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.