Saludos de Bogotá!

The view from my window in Bogotá

     I've been in Bogotá since yesterday morning, and so far everything is wonderful! I have my own room, with a view of the Andes outside my window. There's also an adorable puppy named Cuzco, who I someday hope to remember to take a picture of. I slept all morning yesterday after getting back from the airport and woke up for lunch, which was a soup called ajiaco, made with chicken, potatoes and avocado. All the fruit here is fantastic, but the avocados are my favorite. I was surprised to find out that my host family has maids who cook and serve lunch and clean up, but I shouldn't have been because it's pretty common in South America. After lunch I ran some errands with my host-sister Susana, and got to see a little bit of the city. All I can tell so far is that it's huge and I would never be able to drive here, the roads are so confusing. After dinner, Susana showed me some pictures she had taken around Colombia, and I brought out a book on Oregon that I had brought, which was a big hit. Colombia is amazing, there are the Andes, the coast, the Amazon, the grasslands, and all kinds of plants and animals.

The church in Tabio and the blue blue sky

     This morning we drove out to my host family's farm, which is about a half an hour outside of Bogota. On the farm there's a beautiful old farmhouse, four dogs, a couple sheep, and some award-winning black Angus cattle that my host-brother is very proud of. We had breakfast outside on the lawn, and then Susana and my host-brother's wife and I went into Tabio, a little town nearby, and had our birthdays read in the Mayan calendar by a man who describes himself as a guerrero galáctico (galactic warrior), which my host-brothers thought was hilarious. My Mayan sign is something like the red planetary earth, but what I really learned is that I'm not great at understanding astrological readings in Spanish. Tabio itself was pretty and old-fashioned, with a big pink church facing the plaza and all the buildings painted bright colors.
     So far my Spanish has held up pretty well. I can understand what people are saying to me most of the time, and I haven't had a lot of trouble getting my ideas across, although it's definitely not pretty. My host family tells me I'm doing really well, but I'm completely lost when my host-brothers start speaking really fast. I'd love to be able to take a Spanish class for foreigners while I'm here, so we're going to look into it tomorrow.
    That's it for now. Hopefully soon I'll get a better look at the city and be able to write something more interesting than a list of things I saw or ate. Now that the weekend is over things should calm down a little bit when everyone goes back to school or work. I'll try to update soon!