The Hunt

So to continue, we ended up getting a palatial place right next to a bullfighting ring where, it turns out, they also have weekend concerts marketed to screaming teenage girls with surprisingly powerful lungs. These events hopefully won't go very late. There are pockets of nastiness around the city, but we're living in a nice area a few blocks north of the Calendaria (the cool part). A walk to the university takes 25 minutes.
The place is $180/month each, and there are three bedrooms plus an office big enough to sleep in, decent kitchen, three full bath rooms (showers only), two stories, and a balcony. I promise photos are coming.

For the moment the place is pretty empty but on a mad day of shopping yesterday in a sort of underground market in the "sketchy" part of town, something like a mix between Chinatown and a flea market, we managed to get mattresses, blankets and stuff, kitchen stuff, and a handmade table and chairs for nothing compared to how much they would be in the US.

The girls (Marguerite and Noemie -- both French) moved in last night (Olivier -- Greek -- and I want to enjoy the decadence of the hotel until we have to leave) and we had a little housewarming party with gypsy music, greek dancing, and a very slippery parquet floor. Jaime, his gf, and Clara came over for drinks and took us out for our first real night out on the town. The music sucked but it was loads of fun anyway, and the hangover was minimal.

Suits

Turns out I need a suit for working at the International Organization for Migration, where our internship will be. The first or second day after I got there we went to the posh mall in the rich part of town and Olivier and I got suits: $90 out the door, with alterations. I love the third world!

The city

Bogota is a vast city of about 5 million, maybe including the suburbs. Surrounded by mountains, rather oddly placed for a capital city. The northern part of the city is very wealthy and around the snazzy mall up there it really looks like the US. There's even a Blockbuster and a TGI Friday. Foreign students often live up there, frightened away from the much cooler center of town by people who have hardly ever set foot there. It's kind of like moving directly to the Marina after getting to SF.

The city is quite polluted. It would seem that few people have their own cars, but the streets are dominated by taxis and colorful but diesel-exhaust-belching buses. It's painful to see how much smoke is coming out of these things. Taxis are the best way to get around, and they're ridiculously cheap. A 100 block, 45 minute ride cost 8000 pesos: $3.20.

I haven't seen much of the place but I'm gonna get a bike and wander around the place (keeping away from the nasty areas, of course).

Professor Kraft

So I'm officially a professor now! The class is Area Studies: United States (Estudios de Area: Estados Unidos). Good and vague. I met one of the professors teaching the class in Spanish and got her syllabus, but it wasn't as helpful as I'd hoped. After all, I'm not THAT knowledgeable of the history of the US and she's doing a chronological thing with topics like the economy, foreign policy, etc.

So instead of trying to cover broad topics like these, I'm picking stuff I'm interested in and, if necessary, can fake knowing a lot about. Each class is built around a current controversy that I can use to launch into a broader aspect of the US "civilization." For example, the first real class will be about religion and politics, with a student presentation on the reality or otherwise of the separation of church and state in the past few years. Other topics include illegal immigration and the American dream, the power of the Supreme Court, media and politics, lobbying, isolationism and American hegemony, and others to be determined ASAP. Most of the students haven't studied the US in particular so they probably won't be able to call me on mistakes and I should be able to rant about this stuff for an hour or two.

By the way, if you've got any ideas for four more topics, put them in comments. I have until Wednesday to set this all up!

Anyway, after stressing about the syllabus and class topics and everything, still having very little guidance about what I was supposed to do, I managed to finish it at 8:30am for my 8:30am class. Nearly running up the hill to class I burst into the classroom, out of breath and probably red in the face, and encountered my first class.

There are 26 students, which is surprising because they only have one optional class per semester, and they're all so young and cute! We spent an hour going over the syllabus, getting to know each other, and in general doing anything but learning so I let them out 30 minutes early, to my great relief. They're very nice and friendly, and I've got the class clown and teacher's pets pegged already. Oddly enough there are four French exchange students in the class, one of whom I'd met before. We're all going out together tonight and I hope it won't be weird having acquaintances in class.

It was cute how worried some of the students were about the language. Ah yes, reminds me of myself about 10 months ago. Half a dozen people asked me about it after class, since they'd thought the class would be in Spanish, so I'm letting them do the final in English, French, or Spanish, assuming my Spanish improves enough by the end of the semester. I love multicultural situations!

So there you go, my first day as a teacher. To my surprise and delight, I really enjoyed it once the nervousness went away. The real test though will be on Wednesday when I have to give a lecture.

Random fact: it's a real pain preparing a reading list. The library here is really lacking (oh, to have access to the Berkeley library ...) so I have to go with journal and newspaper articles, which means lots of searching and reading.

Like the Mission but without gentrification ...

Five days into my adventure in Bogota and all I can say is that it has been amazing. The people are incredibly nice and helpful, I'm not sure how we would have gotten everything done these last few days without them. We definitely would have taken longer and spent more money than we have. But enough generalities, where to begin?

Ok, so the first day we didn't do much except get taken around the university by this guy Jaime who would quickly become our guardian angel for the rest of the week. The place is beautiful. It's near the eastern edge of the city, right up against the mountains. All the buildings are brick and behind there are guardians with various types of orchids and whatnot. If you look up a bit further all you see is mountain. Lots of green. I'll have photos soon, I promise.

