Mondays - crap everywhere in the world

There's something quite nice about waking up at 6.30 and hearing rain battering down on the tarmac outside. Only when you have to go to work in it does it lose some of its charm. Bogota is in full rainy-season mode, torrential downpours every afternoon and a distinctly dreich Glaswegian drizzle the rest of the time. This type of weather is excellent for sitting in bars drinking mulled wine, or maybe taking in a flick at the European Cinema festival but MAN it is garbage when you need to go to work. This morning i was supposed to have class at 7 and i got the times mixed up and came in at 8.30, the colleague whose class i missed (understandably) did not look terribly happy. And i've got another class with her at 10.

The worst of all this is i'm sitting typing this in the university coffee shop, excellent chain Oma with wi-fi and delicious cakes and coffee. The scent of coffee floats in thhe air, tantalisingly mixed with a hint of chocolate cookie and cinnamon rolls. And muggins here left her wallet in the house. Thanks Monday!

However, in general things are good here. Me and my colleague Annie wrote an article for the English language paper here about my favourite Sunday morning activity, the San Alejo flea market. I was there yesterday with Sergio and we spent about 40 minutes chatting to the old geezer who runs the currency stall, selling extravagant bills from around the world. He was getting right into it, telling us that the most sought-after Euro coin is the one from Vatican City because they hardly make any, and that it's hard to get wads of small-denomination currency out of Cuba because the customs guys are so corrupt that they take it all off you. I'm taking my 50ps there next week and we'll see what he'll swap me for them. Anyway we wrote an article about this market and they published it in the paper! I'm doing another one for the May edition about the hidden cinemas of Bogota, stay tuned for that one.

On Saturday we had a work BBQ in the apartment of the magically named Jasbleidye. Colombian barbeques are always amazing because the menu never varies, it's always slabs of meat and chorizo with potatoes, platano and guacamole. Since it's always the same food it's been honed to perfection, inevitably washed down with a cold Poker and some inadvisable post-lunch shots of aguardiente. I'd a great time at this barbeque, doing a spot of Julieta Venegas in the karaoke and then gettinng the old salsa moves on the go. Colleagues were on top form, best revelation of the night was the wee chap who told me he had once done a full striptease at his aunt's hen night in order to win a bottle of rum. Respect.

Yesterday i went to see a couple of films at the Euro film festival. First up was a slice of French toss about some bearded chap becoming infatuated with young girls at some lakeside summer resort, it was a total turkey and i fell asleep at one point it was so rubbish. Next one was much better, in the gigantic auditorium of the Universidad Central we saw a creepy number about a bunch of people in Oslo ruining their own and each others' lives, creepiest of all was the scene in which a baby was eaten by seagulls, ouch. It's on til the end of April so hopefully i'll get to see a good number of films.

http://www.festivaleurocine.com/2010/

My mother's response to the hot dog incident:

Hope you are feeling OK now and perhaps contemplating a life of vegetarianism.

Hot dog let down

My time in Bogota is nearly up. In 2 months i'll be on a plane back to Glasgow, crippled under the weight of the portion of two years worth of books stacked into the hand luggage. Preposterous to think i've been here for two years.

Since the holidays I have been generally sooking up the atmosphere in Bogotá, not too much travelling save for a weekend in Villa de Leyva with cheeky colleague Annie during which we tanned a lot of wine while writing articles for the English language paper and went to visit an archaeological site of giant stone phalluses. Villa de Leyva has one of the largest main plazas in Latin America and very nice it is too, especially in that syrupy 5pm light that Colombia does so well:

During Easter I decided to make the most of Bogota without the hassle of having to go to work interefering. The Iberoamerican theatre festival was in full swing and I caught a champion Macbeth in the Parque Bolivar.

So that's a bit of a catch-up, now on to the main topic: scran.

I find the food in Colombia to be endlessly fascinating. From the comforting Boyacense stodge served up by Sergio's gran to the thrilling discovery of a Kola Roman milkshhake in delicious restaurant Diana Garcia (Kola Roman is VERY sweet pink fizzy juice, something in the ballpark of Panda Kola), Colombian scran is a constant adventure. I've eaten fried (unwashed) pig intestines, deep-fried ants, udder, lungs, bizarre root vegetables, goat, shark, stingray, puffer fish, dodgy arepas and other pastry delights from greasy street stalls, haute cuisine Carribbean style and thousands of slabs of mantecada - similar to Victoria sponge but with a hint of aniseed through it (recipe's coming home with me) – from the bakery in front of the staffroom.

And throughout those two years of gluttonny, of eating anything and everything that came my way with never a thought of food hygiene crossing my mind, I never got sick. The iron stomach laughed in the face of pizza left sweating under a heat lamp for endless afternoons, it spat at the feet of Peruvian shellfish rice in a sweltering market stall.

Ironic that this beast of digestion should be derailed by something as prosaic as a hot dog. A hot dog! And not even one of the many dubious hot dogs callejeros i have chomped on in my time - not the limp pink slice of grimmness handed over withh a flourish outside crap amusement park Salitre Magico, nor the crisp-encrusted brute sold outside a nighttime staduium vallenato extravaganza in Valledupar (evidently prepared hours in advance and laughably “heated up”by a 30-second stint on a greasy hot plate).

No, it was a hot dog from respected cinema chain Procinal! I repeat, an establishment hot dog, innocently disguised as part of a combo, its retro gloriousness as it sat there glistening beside the popcorn and the Coke totally obscuring the bacterial holocaust contained within its entrails. And mine too, shortly after. Im sure we can spare ourselves the ghastly details, but ghastliest of all is for the old iron stomach to lose its two year deveoping country gold medal winning streak to a fucking hot dog. The indignity.