The RETURN

Hello.

It´s strange to be back in Colombia. Obviously it´s grand to see everyone again, but i miss home much more this time round. I wish it wasn´t so far, that you could just jouk back for the weekend and not have to think about months and months stretching out ahead of you before you see the people you want to see. Ach but that year there went by ludicrously fast, before we all know it it´ll be ta ta Colombia for good.

So far me and Cherie have found a flat but we don´t move in until the 25th, it´s grand though. It´s up north, on the 4th floor and out the windows you can see over the roofs of the houses up to the mountains. Moving is going to be brutal because of the beds, fridges, sofas which are scattered across the city in various apartments but once it´s all done we can all relax.
At the moment i´m staying in Mark and Paula´s flat in Modelia, it´s a bit of a bummer staying in someone elses flat, i just want to get into my own one and settle in.

However in spite of temporary homelessness i´ve been having a good time seeing all the pals again. Yesterday i´d a cracking English class with Oliver´s girlfriend Ana Maria, she is an art teacher so we worked out how to instruct a class of 15 year olds how to make a plaster cast of their own ear in English. Then i walked about 50 blocks to go to a cheerio BBQ for a chap who´s off to London for a year, just fancied a wee walk but i underestimated the brutal Bogota sun and got rather toasted in the nose region. Nice.

BBQ was a classic Colombian shambles, 5 o´clock rolled around and there was no sight of food, just crowds of men haplessly flapping at a pile of barely smouldering charcoal and the guy who´d been sent out for beer seemed to have disappeared. It was on a terrace on the 12th floor so had an incredible view out over the city, but most of us could only gaze at the people on the terrace to our right which had a family all sitting round a table tucking in to some delicious-smelling slabs of meat, or the terrace to the left which was full of giggly drunk teenagers waving tins of beer and bottles of aguardiente in the air. I gave it up as a dud and went off to meet a pal in Chapinero where we sat in a succession of chusos (crap bars) and drank some well-earned beers.

Today it´s all been a bit of a hungover write-off, however i am smugly celebrating 1 (ONE) week with no fags which i think you will agree is rather astouding. In fact i´m off to the supermarket to buy a pair of JOGGIES (classy) in order to actually do some kind of sports (shock) in the future. Yes it´s all go around here!

Tomorrow me and Cheeky Cherie Elston are off to a free concert in the Parque Bolivar to celebrate the independence of Colombia, hopefully i will be cracking out the dodgy salsa moves and showing these Colombianos what´s what.

I´ll be back with more interesting reports when things have livened up a bit around here, at the moment it´s a tedious quagmire of contracts, bank accounts, ID cards and moving house but in 2 shakes of a lamb´s tail normalk service will be resumed.

Live long and prosper, KM...