Hello chaps!
Hope all is splendid with ustedes. Here i´m on my last week of work! Not that you can really call it work, i´ve got 2 classes and let´s face it they´ll be a farce, end of term and all that jazz. And then it´s hola Escocia!
This weekend i didn´t eat any udders, however i did buy a BIKE from my pal, wait til you see it it´s PIMPING - matt black with a subtle Bogotá licence plate sticker on it, and i´ve got a slightly kinky looking reflective vest to go with it. Magic. I also accumulated a pair of fake Ray Bans and a red Bakelite telephone, ah flea markets you are the best thing ever.
If you care to visit http://www.colombiareports.com/ you can read my article about the bike tours in the travel section, also in "Colombia News Lite" i am quote of the week! Colombian men have the unfortunate habit of giving you compliments but being unable to prevent themselves from adding "marika" or "guevón" (both insults but commonly used among pals as a kind of "mate" substitute) so you get comments like "eres muy hermosa marika" ("you´re very beautiful, gaylord") or "me fascinas, guevón" ("i really like you, bawbag"). How can anybody take this seriously?
I´m in the midst of getting all my gubbins packed up, horrendous how much garbage you accumulate over a relatively short time, specially boufin´clothing. Why did i ever think it was a good idea to buy a giant orange jumper with llamas marching round the yoke in the first place?
Tonight someone invited me to the theatah at Los Andes which is a very swank uni, hope it´s not shocking experimental gubbins...or mime...gads the possibilities are quite horrible. Although speaking of mime i was waiting for a friend yesterday outside the Museo Nacional and there´s a mime artist who plies his trade there, i´m not such a fan of them in general but the guy was a pure genius, had imitating people´s walks down to a fine art. So along comes this guy who was God´s gift to the mime artist, a big guy with a distinctive swaggery walk carrying two paper grocery bags. So them mime falls into step beside him and does a belter impression for a bit, til the man suddenly stops in his tracks. The mime stops too. The man takes a step backwards, as does the mime. Then the guy starts to take steps forwards and backwards in such a jerky odd sequence that the mime can´t follow it, so he throws up his hands in silent defeat and makes his way on to the next victim. Priceless.
ARF in a similar vein i was on the Septima in the middle of the Ciclovia when my parents called, so i gave my shopping bag with the red telephone to Karen to hold ( i may have also been eating some kind of dessert at the same time, what else are Sundays for if not cake and rummelling around second hand shops?) and she whips out the big red plastic reciever and starts talking into it, "No waaaay! No me diiiigaas!!" and all the Colombians practically falling off their bikes gawping at her, arf hilarious. Hah and we went to see the Life of Brian at the Uni Central, needless to say some of us were in tears at the Biggus Dickus bit, which was "Pito Largo" in Spanish and his wife Incontinentia Buttocks (ARF) was Incontinencia Trasero, i tell you they were rolling about the aisles when that subtitle flashed up. Magic.
Other weekend highlights included cheap beers in the terrace of the pizzeria in La Macarena with Adam, trilingual torrents of abuse being hurled at a shite Shreck Playstation racing game by me and Oliver (Pinocchio was getting it particularly tight, the wee bastard), Champions League final (´mon Barca) plans being laid for another glorious bout of afternoon drinking, a party at Tamara(Spanish pal)´s house with horrible wine and "La Pantera Mambo", and generally lots of fun.
ARF (this post is unusually arf-filled, think we´re going on number 5 here) one of my students just called me to have a picada for lunch before Conversation Club, hilarious. Picadas are plates of bits of meat, sausage, wee tatties, arepas, etc etc and usually imply chunchuyos, eugh, but there´s always a spot of black pudding in there as well to soften the blow. As long as it´s udder free i´ll be happy. The problem with this type of food is it really demands a beer to accompany it, and i´ve to whip up enthusiasm for English conversation immediately afterwards, probably not the best idea in the world to get started on the old Aguilas.
