Phlegm from above

Well, I hope everyone has had a chance to check out the pictures I put up from Machupicchu. They’re worth the time.

First week back was interesting. It seemed REALLY long while it was happening, but looking back it wasn’t all that bad. The weekend was eventful – Alan had Lasik sugery on Friday, and his vision is a bit blurry right now, but it looks like it was successful. Thank you Alan for doing the trial run for me – my turn next! How can I say no – it’s about 1/4 the price it would cost back home, and it was invented down here – they have a pretty good idea what they’re doing.

Saturday a few of us went downtown for various reasons – some of us had shirts made for us (we get to pick those up next week), and I was looking for wedding present stuff for Jeff and Tanya. Just in case they check, I’m not saying what it is :) The eventful part of it was Robert getting pickpocketed – someone spit on him from a window above, and while he was dealing with mucous on his shirt he had his wallet swiped. I was close enough that I knew something was up before he lost it, but it all happened too fast. Here’s the interesting part though…I tried to follow one of the women involved in it up the street, but that didn’t work. While we were standing around trying to figure out what to do, one of the guys involved walked up and handed Robert his wallet. Yes, you read that right. His money was gone, but everything else was still in it. We were a little stunned, to say the least, and the guy took off down the street and hopped on a bus. Very, very odd.

Sunday we all got together at Alan’s so we could all show our pictures from Christmas vacation – some really great ones from both Alan and Zak.

That’s it for now, I’m heading up to Canada on Friday for Mallany’s wedding, so it may be a while until I post again – but when I do, there will be pictures!

Macchupicchu

Booooooooourns, vacation is over. I had a great time though. Going home to Canada for almost 2 weeks was nice, and then my trip to Machupicchu was absolutely incredible. You can find out all about that trip through my Colombia page – I have almost 150 pictures up from the trip, as well as a day by day account of what happened. Enjoy!


Sri Lanka and the tsunami

Allrighty, time for a LONG overdue update on what’s going on in my life. I’ve had a lot going on, but that’s really not an excuse…I’m just lazy.

Before I get into any updates on me, there’s something more important to deal with. As everyone knows by now, a tsunami has devastated much of Southeast Asia. Jessica Paterson, a friend of mine in Guelph, lived in Sri Lanka a few years ago and has been very personally affected by this tragedy. As a result, she is helping organize a Sri Lanka relief fund in Canada. Last night the two of us spent about six hours over MSN putting together a website for this effort. Please go to http://www3.sympatico.ca/jessica.paterson for more information on how you can help.

Okay, on to me! Well, let’s go back to December. As many of you already know, I’ve been playing Ultimate Frisbee for almost ten years now, and I’ve gotten much more competitive over the last 2 or 3. It took some time, but I was able to find some students at a university here in Bogota who played, and I’ve been playing with them since mid November. The weekend of December 9-11 we played in the Colombian National tournament. We…ummm…didn’t come in last. And we had fun. Well, I didn’t have fun our last game, I benched myself because I was playing horribly, but that’s just me. Anyway, it was a good time had by all!

The following week was our last week of school (woohoo, month long Christmas vacation!) and on Saturday the 18th I headed up to Timmins. I was at the airport at 6:00 am, and landed in Timmins at midnight. Long day. The worst part was the change in temperature – I went from about 20 degrees (room temperature) to MINUS FIFTY. No word of a lie, when I landed it was minus 50 with the windchill. Seventy degrees difference! It was brutal. But, it was good to be home, got to see people, family, etc.

And now, I’m back in Bogota. I came back down on the 29th to warm, sunny weather. Very nice :) I’ve been relaxing for the last couple of days, getting ready to climb up Macchu Picchu next week. I’m VERY excited about doing that, and I bought an extra memorystick for my camera so I can take double the pictures. Can’t wait!

That’s it for now. Again, please check out Jessica’s website and donate what you can – money, food, clothes, whatever you can. I’ll update you on the trip to Peru in a week or so!

Thanksgiving & Montserrat

Happy belated Turkey Sumo Day(???)! As most of you know, Thursady was Thanksgiving in the United States. How does our school decide to celebrate? With Turkey Sumo Wrestling! Students (and some teachers!) dressed up in a turkey outfit and battled it out sumo style, like with those huge bulky sumo outfits. It wasn’t quite as entertaining as if they had really been wearing sumo suits, but it was fun nonetheless. Made up (kind of) for not having turkey at our Thanksgiving feast at Zak’s place. Chicken parm was good though!

On Saturday, Robert, Megan, Barbie, Mary (Barbie’s friend from Fullbright) and I climbed Montserrat. Montserrat is a mountain with a church at the top in Bogota. It wasn’t an easy climb, but it only took us an hour to do it. Good warmup for Macchu Picchu in January!

Finally, a few of us went out on Saturday night to go see a local band called Mojarra Electrica. They were fantastic – neat blend of a few styles, with drums, guitars, clarinets and saxes, and a few vocalists. Very cool sound, I bought their CD. I may even put a song up on here as a sample so people can hear it. Let me know if you’re interested!

mmmmmmm, Osaki Boat

Back again! This past weekend went very well. Friday was Zak’s birthday, so it was off to Osaki (mmmmmm, Osaki Boat). I love sushi so much. Afterwards a few of us went out to Mr. Babilla’s, a bar in Zona Rosa. It’s a neat place – too many gringos though :)

Saturday was my night to be the consummate host. I had a dinner party at my place, made pad thai and thai mango salad (mmmmmm, thai food). Finished off the night with some of the Balvenie I picked up at the duty free on the way back from Panama (mmmmmm, Scotch). All in all, a nice little weekend – even if I did screw up and miss frisbee :P

And finally, as some of you may have noticed, I’ve added a message board to the menu on the left. I slaved over it for hours (well, slaved isn’t a good word, more like “installed someone else’s work”), so PLEASE check it out and leave me some messages. I’d love to hear from people!