Colombia - the country mouse goes to the city

Sunday
Sunday the flight left at 11:30 so I got to the airport around 9:30. Security took all of 5 minutes, so I sat at the restaurant and read while I waited on my coffee to cool to a temperature slightly less than the surface of the sun. The flight to Atlanta was uneventful and I met Coby to let me into the Crown Room so that I could watch my Bengals play with a big screen tv and free munchies.

In the airport, I exchanged money to the local currency. Remember that the Colombian peso is roughly 2,400 to 1 in our favor. So at the end of this transaction, I was a millionaire. Very nice. I carefully folded the stack into my now George Constanza wallet and happily strutted off looking down at all the poor peons that until recently were my financial peers.

The flight to Bogota was also uneventful. I learned a couple of tricks from the travel master: (1) Ask at the desk if there is an open row to be reassigned, and (2) sit in the middle seat so that no one else moves up with you... Works like a charm. The movie was one of those few experiences where it makes you appreciate life. Like how you just wasted two hours that you desperately want back...

We arrived and stood in line to get through Customs for about an hour. Outside the airport, there was a mass of people standing there offering taxi rides, etc… It felt good to see my name on a placard with my driver. I will say though that it was nothing like the commercials – it wasn’t a limousine and it wasn’t full of Bud Light. We checked into the hotel and then went out to dinner (10:30 local).
At dinner we looked at the menu and were amazed by the prices. The menu had a hamburger as 8.500. Now for those of you that travel, you probably see where this is going. For the rest of us, with my wallet containing over 1 million pesos, somewhere in the midst of my decision that when I bought the bar I would tear down the adjacent buildings to build a park – I remembered that they use a "." for a "," – so it wasn’t 0.35 cents but rather $3.54. So my hopes for Colombian domination were quickly dashed.

Monday – Wednesday
The office is in the heart of the financial district. Bogota has had trouble with crime and terrorism in the past, but I feel completely safe here. To get into my hotel on foot, you have to pass three security guards. To get into my hotel by car, you have to have the car searched by a guard with a bomb-sniffing dog. To get into the restaurant that is nearby, you have to pass a metal detector. They do not play.

However, what is odd is that after you go over the barriers, through the security checkpoing, badge in through 2 different doors to the office -- you still have to get a key from the receptionist to go to the bathroom.

We are a couple of blocks away from the office and we walk through an open mall. Over the past couple of days we have settled into a routine.
08:00 we call each other for a wake up
08:30 meet in the lobby
08:45 arrive at work
10:30 first smoke break (I remain simply a second-hand smoker)
13:00 lunch in the mall (more about the food later)
14:00 back to work
16:00 smoke break #4
19:00 leave work
20:00 dinner

When we leaave, we go through the grocery store to get the next day's morning breakfast (2 bottle of Diet Coke each). I have been experimenting with the local drinks and have settled on a no calorie Dasani water that is Jamaica flavored (taste likes Cranberries).