Ah well keep the heid readers, i´ll keep you posted as to whether the picada was delicious or a nightmarish chunchuyo-fest.
Tuesday 26 May 2009
Monday 18 May 2009
Dejémonos de vainas
The fruits of this weekend:
1. A bag of neatly wrapped barbequed udder and unwashed intestines.
2. Oil stains on my favourite checked trousers.
3. Sore feet.
4. A date.
5. The best birthday present ever.
6. A deeper understanding of the following words and phrases: derramar, roupa cheguei, cangrejear, comprar la tiquetera, no joda, lámpara.
Let´s start at the start. Number one is thanks to the vast portions served at "El Viejo" Argentine restaurant in La Macarena. A supposed picada for 2 people was too much for 3 hungry individuals, so we got it wrapped up ("pa´l perrito") and took it on our travels. This was the start of an absolutely disgraceful Sunday afternoon in the company of the ever braw Cherie and a pal called David, who i believe made an appearance in these pages PURE months ago. True to form we met this chap when we were doing a spot of impromptu mid-week boozing in a bar near the house. Cherie and him are good pals but i´d not seen him for months, given the borracheras of catastrophic proportions that occurs when we see each other this is perhaps not entirely a bad thing.
Anyway so we had the picada which was unspeakably delicious, big steaks and ribs and chicken with chimichurri (hot herby sauce) and garlic mayonnaise, unfortunately the udders aren´t up to much (tastes like stinkin´cheese, Roquefort or something. Bleugh) and i think i may have already made my feelings clear about the unwashed intestines. Chinchulines the Argentines call them, which i think is quite a pretty name for something so rank. Number one bottle of wine of the day (you can see where this is going can`t you) accompanied this feast, followed by 2 bottles more in a hilarious old man bar on the 19 where the locals sat tanning red wine and cracking dirty jokes all afternoon. We were ejected from this bar at 6pm (closing time, not for unruly behaviour) and so went up to Bardo with Mark and Paula where a number of other pals were reading out extracts from some nihilistic Bogotá novel. Cherie had by this time sensibly stopped drinking, some others however were not so sensible and started on the tequila... and then went back to our flat for even more booze, what an absolute disgrace.
Number two! The oil stains were caused by the chain of a rather pimping bike i was riding across the old train tracks by Paloquemao (the gigantic and marvellous food market) falling off at an inopportune moment. I was riding the bike on Friday afternoon as part of a tour of the city about which i´ll shortly be writing an article for Colombia Reports. It was crackin´, zooming around the city through parks and round the back streets til we reached the Uni Nacional where there was Cafe Tacuba tunes blasting out a stereo and lots of hippy types sitting around campfires making huge vats of stew and drinking cheap wine.
3! Sore feet from going out with my hilarious colleagues on Saturday night in inappropriate boots to a crappy student bar where they played inexplicable techno and me and Cherie danced like a pair of total eedjits. Much hilarity regarding the incredible Colombian habit of pointing with the lips, this is absolutely the greatest facial movement in the world and is most commonly used to explain where the toilet is. The next time you see me in person i´ll demonstrate, it´s kind of difficult to convey in writing.
Four... arf last night some chap i met while i was sitting in the park (nothing better than sitting in the park in the sun talking to all the folk that arrive, tinto vendors, hippes making wire sculptures, general nutters) called me to see if i wanted to go out, poor guy phoned at 7pm and i was brutally steaming (after the 2nd shot of tequila) but i think i managed to arrange to meet up during the week. Hilarious.
FIVE FIVE FIVE Cherie gave me for my birthday this incredible book all decorated and filled with poems about knitting, onions, friendship, vergas and many other thngs besides, full of photos and drawings and pictures and it´s so excellent that it made me cry because i´m a sentimental old bastard. Braw!
