound could learn a thing or two)

After watching the news cycle a couple of times, I got bored, despite the fact that I probably needed a few more watches to understand what was going on, so I got out my iPod which I had brought along precisely for this situation. In the summer, I discovered eBooks on my iPod, so I flipped open to my current iPod book (I do most of my reading on my computer, so I've got 2 books going simultaneously - the iPod one is more of a long-term effort since I don't use it often), Les Miserables. I read for most of the trip, but as we entered Barranquilla I set it down so I could try to figure out where we were/where to get off.

Of course, I should have realized that since the bus comes into a part of the city I am totally unfamiliar with, my decision about when to get off would likely be spur of the moment, triggered by the first thing I recognize. This is exactly what happened, and as you can probably guess, I left my iPod sitting right there on the seat.

Naturally, I didn't realize what I had done at first since I was pre-occupied trying to figure out where the bus back to my part of the city stopped. Eventually I figured out the guys were telling me I was in the right place, I just might have to wait a few minutes since it was Sunday night, hence infrequent service.

(I could have just taken a taxi and avoided all this hassle, but buses are cheaper, and I like taking them anyway, I find it's one of the best ways to learn a city. In the end, it's a very good thing I didn't hop in the first taxi I found.)

That's when I remembered the last place I had put my iPod.

I panicked, but when I looked down the street, the bus was, miraculously, still within eyeshot. So I started sprinting after it as it pulled away from the curb and turned onto some sort of on-ramp. I followed the bus' future path and discovered it was about to a complete 180 on a sort of cloverleaf construction. I still had hope! I could simply run across and cut the bus off.

Unfortunately, it was a little too quick - I shouted and waved, but wasn't quite at the other side when the bus passed in front of me. Once again, I didn't give up - I looked to where the bus was headed next in hopes that I could attempt a similar maneuver.

This time, though, the outlook was bleak. There was no cloverleaf, and no bus stop that I could see nearby. It was on a fairly major street, too, with little traffic. It looked like it would just blast straight down the road, into the horizon, and out of my hopes and dreams.

I kept going in the bus' direction, but slowed to a walk, having given up. I half-heartedly checked my bag just to make sure I hadn't subconsciously thrown it in there in my haste to get off the bus, but I knew in my heart (well, really in my head) that the search was fruitless. It was over: the hardly used iPod Touch I had been given by a friend this past summer was gone forever.

But then, I saw the bus stop some 200m ahead of me. Once again, I broke into a dead run, and this time, luckily, whatever the bus had stopped for was taking its sweet time, and I managed to catch up before it headed off again! Relief swept over me like a broom over a floor (get it?).

But when I returned to my seat, there was nothing there. I turned to the girls across the aisle to ask them if they had seen anything, but all I could do in my panicky state was attempt to translate sign language into Spanish, which resulted in confused stares.

Just then, the bus operator (different from bus driver) emerged from the cabin (yeah) and handed me the iPod.

Success! I had left something valuable on a bus, and knowing there was likely no other way of retrieving it, had literally chased the bus down. Nice work, Dave. Tu eres el hombre. (As you can probably guess, this translates to 'you are the man', which isn't a thing in Spanish, but I'm trying to get in the habit of directly translating English slang into Spanish, because it's fun)

The Food Fiasco

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Warning: this is a very long post in which not much happens. Though I guess that's the case with most of my entries, so if you've gotten this far, you're probably committed (thanks mom). Also, as each day goes by I get better at Spanish, so these harrowing tales of dumb foreignerism may not be long for this world. This may be my Stupid Canadian Magnum Opus.

(Who am I kidding, I'm going to get into all kinds of crazy trouble! Stay tuned!)

Let's just say the past couple days weren't kind to me as far as food went. No, I'm not violently ill because of some weird Colombian street food, thankfully - it was more of a frustration-based fiasco than a vomit-based fiasco.

