冒険 साहसिक कार्य การผจญภัย aventura ماجرا: Halloween, Snacks, & Slippers

I woke up around 11 AM yesterday morning, giving myself a whopping 12 hours of sleep to shake off the jet lag of a red eye flight that landed at 4:30AM Sunday.

My "host siblings" had classes, so I spent the "morning" working in my Spanish grammar workbook (my Spanish is passable, but I feel retched when I make a mistake...), and brushing up on literature reviews, in an effort to inspire myself to get to work.

Laura, my host sister, returned from class at 1, and we headed out for lunch at a little restaurant near her university. It was about 8 blocks away, and we walked, which was lovely. I ordered a vegetarian sandwich and an iced tea - yum!

The owner/chef at this cute little restaurant came out and started chatting with me in English - his mom is from Boston, his family lives in Miami & Baltimore, etc. We talked for about an hour, and then he asked me if I wanted to come with him to bring his dog to doggy day care. It felt a wee-bit strange, but Laura said it was cool, so we walked 4 doors down with his pup Okesh. While we were there, he mentioned he had a kitten, and when we got back to the restaurant he brought me up to his apartment above to show me his 4 month old kitten - so cute!

Laura's friend Sergio had joined us mid-way through the meal, and the 3 of us left Okesh the restaurant and walked about 20/25 blocks to the nearest station for the TransMilenio, a bus system that runs along the main highway in Bogotá, which we hopped on and rode to a gigantic shopping mall. There we wandered and then stopped for a snack in a popular restaurant here - "Waffles & Crepes," where I had a scrumptious champagne glass full of passionfruit sorbet!

We spent a bit more time in the mall, stopping at a halloween shop, which led me to believe that halloween is at least as big a deal here as it is in the US (bummer....)