The phrases collected under Number 6 were accumulated over the course of the weekend, first one on Friday night when i went out with Oliver (my pal who is teaching me to speak Portuguese with a Sao Paulo accent and who is being taught in return to speak English with a Glaswegian accent, guy´s a total champ although he rips the piss something awful) to his pal´s wee flat in La Macarena all full of weird paintings of Colombian icons done on toilet seats (i mean that they were actually painted onto toilet seats rather than the icons were on the toilet, just to clarify matters). There (what a surprise) we drank load of rum and listened to Calle 13 and shouted a lot, it was all extremely good fun. During the night i learned that derramar is to spill or to have an orgasm (whoa calm down, not from actual experience but because their band is called Derramoncito which is a mixture of that verb, some allusion to The Ramones said in a Colombian accent, and a character from a telenovela (called "Dejémonos de Vainas" which means something like "Let´s stop all this nonsense" but is a thousand times funnier in Spanish) called Ramoncito who apparently was a child star who turned to drink and drugs).
I also learned that roupa cheguei is loud embarassing clothing ("I´ve arrived clothes"), as in you get to a party and your clothes shout "I´ve arrived!". The equivalent in Colombian Spanish is to be una lámpara, someone who´s a bit embarassing and wears brutal clothes. I´ve been getting ripped a lot recently for being a lámpara.. Last week i bought a tan leather jacket with turquoise suede bits and silver stripes, it looks like the kind of thing Evel Knievel would be into so maybe the piss ripping is justified. Lámpara pride, entonces!
Cangrejear is to break up with your boyfriend or girlfriend then sheepishly get back together with them. No joda is just the best thing ever, a Costeño phrase which means "away ye go" or "aye right" or many other things besides. Comprar la tiquetera is to make an absolute arse of yourself, to just be the most embarassing thing ever. To say "How undignified" here you say "Que boleta" (What a ticket!), so it follows that if you´ve reached maximum levels of undignifiedness then you aren´t just a ticket, you´ve bought the whole damn ticket machine.
What a great weekend! One thing i´ll say about Bogotá, it´s never EVER boring.
1. A bag of neatly wrapped barbequed udder and unwashed intestines.
2. Oil stains on my favourite checked trousers.
3. Sore feet.
4. A date.
5. The best birthday present ever.
6. A deeper understanding of the following words and phrases: derramar, roupa cheguei, cangrejear, comprar la tiquetera, no joda, lámpara.
Let´s start at the start. Number one is thanks to the vast portions served at "El Viejo" Argentine restaurant in La Macarena. A supposed picada for 2 people was too much for 3 hungry individuals, so we got it wrapped up ("pa´l perrito") and took it on our travels. This was the start of an absolutely disgraceful Sunday afternoon in the company of the ever braw Cherie and a pal called David, who i believe made an appearance in these pages PURE months ago. True to form we met this chap when we were doing a spot of impromptu mid-week boozing in a bar near the house. Cherie and him are good pals but i´d not seen him for months, given the borracheras of catastrophic proportions that occurs when we see each other this is perhaps not entirely a bad thing.
Anyway so we had the picada which was unspeakably delicious, big steaks and ribs and chicken with chimichurri (hot herby sauce) and garlic mayonnaise, unfortunately the udders aren´t up to much (tastes like stinkin´cheese, Roquefort or something. Bleugh) and i think i may have already made my feelings clear about the unwashed intestines. Chinchulines the Argentines call them, which i think is quite a pretty name for something so rank. Number one bottle of wine of the day (you can see where this is going can`t you) accompanied this feast, followed by 2 bottles more in a hilarious old man bar on the 19 where the locals sat tanning red wine and cracking dirty jokes all afternoon. We were ejected from this bar at 6pm (closing time, not for unruly behaviour) and so went up to Bardo with Mark and Paula where a number of other pals were reading out extracts from some nihilistic Bogotá novel. Cherie had by this time sensibly stopped drinking, some others however were not so sensible and started on the tequila... and then went back to our flat for even more booze, what an absolute disgrace.