It started Sunday morning when I woke up to discover my fridge was unusually warm. I fiddled with the settings all morning before eventually concluding that it was just simply broken. So, there went a bunch of perfectly good food - I don't know any of my neighbors well enough to beg for fridge space, and it could have broken as early as Saturday afternoon, since I was out most of the day on Saturday. I thought about telling the security guard at my building, but I don't really know the Sunday guy as well as the weekday guys, so I decided to wait and tell the school people who are helping me with the transition once I got to school on Monday.

By the way, not only did I not have any food, but I had just run out of water (and though I'm one of the most liberal tap water drinkers you'll find, I don't drink the tap water here), so unless I wanted to drink 30˚C Coke (I didn't), I was going dry.

*****

So, on Monday, after not drinking anything for breakfast and then talking for 3 and a half hours, it's safe to say I was thirsty. I knew enough about how the cafeteria worked to get myself a bottle of water during recess; I just had to buy some tickets (they come in multiples of 100 pesos, or 5 cents), and then present my tickets at the cafe. No problem. I headed back to class, water in tow, and talked for another 2+ hours (sheesh, long mornings at this school - class starts at 7, lunch starts at 12:30), this time well-lubricated.

Upon the half-hour of lunch, I headed down to the cafeteria since, conveniently, I was on duty there, so I could make good use of my time by trying one of the tasty-looking creations they conjure up here for lunch.

This proved more difficult than I expected.

I still had what I believed would be enough tickets for lunch. I discovered that it wasn't, in fact, enough for the corn dish I wanted, but it was enough for a hot dog, so I waited at the hot dog stand for about 10 minutes. I was just thinking I was pretty close to getting my lunch (it's kind of hard to tell, there isn't much of a line system) when one of my students noticed what I was trying to do, and informed me that I couldn't use regular old tickets to buy the food, and I had to get a special hot dog ticket. Okay, that's stupid, but I figured I'd just go get myself one of them hot dog tickets, and 10 minutes later I'd have my food.

Then he (the student) told me they weren't selling the tickets anymore; they stopped selling at noon. GAH. So, I got back to patrolling the cafeteria. Another 10 minutes went by, and another of my students, somehow aware of my situation (I guess when the stupid Canadian teacher tries to do anything it spreads like wildfire), informed me that I could buy tickets at the cafeteria office. So I headed over there, and asked for a hot dog ticket, only to discover they weren't selling hot dog tickets, only corn tickets, and I didn't have enough regular tickets to trade in for a corn ticket, but whatever, I just shelled out the cash for a corn ticket and held on to my regular tickets (are you still with me?).

So THEN, I went back to the hot dog/corn guy, and showed him my ticket. He told me there was no more corn, and I could plainly see that he was making hot dogs, despite my inability to buy a hot dog ticket.

Okay, seriously, is the world conspiring against my ability to get anything to eat???!

So I asked a student, who cleared up the situation: they simply ran out of hot dog tickets, so people were paying for their hot dogs with corn tickets, which COST MORE, so it's stupid, because why can't we just pay with the REGULAR TICKETS, since they come in 5 cent intervals (as opposed to the hot dog and corn tickets which are face value of the item). Man!

Anyway, the end result was I got myself in on the last batch of hot dogs before the bell rang (only with the assistance of yet another student - by now the entire student population knows I'm an idiot - apparently I had to tell the guy I wanted one even though I was standing right there looking desperately hungry), but luckily I had the rest of the afternoon off (since I had already talked for more than 5 and a half hours) and was free to enjoy my hot dog in peace. It was tasty. And weird. I'll describe it sometime.

*****

After my satisfying lunch, I headed upstairs to ask the school director if there was any word on my fridge getting fixed. As a matter of fact, there was - there would be a guy at my apartment at 3:30, and the landlord's secretary would also be there in case they needed to go out and get parts, or something. Great! I could relax with the knowledge that my fridge would be fixed right after I got home, and then I'd be able to head to the grocery store and re-stock, all before dinner time.

Of course, that's not how things happened.

I got home by 3:30, as instructed, and waited.