Around the university is essentially one of the coolest areas in town, called the Candelaria. It's sort of the Mission of Bogota. Yes, it's kind of third world, with lots of potholes and run-down buildings, but very colorful. There are tons of little, cheap bars and restaurants, many of them blaring music. Two really cool places are within 30 feet of my office (yes, I have an office ... that I share with my fellow Sciences Po students). When there are lots of people around it's very festive. I guess if you ignore the university campus at the edge, the area is kinda like the Mission but without gentrification.

So the first day we also explored this area looking for apartments but didn't find anything reasonable. Not reasonable here means a nice, two-level furnished studio, great for one person or a couple, for 750,000 pesos, or $300/month. We were trying to find something for the four of us (Marguerite, Olivier, and Noemie are my compañeros on this trip) but not having much luck. Jaime and his assistant were still helping us get around.

Whoops, gotta go pay for mattresses made to order. $60 each. I love the third world!

first news from Bogota

I made it! After 17.5 hours of traveling, I'm now ensconced in a charming hotel somewhere in Bogota, apparently just down the street from the congressional offices. So as long as there's no coup I should be alright the few days I'm here.

Ugh, what a long trip. It started out with me almost missing my taxi. Apparently I'd forgotten how to correctly set my alarm (or wake up early) after only 16 days of vacation, but I made it out. When I got there, the airline was asking for volunteers to be bumped to a later flight, in return for a $500 travel voucher. Eager traveler that I am, I ran over to volunteer and would have happily gone through Texas and still ended up in Bogota at the same time, but they didn't need me. I was crushed. The payoff though was that I did get to see the Miami International Airport! All you need to know is that it's probably the only major international airport in the developed world without (at least paid) wifi access in every terminal. It was barbaric and traumatizing. I eventually managed to find an airport hotel and got the travel insurance I had neglected to purchase before leaving. Whoops.

The plane ride to Florida was uneventful, and the highlight of the Bogota leg was an interesting discussion with my neighbor of the effects of skyrocketing commodities prices on the production of Caterpillar construction equipment. Damn those Chinese! I won't bore you with the details, but here's a random fun fact: the materials needed to make a penny now cost 1.4 cents.

Landing was totally boring, it was 11:30pm so I couldn't see anything. For some reason, my heart was pounding as I went through immigration but the lady didn't even ask any questions and the whole deal was surprisingly efficient. At the baggage claim there was a whole in the wall out to the tarmac where the luggage trucks pulled in. They basically tossed the stuff onto the conveyor belt right next to the opening, which would be nothing special, unless if you remember the opening of the Denver airport with its super-high-tech baggage handling system that wreaked tons of havoc in the early 1990s. People power is still a good way of just getting shit done.

Customs was very quick, but for a change they scanned all the luggage leaving the airport. Rather odd to do it then, but why not? They're the ones dealing with guerillas and whatnot. My ride had been there for an hour but was super nice and got me to my hotel in 20 minutes (ignoring red lights is definitely a time saver late at night). The guy was very nice and spoke good English but thankfully endured my Spanish without complaint. I managed to make myself understood. It sucks to have regressed to a level where it gives me confidence when someone humors me about how well I speak the local language.

I'm going to bed. On a side note, a big thanks to all of you who made my short return to the Bay Area so delightful.

it's just culture shock

recent_return_to_the_US_rant:
Just went to the mall for the first time in ages, and damn, that place sucks! I mean, I never liked it before but I'm astounded at the sheer amount of crap they sell. And the stuff wouldn't be there if it didn't sell, so who are all the dumbasses who buy the same semi-clever t-shirts. I mean (besides me in my impreshionable junior high years)? I went there with the goal of conspicuously consuming, grabbing some shirts or pants and a pair of shoes or something, but the place was so underwhelming I couldn't find any crap to splurge on. I was able to escape to the Apple store though, and lusted after the new MacBooks for a while. So maybe I'm just a shiny-electronics whore, instead of ugly clothes and stupid shoes. Not that I dress at the height of fashion, but damn ...

The level of obesity didn't help get me in the shopping mood either, but I digress.
/recent_return_to_the_US_rant

Misc.

Just in case you hadn't heard, anyone who wants to come out to Roseville (near Sacramento) on Thursday will get to see me relive my teenage years and be a rockstar for an hour: http://www.myspace.com/tincircus

I'm getting back into my favorite ska bands of the mid-90s too. Life is good. Slow Gherkin rocks!


So anyway, read this critique of Al Gore's movie. It's Canadian so it must be ok, right?

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/harris061206.htm

Haven't seen the movie so can't comment really.

Good books and bad books

Haruki Murakami is cool. He wrote "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World", a very odd book about a guy with a mini-world in his subconscious, and it is much better than this terrible description. Took only a day and a plane flight to finish. My first non-school book this year, and it feels soooo good!

New age books about tulips are bad. I'm editing this book for a lady, well, at least I'm supposed to be, and it's such a pain in the ass. It's incomprehensible, boring new age psychobabble. I'd post a section here but not only would that be unethical, I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement ... because otherwise I might go out and tell the world about it? I guess? Oh god, this book suuuucks!

screw you school!

I'm done! Summer at last!!! Sigh ... the end of an era ... and it's about damn time!