Number two! The oil stains were caused by the chain of a rather pimping bike i was riding across the old train tracks by Paloquemao (the gigantic and marvellous food market) falling off at an inopportune moment. I was riding the bike on Friday afternoon as part of a tour of the city about which i´ll shortly be writing an article for Colombia Reports. It was crackin´, zooming around the city through parks and round the back streets til we reached the Uni Nacional where there was Cafe Tacuba tunes blasting out a stereo and lots of hippy types sitting around campfires making huge vats of stew and drinking cheap wine.
3! Sore feet from going out with my hilarious colleagues on Saturday night in inappropriate boots to a crappy student bar where they played inexplicable techno and me and Cherie danced like a pair of total eedjits. Much hilarity regarding the incredible Colombian habit of pointing with the lips, this is absolutely the greatest facial movement in the world and is most commonly used to explain where the toilet is. The next time you see me in person i´ll demonstrate, it´s kind of difficult to convey in writing.
Four... arf last night some chap i met while i was sitting in the park (nothing better than sitting in the park in the sun talking to all the folk that arrive, tinto vendors, hippes making wire sculptures, general nutters) called me to see if i wanted to go out, poor guy phoned at 7pm and i was brutally steaming (after the 2nd shot of tequila) but i think i managed to arrange to meet up during the week. Hilarious.
FIVE FIVE FIVE Cherie gave me for my birthday this incredible book all decorated and filled with poems about knitting, onions, friendship, vergas and many other thngs besides, full of photos and drawings and pictures and it´s so excellent that it made me cry because i´m a sentimental old bastard. Braw!
The phrases collected under Number 6 were accumulated over the course of the weekend, first one on Friday night when i went out with Oliver (my pal who is teaching me to speak Portuguese with a Sao Paulo accent and who is being taught in return to speak English with a Glaswegian accent, guy´s a total champ although he rips the piss something awful) to his pal´s wee flat in La Macarena all full of weird paintings of Colombian icons done on toilet seats (i mean that they were actually painted onto toilet seats rather than the icons were on the toilet, just to clarify matters). There (what a surprise) we drank load of rum and listened to Calle 13 and shouted a lot, it was all extremely good fun. During the night i learned that derramar is to spill or to have an orgasm (whoa calm down, not from actual experience but because their band is called Derramoncito which is a mixture of that verb, some allusion to The Ramones said in a Colombian accent, and a character from a telenovela (called "Dejémonos de Vainas" which means something like "Let´s stop all this nonsense" but is a thousand times funnier in Spanish) called Ramoncito who apparently was a child star who turned to drink and drugs).
I also learned that roupa cheguei is loud embarassing clothing ("I´ve arrived clothes"), as in you get to a party and your clothes shout "I´ve arrived!". The equivalent in Colombian Spanish is to be una lámpara, someone who´s a bit embarassing and wears brutal clothes. I´ve been getting ripped a lot recently for being a lámpara.. Last week i bought a tan leather jacket with turquoise suede bits and silver stripes, it looks like the kind of thing Evel Knievel would be into so maybe the piss ripping is justified. Lámpara pride, entonces!
Cangrejear is to break up with your boyfriend or girlfriend then sheepishly get back together with them. No joda is just the best thing ever, a Costeño phrase which means "away ye go" or "aye right" or many other things besides. Comprar la tiquetera is to make an absolute arse of yourself, to just be the most embarassing thing ever. To say "How undignified" here you say "Que boleta" (What a ticket!), so it follows that if you´ve reached maximum levels of undignifiedness then you aren´t just a ticket, you´ve bought the whole damn ticket machine.
What a great weekend! One thing i´ll say about Bogotá, it´s never EVER boring.
Labels:
bad behaviour,
bikes,
pointing with the lips,
red wine,
roupa cheguei,
udders
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