At 4:30, I got a call informing me that in order to give me time to get home from school (I had already been home for an hour), the guy had been told to come after 4. The timing of this call was, to say the least, conspicuous. I waited some more, and sometime after 5 I put in my own call to see what was up. This time, I was told the guy got delayed, but would be there "soon". So I waited some more.

I should note that the waiting game is a tedious exercise for me. I can't really focus on anything important while I'm waiting - I can do minor tasks, but I can't get started on something like a lesson plan (which, coincidentally, I had to make) when someone is coming to my house to fix an essential appliance "any minute". So I kept waiting.

Around 6:30, I got a call from the school director. Unfortunately, it stopped ringing after 1 ring. I called back twice to no avail. I kept waiting.

About an hour later, the director called back to inform me that she had tried to call me but her battery had run out mid-call. She had been calling to see what was up; she had no news of her own.

I kept waiting.

At about 8, I got too hungry, and made myself a tasty albeit dry meal of pasta with olive oil, salt, pepper and oregano, with air to drink. I was just about to give up waiting...

...finally, after what seemed like slightly less than an eternity (an eternity is so inconceivable a length of time the hugeness of it becomes meaningless, so slightly less than eternity is a much more impressive amount of time. Thanks, Douglas Adams), the dude and my landlord's assistant arrived. It was 8:30.

Of course, you can probably already guess they weren't able to fix the fridge. The dude needed another part, which he couldn't get because it was too late and the stores weren't open. The whole point of the landlord's assistant coming was in case this happened and they needed to drive somewhere and get the part.

Oh well, at least I could stop playing the waiting game, and Walter assured me he'd be there the next day at 4 with new part in hand. He also he would come by himself. This was significant because I understood all of these facts, which is definitely progress for me on the Spanish front.

*****

Fast forward a day. I arrived at school with no lunch in tow for the second straight day (I don't need to explain why), and during the 4-hour break I had between classes I resolved to get myself a corn ticket, and do it right this time. So, just before noon, which is when the ticket office closes (even though it was open the previous day sometime between 12:30 and 1 when I had my previous adventure - this is one thing I haven't yet figured out), I headed over. On the way, I ran into fellow whitey K; she was successfully returning from the same mission I was currently on. During the conversation, the door to the food office, which was about 3 meters away from me, slammed shut. Foiled again.

(By the way, seems like a dumb idea to me that the food office should close at 12 when senior lunch is from 12:30-1. I guess they're saying if kids forget to pick up their tickets earlier they just can't eat?)

So I headed up to the teacher's lounge and explained the situation to very helpful and fully bilingual teacher H. He very graciously took me under his wing, leading me over to the kitchen and explaining the situation to the two Lovely Ladies of Lunch, and though I couldn't understand the conversation, I presumed he was (purposely) making me out to be a pathetic and clueless foreigner, which was also the pose I was attempting to meekly strike in the background.

Unfortunately, that idea didn't pan out, since the Ladies haven't started making hot lunches yet (that starts next week).

Shortly after this failure, my bus hero got wind of the situation and took it upon himself to lead me around in search of the chick who sells the food tickets, since I am a teacher, it's not like she's just going to turn me down (I would have used this tactic if I remembered what she looked like/had any idea where she was - I had already tried knocking on her office door).

Of course, she somehow proved to be nowhere on the school grounds.. well, okay, for about 10 minutes. The school is tiny, so it seemed like we were walking around for a long time, since we looked everywhere more than once. Anyway, eventually she was found, I got my ticket, and ate my corn and cheese dish.

*****

At 4:00 I got to play the waiting game again, but this time it was only for about 45 minutes, and shortly thereafter Walter had fixed the fridge. I sped over to the local grocery store, having forgotten that it was 20% off produce day (every Tuesday!), and I needed produce!

So you know what? Throughout this entire escapade I never missed a meal, and in fact, all of my meals were pretty good. And I got 20% discounted produce! So, for all my griping, I don't really have anything to gripe about. Thanks for wasting 2,000 words of your time! Come again!

