If the last 2 months of my travels could be described as ¨a rugged yet rewarding adventure¨, my time here in Bogota would have to be ¨a fun, excessive vacation filled with pampering.¨
***FUN***
Last Thursday my cousin Veronica had her first solo art exhibition at a gallery downtown (check out her sculptures and paintings here). I have to say we did work VERY hard during the days preceding the event, and if you should be tempted to ask me to help you wrap something in bubblewrap...don't! I will scream and pull your hair out. :)
The event was a great success. The gallery looked fantastic, there was a very good showing, and she sold at least 10 pieces (the sculptures were very popular). It was also a very nice party with tons of wine, beer, and delicious hors dourves (p.s. that word is a bad spellers worst nightmare). The Matiz family definitely has the hook ups. They have an aunt who owns a HUGE chain of restaurants here called Crepes & Waffles. There are 53 locations in Bogota alone, and they are planning on opening 2 new stores. I ate there a couple days ago. The menu is all encompassing and Miguel wasn't exaggerating when he said that you could eat there everyday for 3 months and never repeat a dish. It's delicious (i.e. I finished off my meal with a crepe filled with Nutella, bananas and strawberries with ice cream...ahhh). Soooo, Crepes & Waffles catered the event with really yummy crepes and mini pitas. As for beer...well, they have an uncle who owns Bogota Beer Company (a microbrew and restaurant), so that covers that. I'm not sure about the origin of the wine, but apparently my uncle Miguel is involved in the distribution of that somehow. So this family definitely has food and beverage covered!
After the show we drank more wine and danced around the gallery (my selection of Madonna's ¨Nobody's Perfect¨ was quickly vetoed). Then we went out and kept dancing until 6am. Let's just say that Friday was mostly a sleeping day. :) I mean, we needed at least one to recover before renting a mini-bus and heading north to Chai, home of the infamous Andres Carne de Res restaurant. I have never seen anything like it in terms of size, decor, and action. I mean, when you walk in they give you a strawberry and a shot of whiskey (ugh), and it only gets weirder from there. There were thousands of people there, all enjoying gigantic portions of meat, potatoes, and in our case...mojitos. The mojitos were so big that it took me an hour and half to drink it. Just in time to hit the dance floor. So we danced until we got hungry again and then bought soup and empanadas across the street - an Andres Carne de Res tradition.
***EXCESSIVE***
If my description of ¨fun¨ wasn't ¨excessive¨ enough, let me just tell you that I have never ate and drank more in my life! I did a little kilo to pound conversion and found out a couple days ago that when I get home I'll be spending a lifetime at Lifetime to get back to a recognizable size. But I'm going to fall back on the old "you only live once¨ saying right now. What? We do! :) hehe
***PAMPERED***
Ok, let me describe a day in the life of Cara Unterkofler right now. I wake up whenever I want (10am would be considered ¨early¨). I get online (I have Sebastian's Mac all to myself) and check my email and go on Facebook to see what's new. When I get a little hungry I walk into the kitchen where Carmen is waiting to serve breakfast. I sit down and tell her in my awesome spanish what I would like to eat, which is cereal (I heart cereal) with fresh fruit, a juice made of fruits I don't know but taste good, and a cafe con mucho leche (I didn't even drink coffee until I got here, but I didn't know how to say ¨no thank you¨ in a polite enough way...so now I drink coffee! :)). And if I wanted...I could have my breakfast brought into my room on a tray. I have never exercised this option, but if I was here long term, I could see cheesy eggs and toast in bed, in my future.
When I return to my room, the blinds are open, the bed is made, and my dirty clothes are gone. I sit in my room and write in my journal, mess around online, and watch movies until my cousin wakes up or someone comes to get me. Then we go to The Club and work out, shower, have some lunch, return to the steam room for a couple hours (get a massage if you want), shower, and go home. When we return home we'll snack on empanadas and chocolate until either we go out to dinner or Carmen serves up a delicious meal (she is from the coast, so there's always lots of coconut rice, plantains, and stewed chicken or meat...or both!). And we'll wonder downstairs where another cousin of mine lives with her family and drink wine and eat more. I go to bed around midnight...wake up to find my bathroom was cleaned the day before and all my clothes have been folded and put into my drawers...and start all over!
And it's difficult for me sometimes to ¨let¨ someone clean up my dishes or make my bed, because my mindset is, ¨I should just do this so that Carmen won`t have to.¨ But the fact of the matter is that is her job, and that`s how things work here. And while it is only a privilege the upper class have, I can see that unlike at home, no one is fighting over who's going to clean the dishes, no one is overly stressed because they have to run a bunch of errands in rush hour traffic after a long day of work. No, they have hired help and drivers that do that stuff for them. So they get to spend more time with their families and friends...and more time enjoying life. I don't know. I'm not prepared to draw up any conclusions, but it's very different.
What I can say for certain is that for me to truly enjoy life's pleasures, I need to feel like I've earned it. I'm having the most amazing vacation here (it's incredible), but I couldn't live like this forever (i.e. not have a job and eat and drink all day). I'm actually looking forward to getting home and ¨getting to work¨. I`m not exactly certain what that will entail yet, but I know that after kicking my ass a little bit, a beer is going to taste twice as nice.
2 comments:
Yeah but don't forget you did EARN this vacation, you worked for like 5 years straight for crying out loud. Enjoy it. We love you and can't wait till you get home.
oh and mike thinks your life sounds a bit like Theo's. He wakes up, hangs out till someone comes and gets him and feeds him breakfast, he gets to play with his toys, while we clean up his room and do his laundry. You and Theo are like two pampered twins except you don't have to eat puree' black beans and acorn squash and sit in your own poop:)
Sloc, Mike and I are on the same page - while reading Cara's last post, all I could think is "Cara = Libby and Carmen = me!" Enjoy it, my dear, you deserve a little pampering! :o)
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