Bogo-TADA

Man oh man. This week was a WEEK. A week of music, mud, and mischief. This week I (how many times can I say week? Week week week.):

• chilled in my apartment way too much. Like, the most I've ever chilled in an apartment before. But guys. This apartment was SO GREAT. It was my gym. My restaurant. My hotel room. My movie theatre. Never have I accomplished so much from bed. (Note to self: always believe the hype in the whole "sleeping is 1/3 of your life buy a good bed" because it is SO TRUE.) 

*sings "Never Gonna Leave This Bed"*

• could not find pickles AGAIN. Guys. If you don't know, now ya know: I love pickles. I even love pickle juice. (They're great for foot cramps. Thanks swim team!) They are my go-to snack and the more sour the better and I have been so deprived this entire Remote Year because I can not find actual sour pickles. They're always some weird sweet ones posing as beautiful sour ones. This is getting frustrating. Is this just a Texas thing? WHERE ARE THE GIANT SOUR PICKLES???? Anyway, I thought I scored with these guys but ended up disappointed, yet again. Sorry, just had to get that off my chest. (Someone please send me pickles. Thanks.)

POSER PICKLES. Although I guess "gurken" may have given it away. Whatever. I don't speak German.

• Cooked a ton. This has been the healthiest I've been all year. YAY. Also, had a misunderstanding with what I thought was a sweet potato. It wasn't. I think it was a yucca? I attempted to make fries and then read something about how they could be poisonous if you don't boil them beforehand. So I threw them away because :shrug:. If I'm gonna die in Colombia, it's not going to be because of a poser potato. Seriously, veggies, wtf this week? 

Tell me that skin doesn't resemble a sweet potato. GO AHEAD. TELL ME.

• had the most amazing lunch at Canasto. Their menu: a beautifully designed YUM CATALOG. (note to self: trademark "yum catalog") and their food looks just as pretty as the pictures. BEHOLD:

• went to ESTEREO PICNIC! This awesome music festival with a pretty killer line-up. I saw so many bands, some of which included: The Weeknd, Justice, The XX, Cage the Elephant, Glass Animals, G-Eazy Bob Moses, The Strokes, Flume, Two Door Cinema Club, Caribou, Vance Joy, Catfish and the Bottlemen, aaaand I WOULD have seen a few other cool ones, except for the fact that Sami and I talked ourselves out of going the last day. A three day fest is no joke. And I was tired as hell. See what had happened was...

• ...I was ready to go. I got dressed (in workout attire because you get super muddy and frankly there's no point in wearing real clothes), threw my raincoat on (necessity) and walked out the door to meet Sami so that we could go to Day Three. Of course, right when I walked out it immediately began POURING rain. I mean monsoon-ish rain. I walked 15 minutes to the bar he was at and arrived sopping wet. I sat down and we had the rest of his beer pitcher as I wallowed in wet, self-pity. Somehow our friendship is so developed that I think we kind of know what each other are already thinking beforehand. And then it happened:

SAMI: Sooooo who are you most excited to see tonight?

ME: eh, I don't know. The first two days were my fave. I'm kinda meh about the line-up but Sublime would be cool I guess. Though I think they're super old and just get really stoned on stage and don't put on a good show anymore. But they can't be worse than how messed up The Strokes were (TRUE STORY. Sidenote: The Strokes were so fucked up on something that they made fun of people that spoke Spanish. IN COLOMBIA. They then proceeded to say, "well whatever, we speak ENGLISH, sorry if you can't understand us". SO EMBARRASSING NO WONDER EVERYONE HATES AMERICA. Ugh. Claiming Canada from now on.).

SAMI: uhhhh soooo are we about to talk each other out of not going?

Yes. That's exactly what happened. What did we do instead? Welllll...first, we went across the street to a Mexican restaurant and had tortilla soup and micheladas. Then we tried to meet up with other folks, but no one was doing anything. Then we were going to go home when I remembered this tiny dive bar by where I lived. Nestled in a tiny strip center next to an "authorized" Apple repair store and an establishment that sold women's undergarments lies "La Taberna Del Rey Arturo". A bar, apparently, that, according to Foursquare, was a "speakeasy" and very fun on the weekends. We opted for this adventure because, well, what else were we going to do? We walked in and were greeted by medieval decor, the sounds of a telenovela over the loud speaker, and a small old man behind a bar with his eyes glued on a television. He looked surprised that we walked in. We walked up and asked, "estas abierto?" and he replied with a simple "si". This was strange. But what did we have to lose? We sat down and took a glance at all the dusty glassware that sat behind him. He turned off the telenovela and we asked to hear music - he deemed Tropical as the winner. We ordered two beers and a bottle of aguardiente because we hate ourselves. We offered to buy the man drinks but he refused. After some small talk, we asked if he had playing cards - of course he did. He proceeded to teach us some card game and we talked with him, only to find out that he used to be a professional futbol player! The walls were covered with photos and newspaper clippings of him - he played on a National team. We didn't notice that it was him until he told us this...WHAT?!? From there, we got pretty drunk and played cards until about 2 AM, then went home to question what the hell happened. All in all, no ragretz. Great night. 

The man. The myth. The legend. 

• went to an amazing, all you can eat and drink brunch. The best kind of brunch. The Click Clack Hotel knows what they're doing, guys. In addition to an awesome venue, beautiful decor, and stellar food, the drinks FLOOOWWWW and there are BOARD GAMES. A group of us went and half of us stayed pretty much the entire day because we're all lushes. I had the best tamal of my life and at the end, the bartender was sweet enough to give us, like, 20 mimosas at last call. All for 80K pesos, which is about 30 bucks. NOT. BAD. AT. ALL. Here's some great photogenic proof. 

• and finally, after said brunch, went to a BBQ at our friend Hilary's house in which things got really weird. See subject Marko below.

But where are your pants?

And that's all she wrote, folks. Bogota may not be a huge "let's go there" place for some travellers, but I guarantee she can knock your socks off if you ditch your original plans and go to an old man's tiny bar. 

COMIN' UP: our last week in Bogota, the first weekend in Medellin, and how Colombia is KILLIN' it, in my book.