musings and house hunting
A weekend of walking. Since we could not find any suitable flat in the newspaper on Saturday morning over coffee, we took to the streets: classic Colombian house hunting. Caused me to develop a fixation with pieces of paper with red writing in windows. What you want are nice big posters with the hopeful letters "Arrienda". Then a quick questioning of the guard at the entrance of the building, and if the answer is: yes, three rooms, a breathless phone call to the number indicated on the same poster.
That way we found four apartments in our neighbourhood and confirmed that
a) our neighbourhood is expensive (well at least most of it)
b) our neighbourhood is mainly for singles or couples
c) we live close to the mountains
d) we love our neighbourhood
e) we do not want to live anywhere else.
We were shown an incredible apartment on the 12th floor, overlooking all of Bogotá, with a balcony whose wall just about reached my hip. Sure we want it, sure also that the rest of Bogotá wants it: like in any good capital we were 11th in the queue to see it, and after us at least 6 further interested parties followed. We are in the process of filling in a form, gathering papers from all across Colombia and generally following a bureaucratic and important sounding process.
More futile walking, phone calls and sunshine with wind that reminded me of the Dutch coast.
Sunday I spent working, drinking organic coffee and eating a giant patacón and brownie with ice-cream in Parque Virrey in a food festival called "AlimentArte". And walking. On the way there in the middle of 7th street, normally busy as any 6-lane street cutting across town can be. But Sunday until 2pm it is part of the network of "Ciclovía": streets that are closed to normal traffic so that Rolos (people from Bogotá) and all non-original Bogotá citizens can show off their dogs, kids, bikes, roller blades and running shoes.
The way back I was alone, enjoying wind and calm of 9th street, with its plants and colours, turning into warehouses next to shiny blocks of flats next to old European-style houses. That part of the 9th always reminds me of my old area in London around Borough Tube station.
At night: how to dismantle a flat in 3 hours. I discovered that my bed (which I do not own) can be separated into 7 pieces plus wooden planks, and finally figured out how to fold our folding chairs properly so that they stack neatly.
Our fridge (of which I own one third) is way too big.
This morning: cooked a breakfast for everyone with everything from the fridge. Tasty. Only missing: coffee, my "mokka" was already in some box.
Then ordered a truck. Will I ever get over the fact how damn cheap labour is around here? Amazing: you order a proper truck with driver and helper by calling the taxi number.
Truck loaded with JuanK sharing a space in the back with the helper boy to take Jenn to her new room, and the rest of the stuff to Iván's house across town. His family now has to deal with the property (more or less neatly packed in Carulla and other assorted plastic bags) of three displaced MC members. Including oversized fridge, 7 pieces of my bed, 5 pieces of Pipe's bed, folded and stacked chairs and table. Jenn's room is adorned by mountains of blankets, left-over food, and the glass part of the fridge (the part that covers the vegetable drawers on the bottom).
Then back to our favourite neighbourhood, finding another flat we really want, up just on the corner of 1st street, view of mountains, a ruin that they never finished building, and a flashy urban development squashed against trees and brush. Now in a second version of bureaucratic process that sounds important and involves papers sent across the country to be signed in different places by different people.
I am now officially adopted by Iván until we can move into a home. MC life out of a suitcase.