Another Getting-To-School Adventure

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To you, my beloved readers, this tale is simply "A Getting-To-School Adventure", since I never told you about the first one (it wasn't that interesting, really), but I like to direct my headlines at myself, since I assume that I'm my only audience.

This morning, I arrived at the bus stop around 6:20 AM, which was a little later than I usually aim for (and by 'usually', I mean the one day of school prior to this morning). This meant that I missed my fellow teacher (and math department head, coincidentally) who takes the same bus. No big deal - after several days of training and the first day of school, I've got the bus figured out.

So the first bus ambled up, looking rather full. I didn't quite catch which bus it was, so I walked towards it with the intention of peeking around at the front, where the route is generally listed. Upon making this several-meter trek, I encountered a man who I took for a bus employee - around here, there's the driver, and there's the guy who collects your money, and when the bus stops, he's usually hanging out the door to make sure everyone who wants to get on gets on before the driver takes off, which, by the way, doesn't usually happen, and more than once now I've entered/exited a moving bus, so anyway, this guy was hanging off the side as the bus approached, hence my assumption he was the money collector guy - and this guy surprised me by asking "(name of my school)?".

How did he know where I was going? Many buses pass by this bus stop, going to many destinations, and even the ones that take me the right way stop first at Barranquilla's most populous university, which is a much more popular stop on the route. Lots of people around here (including transportation personnel, as I discovered in my first getting-to-school adventure) don't even know what I'm talking about it when I tell them the school's name.

In any case, I got on the bus, since this guy seemed to know what he was talking about, even though I was pretty sure this bus wouldn't get me all the way to school. It was absolutely jam packed, to the point where I was the one hanging out the entrance as we drove away, which was pretty exhilarating. After driving for several minutes, the bus came to a stop in a weird place (which isn't uncommon - passengers just tell the driver when they want to stop). Apparently, my guide had requested the stop, and at this point he hopped off and motioned for me to hop off at the same time. I had no idea where we were, but once again, this guy knew his stuff, so I followed.

By the way, astute readers (and since, as previously mentioned, the readership of this blog most likely consists exclusively of the writership of this blog, it is a fair assumption that 100% of the readers are in fact astute) should now be realizing that my assumption that this guy was the money collector of the bus had just been proven false, since he had exited the bus and therefore was now unable to collect money from anyone on the bus. (also, speaking of money collection, my precarious position of only being about 40% inside the bus had seemingly exempted me from having to pay!)

So who was he? I didn't recognize him, and I had already had a week of training plus one day of regular school. I was almost positive he wasn't a staff member, but that positivity was now weakening with the newfound knowledge that he was not a bus dude.

Anyway, he led me over to a nearby corner, where there were a few people who looked like they were also waiting for buses (good sign!) as well as a few people who were just hanging out. One of the hangers was a coffee vendor - there are many portable coffee vendors around here, they carry around this rack of thermoses sort of thing - and shortly my guide was thrusting a thimble sized cup (another peculiarity that is common around here) of Caffe Tinto (black coffee with sugar, the default in Barranquilla) into my hands, free of charge (I didn't notice if he had paid for me, or if it was just on the house).

After a few minutes of socializing (him, not me - not many English speakers around this corner), he whisked me off to the other side of the street to catch our next bus. Also, our party had gained another member - a woman who, according to her garb, was a nurse. I didn't recognize her either, but I didn't think much of it, because there is also a hospital on the way to the school, so I just assumed that's where she was headed.

The first bus that came our way wasn't much of a bus at all - more of a van. But I've been on buses of varying sizes here, so once again this was something I didn't think much of - especially since, as I've now mentioned three times, my good friend seemed to know what he was doing. Upon hopping into the van and sitting down, though, I noticed something odd - the 4 passengers who had already been seated inside were children, all wearing uniforms from my school. This was a school van. (They don't do school buses around here, instead they have a fleet of these 10ish person vans.)

