Updates

I've found a new Wi-Fi spot in Los Rosales. It's called Author's and it's an English-language bookstore with an adjacent cafe that sells, among other things, grilled cheese sandwiches, one of my favorite delicacies. Maybe it's not very open of me to seek out an English language bookstore as a hang-out, but it’s nice to have something that reminds you of home when you’re away. Maybe because I’m an English major and a writer, I should like tiny, intimate bookshops, but (except for my family and friends) there’s nothing I miss more about the U.S than the monstrous proportions of Barnes and Nobles and the wonderful, crisp smell of new books and overpriced coffee. Just thinking about it makes me feel nostalgic. To me, there are few smells as wonderful as that of a new book, especially a paperback.

Anyway, Author’s is medium-sized, organized, and they play that laid-back jazzy coffee-shop music so popular in U.S. bookshops. It's about a 20 block walk from my apartment, but leaving the house makes me feel like I'm at an office, resulting in me being more productive. Plus, I get my exercise in, as I haven’t found the motivation to join and actual gym yet. Maybe someday.

So I was exploring my northern England meets Munich meets impoverished Soviet-era Eastern Europe neighborhood (changes by the block), and can report that my local surroundings include half a dozen pet shops (very sad to see puppies in tiny cages), an esoteric bookstore, a cozy little pizza place, more lamp shops than one could ever need, several bakeries and plenty of those huge, unique old houses now divided into several apartments or businesses and in a sad, but slightly artistic, state of disrepair. I feel like I live in the D.C equivalent of Columbia Heights, except my neighborhood is de-gentrifying while Columbia Heights up and fell and is now up and coming. It has that look of faded grandeur, like once upon a time it was a well-kept middle upper class neighborhood, but as Chinua Achebe would tell you, “Things Fall Apart.”

I suppose that by living where I’m living I’m transferring my U.S. mentality to Colombia. If I were living in the U.S., I’d be sharing one of those old south Arlington, U-Street or Columbia Heights homes with an economist, non-profit worker and grad student. Maybe a slightly rebellious act on my part to want to live somewhere edgy, previously disregarded and with a little bit of a bad reputation, and maybe wrong of me to try to apply my American ideas in a foreign country. A phase I’ll probably grow out of when I no longer care about being provocative in that way. So I’m applying my yuppy mentality to Bogota even though it’s different here, and in many ways, you’re judged by where you live. In the U.S., people might think I was a “cool, hipster-type chick” if I said I was moving to U-Street; here, I get whispers from people who think I’m a confused foreigner who is unaware of what’s best for herself. Maybe they’re right, but being young and not taking advice very well, I’ll have to find out on my own.

I’ve always liked to find beauty in strange places, to feel like I’ve discovered something, to feel like I’m seeing something most people can’t; very arrogant sounding of me, but everyone likes to feel like they’re special. And in my neighborhood, with all those beautiful (if slightly decaying) brick houses, unkempt front yards and older-model cars, I can imagine what was and what could be, which is sometimes better than seeing what actually is, if that makes sense. But of course, if we went back to when the houses were well-kept, the lawns perfectly manicured and the cars the latest models, the neighborhood wouldn’t have appealed to me. I don’t know what that says about me.

But either way, I like my new place and neighborhood. My apartment feels like home. I want to hang pictures on my bedroom wall, by a nice frying pan and invite friends over for dinner. I don’t know that I’ll stay here for too long because I’d eventually like to have my own place, under my name, but for now, it seems perfect.