.Wow, first day and I survived! In fact, everything feels better than I had somehow expected.
So you want to know where the best pub in Colombia is and what it is all about?! Patience, and carry on reading.
Opening the „Monkey Pub“
The pub is called „The Monkey Pub“ and is directly in Bogotá. It’s all brand new, in fact, yesterday night was the opening night. And some friends of mine (the „WaterBoyz“) and I were invited to take part. Cool! Not only the pub of course, but also the fact to be invited to such a premiere. And coolest of all are of course the owners, who happen to be those friends of mine getting married this weekend. So of course it comes in handy that the Monkey Pub is to be opened at the same time 😉
Matt and Andrea organised a really nice party. Welcome beer, later even more beer, Colombian coffee, wonderful fingerfood and Margaritas. Actually, Tero, Andreas and I found that after tasting the latter, they probably deserved the title of „Mother of Margaritas“ 🙂
Imagine therefore a couple of friends who have been knowing each other for more than 10 years now, coming together in Bogotá, sitting together and having once more the fun of their lives. And all that in the stylish Monkey Pub, that ingeniously understands to combine traditional pub elements with the design of a hip new place. Folks, a pity you couldn’t be there, too *gg*.
If you happen to be around here some time, give it a try and get to know owners and staff. The adress is
Carrera 5 # 71-45 2° piso Bogotá CundinamarcaI will post the website, as soon as I have found out 😉
As for what else happened, keep on reading…
Our visit in Matt’s pub was just the wonderful finish of a long day. It all began already at 4.00 in the morning, when I got up after about 1 hour of sleep to get geared for the journey. At 5.00 Petra picked me up and took me to the airport (thanks a million for that! I hope I am not guilty of permanently changing your sleep/wake-rhythm 😉 )
Enroute with AUA and AirFrance
The flight to Paris was nice and very usual, with AUA. They were so kind to leave a seat free next to me, so that I had enough space. A bit different then the situation in the AirFrance plane from Paris to Bogotá. Though very functional seats even with adaptive headrest, the seat space was „limited“: i.e. when my frontman leaned back, I couldn’t put my legs straight in front any more. But then again the food was more than excellent – actually thanks to AirFrance I began to understand what french cuisine could mean …
Well, what should I say: 11hrs or so flight time over the Atlantic ocean which lay below us it seemed in magic tranquility. Though scattered cloudy, there seemed to be no waves – as if the Atlantic was the most peaceful ocean of the world. And it seemed endless – blue water, whereever you would look to. We crossed the Azores, later the Caribbean Islands, but I could get a glimpse only of the latter. The imagination of sailing there (and diving of course) between the islands is funtastic!
Putting my beginner’s Spanish to use
Interestingly enough I had the opportunity of already testing my spanish a bit. On the flight from Paris to Bogotá I met a nice Colombian (no Petra, she was not sitting next to me – I had a non-english, non-spanish speaking Chinese boy as neighbour). Together with some other passengers we helped a bunch of Chinese to fill out their customs declarations for Colombia – unbelievably they didn’t speak a single word English, nor French, nor Spanish. It looked like they were all invited by their „cousin“ to work in his chinese restaurant…
Anyway, I got to talk to the Colombian girl, and we ended up talking about her and her friends (business?) trip to China, talking half Spanish, half English. And we understood each other!!! Sonia and Rocío, thanks to you for getting me that far in such a short time!!!
And later, I could use my Spanish even more. Matt sent his driver to pick me up from the airport. It turned out, that the guy was also responsible for Matt’s security. We had a nice conversation during the journey from the airport to the hotel and it was all Spanish! 🙂
Finally in the hotel I just had time to check in and refresh a bit, before I met again my good old friends from Finland and Sweden. It was and is so good to be together again and exchange news, gossip, … and I am very much looking forward to our next few days together.
Well, folks, that’s it for now. In 10 minutes we leave again to fly to Cartagena de las Indias and enjoy ourselves there for some days.
Best wishes to all of you!