At this point, my surety that Mr. Busandcoffee wasn't a member of the staff was beginning to severely wane. (I was now also forced to assume that my new nurse friend was a school nurse, even though I had met the school nurse the previous week at training, and I thought there was only one.) And my incorrectness was confirmed when the van drove non-stop to the school, and upon arrival everyone dutifully filed out.

I guess I was just wrong - my transportation hero does work at the school. It was embarrassing that I didn't know him, though our lack of ability to communicate probably masked some of that. In any case, I won't be forgetting him any time soon. After getting out of the bus I thanked him, and began toward my classroom.

But then something weird happened - he turned around and headed the other way, toward the school gate. Was I right all along? Did he not work at the school? Did he just go to all that trouble to make sure I got to school okay??! (other questions abound: once again, how did he know where I wanted to go? How did he know that nurse?) Needless to say, I was mighty confused, as I watched my hero saunter off into the sunset. (it wasn't sunset, it was like 6:45AM)

**************

Fast-forward to 12PM. (Classes end at 12PM this week - because it's the first week of school, we're trying to ease the students into it, thus the short day.) Every day this week, after school ends, I have rehearsal with the newly formed teacher band. The band consists of the two music teachers on piano and bass, an English teacher on guitar, yours truly on drums, and the religion teacher on vocals. The purpose of these rehearsals is to prepare for mass on Friday, at which we will be performing several religious songs.

Setting up for rehearsals is somewhat luxurious - after years of playing in student groups in which the band sets everything up, and often has to transport the equipment great distances from the storage space to the rehearsal space, the teacher band has a whole maintenance crew at our disposal, who apparently have nothing else to do at 12:15 than haul equipment up one flight of stairs for us.

It was during this set-up process that something caught my eye. A face I recognized but couldn't place. Maybe just one of those faces - that reminds you of someone else, you know? But then the face smiled at me and waved, and that's when it hit me - there was my guy! He was wearing different clothes, which was why I hadn't immediately recognized him. It was like something out of a movie - except usually the guy in the movies who you recognize-but-can't-place-because-he's-now-wearing-different-clothes-and-particularly-maintenance-clothes is a bad guy who you figure out the identity of one knife-slash too late.

**************

As of the writing of this story, I have no reason to believe he's a bad guy, so the tale has a happy ending. And also a clears-up-so-much-confusion ending! I wouldn't recognize him, because the maintenance crew wasn't at training. Good on him for recognizing me in the early morning, since we had probably only seen each other around school a couple times and never spoken, but I guess I stand out a little more around here. But now it's him that stands out, not me - as a shining pillar of grace, kindness, and heroism.

Paulo Blart, el Mall Cop

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Just a quick xote on the xlog tonight. One of the oddities I've noticed here in Colombia (obviously, there are many - I'm keeping track of them and will periodically publish a collection when I've accumulated enough) is the extensive mall security. The first thing that happens when you walk into the mall is a bag check, the kind you'd encounter at a sports event or concert. If you're lucky, you might even get metal detected.

And then, when you exit certain stores (I've only been to the 2 huge Wal-Mart style places, so I don't know if this goes for smaller stores, though I doubt it), you're supposed to show your receipt, which the security guard signs. My first encounter with this part of mall security was the first time I went shopping at the mall, and declined plastic bags, purely out of habit - I actually needed some for use in garbage bins. Anyway, I was carrying something in a box, and after a couple minutes of lingual struggle, I figured out he was telling me I was supposed to put the box in a bag. A total reversal of North American culture, in which we're discouraged from using plastic bags. I've since learned that it's frowned upon around here to bring your own bags.

My second personal encounter with mall security came today, when I entered Exito, one of the Wal-Mart clones, and set off the sensors. After a fairly extensive search of my bag (they were very determined to find out what had caused the disturbance), the dude found a package of aspirin which I had bought previously (and at a different store), but still had some sort of tag on the inside which, apparently, one is supposed to remove upon purchase. Luckily the guy was friendly about it - for a transgression so severe as forgetting to take the tag off of a product I had paid for a day before at a different store, I could just as easily be detained in a dark basement mall jail, unable to communicate to explain myself, trapped for eternity!

