Once we check in to our accommodations for the week we crash. I am able to sleep a couple of hours and Rudy not so much. Our 8th floor loft is exactly out of an IKEA catalogue. It makes very good use of very little space. It is really like a glorified motorhome. Rudy can stretch his arms across the width and basically touch both of the walls. But the bed is comfortable and there is a pot to boil water for tea so I am satisfied.
We foray out to get some cash and a phone card for me. Because everything is so new we are bamboozled by many things. The Colombian pesos are hard to figure out. One Canadian dollar is approximately 3,000 pesos. We have worked up an appetite after procuring a whole ton of pesos from the ATM so we stop for some street empanadas. Who knows how much they cost?
The man says something that neither of us understand and Rudy gives him a 100,000 peso note. Did we just give him 10 dollars or is it 100 dollars? The man gives Rudy a fistful of cash back, Rudy smiles as if he understands, and we head off. Were we ripped off? How much is a piece of fried dough stuffed with meat? We have no idea. Next, we comb the streets for a Claro phone shop. We finally find one and the man is super nice. He explains a whole bunch of stuff about the money and the phone cards and we feel like idiots. The one thing we come away with is that Rudy was ripped off at the airport for his phone card. We slink on back to our apartment to count our stacks of cash and see if we can figure out how it all works.
In our walk around the neighbourhood in the morning we found a Cinemateca that was holding a film festival during Janurary. We find a film called Aqui that is in English with Spanish subtitles. Perfect! The film is not perfect but I try to get my Spanish brain in gear by reading the subtitles to see how much I remember. The Cinemateca is like a cultural centre that holds all sorts of film classes etc. and is impressive.
For supper we go out to a beautiful old restaurant in an ancient building. It is quaint with quirky art painted directly on the walls. We have a lovely attentive waiter who hovers and anticipates our every whim. We have arepas for an appetizer (corn meal paddies filled with cheese). I have some sort of traditional soup with chicken and vegetables and rice and avocado. Rudy has some delicious ravioli. It is a great way to start our Colombian adventure.