The Science Museum of FL

A nice day at the museum. The exhibit was about flight, perfect for Eze, he is so fascinated by aviation!

Offerdal's Cafe my new 'job'

2 months in Sunrise requires a job. One, because Eze goes to school from 9-2 and coaches tennis from 3-8:30. Two, because I could use some income! Offerdahl's http://www.offerdahls.com/ My co workers ended up being great! Offerdah's is located in Weston, an area of FL where a lot of rich Hispanics live, predominately from Venezuela. Needless to say the customers that come in make bank and at times are hard to deal with, especially the rich mama's.


My co-workers...Lester, my boss, and the father of Bella, a one year old princess, cracks me up every morning! Lee, trained me in. He is crazy! He knows all the customers on a first name basis, is jam packed full of energy, and is always trying to practice his Spanish with the attractive Weston Mamis. Dully and Magda, sisters from Colombia, are the line cooks! They are the women who prepare people's food day after day with a smile. Dully basically became one of my best friends in FL, we have loads of fun at work, making fun of each other, cooking up weird snacks, and making fun of the rich and snobby women. Sebastian, Seabass, is a shift lead from Argentina, one nice guy! T.J. is the assistant manager, he is a dad, raper, and wanna be gangster, or so it seems. Anthony the baker who shows up at 4am, wowo, is the comedian of the group! He is actually thinking of doing stand up. Every day at work I am surrounded by great people, and appreciate them inviting me into their lives.

St. Augustine

For one of Eze's classes he had to go on a little field trip to St. Augustine, one of the oldest cities in the USA. To make the trip a little more exciting, he invited me along. We took off form Sunrise, Fl at 3am and arrived in St. Augustine at 9am for the beginning of the tour. Eze's professors were very informative.

After the day long tour, we made our way to ORLANDO!!! Eze reserved a nice hotel, we ordered pizza in, enjoyed a bottle of vodka, and went out to PARTY!

Welcome to Miami Bienvenido a Miami

Celebrating our 2 year aniversary was fun!! We went to a water part up the coast!








It was Eze's first time ever at a water park, VERY EXCITING!

Adios Bogota!

Back to Bogota. After the sisters from V de L kindly invited me to drive back to Bogota with them I arrived to Diana's smoked filled apartment. I spent the next few days getting ready to leave, Florida, was calling my name. I made a few purchases, gifts for friends and family, and did what I loved the most in Bogota. I hung out in coffee shop, met random people, and went out on the town. I also met up with Chris, a Canadian Spanish teacher and avid rock climber, whom I had previous met in another city. He invited me to go rick climbing with him in a town just north of Bogota, Suesca. Suesca is known for the rick climbing, nothing else. We arrived lat at night, found a local restaurant still open, we were starving, and enjoyed the typical chicken, rice, and plantain meal. The next day we geared up and headed to the ROCKS! I ended up doing some pretty serious climbing, a 10a, It was intense, but day fun! We climbed 4 walls, I belayed Chris, and he did the same for me. He did some very technical climbing, while on the other hand, I just tried to make it up the wall. I think I am going to get into it when i arrive back home in Minnesota.

I took 3 means of transportation to get back to Bogota to celebrant my last night there. One bus, the transmilienio, and a taxi. I was not in a hurry but wanted to get back to Diana's house, where I was staying so that I could get ready, finish packing, and have some dinner. I asked her, before I left if she would leave me the keys, in other words, give them to the door man so that he would let me in. Well upon arriving to her apartment, after a very long day, the doorman informed me that she did not leave any keys and that I was locked out. Great! So, I went to a locutorio, and placed a call to her cell, she answered and told me to call back in 10 minutes, well I did, and no answer, in fact she did not answer for the next 2 hours. I finally found her brother cell number, called him, took a taxi to his work, got the key, and let myself in. What a mess!!!

After finally getting sorted, I made my way to the downtown area of Bogota for one last crazy night! I danced the night away with Diana's friends and family, some of my friends from the hostel I stayed at before, and NO DIANA, interesting. Well, We called it a night at 3 am, got back to the apartment at 4am, and I hoped into an airport taxi at 5am. No sleep! The airport was insane, people all over, I finally got the the gate and relaxed until boarding began! home to the good US of A!

Baby Ostrich

the ending of a great trip

Ezequiel left in a hurry. I ended up staying that night at a hostel, the Platypus in an older part of Bogota called, El Candelario. After meeting tons of amazing travelers from all over the world, once again, we hit the town. We walked through the winding narrow streets of El Calendario, drank some chicha, a traditional beer made of corn, strolled along the streets taking with 'hippies' who were selling their artesanias.

Next stop, Vily de Leyva. The bus from Bogota landed me in and the driver literally dropped me off on the side of the highway. From there I found a bus heading to the small town of V de L. Weird thing, on the bus there were 2 Argentina guys who I met in Northern Peru. We exchanged stories about of trips as we rode the bumpy small but to V de L. It is an amazingly quaint town known for its kite flying festival, and is also known as a hot getaway spot for Bogotanos.

I spent the next 4 days in this tiny quiet town getting to know some of the locals.

The German Wine Guy:
I found a map of the city and found the 'to-do-list'. I realized that I could walk to 3 of the places on this list, however it would take me a while. I began my walk, and didn't really trust the map, so I stopped and asked many people if I was going the right way. I ended up stopping at a 'Bodega' a Vineyard, and asked for directions. The old man with a peculiar Spanish accent, who looked like Santa, ended up inviting me for some wine and a little snack; I think he felt bad for me. He then offered to give me a tour of the 'hot spots' and we ended up spending the entire day together. HE took me to view dinosaur fossils, statues from the indigenous, a convent, and an ostrich farm. The ostrich farm was super interesting! The birds were so tall, big-eyed, and bizarre looking. I had never seen one up close. I did do a report in 3rd grade about them, and now I finally got to see them up close and personal! strange

The facts I learned..
-run at speeds of about 74 km/h
-Ostriches usually weigh from 200 to 285 lb
-bird has just two toes on each foot, resembling dinosaurs
-they are farmed for leather, meat, dusters, jewelry, and are also used for racing.

What a fact filled day! The German man, Don Paulino, ended up inviting me back to his home the next day for some more wine, a wine tour, and traditional German food. The bodega was huge, his family was kind, and the others on the tour were teachers from Bogotá, needless to say, it made for some great conversation!

The Sisters:
After trying to use the ATM with no success I asked two women near by if they could help. They ended up inquiring about my journey, and when they found out I was traveling alone, they invited me to stay with them at their cabin in the hills. To find out it would be a safe situation, I chatted with them for a while, and found out the reason they invited me into their home is because their other sister was warmly welcomed into the unites states a while back. What goes around comes around, right? The next two days the sisters introduced me to their 95 year old mother, who fascinated me with the stories of her life, introduced me to traditional foods, arepas, pamela, leche chocoatada. It was a great few days spent with 3 amazing women.