Apartment - First Impressions

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I moved into my new bachelor pad here in Barranquilla last night, and it is pretty great. In fact, I would go so far as to call it ballin'. I'll leave most of the description until I have accompanying pictures, though.

This is the first time I've moved into a furnished apartment (in 4th year I moved into a place some friends already lived in, so I guess you could call that semi-furnished, but I had to BYO bed/dresser/etc), and it's definitely a sweet deal. However, I discovered today that "furnished" is not quite all it's cracked up to be.

Case in point: today, my shirt tripled as oven mitts, a tea (tee?) towel, and a shirt. Now, I bet you're wondering, "what did you need oven mitts for, Dave?". That's a lie, you're not wondering that. I needed oven mitts for food. Obviously. Shut up, Dave.

Specifically, I had made pasta for the first dinner in the new place (if you know me at all, you're not surprised by this), and required oven mitts in order to strain the pasta. So I used my "oven mitts" to pick up the pot, carry it over to the sink, and.... wait, where's the strainer? Oh that's right I DON'T HAVE A STRAINER BECAUSE I JUST MOVED IN AND I DON'T HAVE ANYTHING. So, my ingenious method to strain the pasta involved dumping it onto a plate (because the pot had no lid, which would have made things infinitely easier), after which the plate still had lots of water on it in addition to the pasta, and was really hot, so I had to pour cold water on it for a while, then try to hold the pasta at bay while tilting the plate slightly in order to let the water run off.

Then I saw another pot, which had a spout and a lid.

Oh well, it all worked out, and my pasta was ready, if lukewarm. Next, I poured on the "salsa de tomate" I had recently bought on my inaugural food run (which also included eggs, bananas, cereal and a mango). The sauce came in this weird bag with a twist cap (I think a lot of food here comes in bags), so I opened it up and squirted some out.

It smelled like ketchup.

Greeeeeaaaaaattt. I get to eat pasta with ketchup for dinner. I know some people like it with their macaroni and cheese, but ew. I resolved to taste some, just to make sure, and lo and behold, it didn't taste quite like ketchup; sweeter than I would have liked for tomato sauce, but doable. So I continued squirting it on the pasta, and set down to eat.

After a couple bites, I realized my first impression had, in fact, been the correct one. It was basically ketchup, and it was gross. I couldn't go on much longer, and eventually I had to rinse the sauce off the noodles and just eat them plain (and getting somewhat cold by this point, what with all the rinsing). After several rinses, the ketchup taste remained surprisingly strong, but I just grun and bore it.

Later, when putting the tomato sauce away, I turned it over and saw the word "ketchup". It was actually quite a relief to know that the standard tomato sauce here is not, in fact, ketchup (and that the standard ketchup is, in fact, ketchup), and I should be able to find the real stuff next time.

Other fun apartment facts:

• upon exploring the master bathroom (that's right, I have 2 bathrooms... actually, sort of 3. More details to come), I found one of those removable shower heads and a tap... not in the shower. Beside the toilet? And soon it dawned on me: I HAVE A BEDET! Rad. I haven't used it yet, but I think it's safe to say I'm already converted to the ways of the bedet.
• After eating a banana, I didn't know what to do with the remains, since I don't have any wastebaskets (this furnished thing isn't all it's cracked... you get the picture). My solution: I threw 'em in the freezer.
• Upon returning from my inaugural grocery run, I introduced myself to the man who I assume is the regular night shift guard. This is a translated transcript of the conversation: "What's your name?" "Luis" "Nice to meet you, Luis. (shake hands) I'm David (Da-veed) and I'm Canadian. My Spanish isn't good, but I learn." Then Luis offered up a high-five. What a cool guy. (P.S. I do know how to say "I am learning", I just forgot to say it that way. The way I said it probably made me more endearing, though)