Car bombs and castings

I'm on TV! Well, on the one in the casting studio.
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Hadn't planned on spending 2 and a half weeks in Bogota but it just kind of happened.  Didn't really do any touristy things for the first week and a half other than climb Montserrat, which is a big hill on the edge of Bogota that has a church on top and is the focus of a Sunday pilgramage for Bogotonians (not sure that's what people from Bogota are called but that's what I call them).  Really nice views from the top but it's a long walk and if you've been drinking the night before, you might feel ill.

Toma, toma, toma....
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Everyone seemd to want to salsa the nights away and there were some good clubs.  People have tried to teach me and all have given up.  Lack of movement in the hips and lack of coordination all seem to point to a life without salsa dancing.  Sadly no pictures exist of my attempts to salsa.  Shame!

The most bizarre thing that happened in Bogota was that I almost made it big in Colombian TV.  Maria and I were sat outside a cafe having some lunch when I (not Maria, but me) got approached by 2 Colombians and asked if I wanted to go to a casting for Agua Cristal tomorrow.  Well, what do you say?  I mean, it's not everyday you get invited to do this sort of thing.  So, after convincing Chris, Si and Maria to come along for moral support and the chance to be on TV, we donned our best clothes, practiced our poses and catwalk walks and headed for the casting.

Check out that pose! Nice!
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At this point I should make it clear that Si and Chris don't speak any Spanish and were just coming along for 'shits and giggles' as Si put it.  I was being kind of serious about it.  I wanted to be a Colombian TV star.  The non-English speaking receptionist at the agency nearly had a fit after Si and Chris kept asking her things in English over and over again.  Everyone else in the waiting room was being serious about their big chance on TV.  We were just messing about.  Si and Chris went for a beer whilst we were waiting.  I did my hair.  Camilo, the guy doing the casting almost broke down when he heard that only myself and Maria spoke Spanish.

Si giving it his all.
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The casting went like this:

• Look at the camera and smile,
• Turn to the side, look at the camera and smile,
• Turn around,
• Speak in Spanish about yourself (or if your Chris and Si, speak English, or Maria, speak Norwegian)
• Take a bottle of water, turn to the side, drink from the bottle, turn to the camera and smile,
• Repeat on the other side,
• Have som photos taken of you smiling.

It all sounds amazingly cheesy, and it was.  I managed to speak for about 50 seconds in Spanish and the rest in English.  God knows what they thought of Maria's Norwegian.  Camilo was very glad to see the back of us and practically pushed us out the door.  I was quite surprised to get a call a few days later for another casting.  This pretty much followed exactly the same lines but I had to speak, in Spanish, about the food in Colombia and how it compares to English food and why the Colombiana (fizzy drink) was ideal to accompany any food.  Great!

Chris arsing about.
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Anyway, other than the showbiz side that my travels have seem to taken, we went bowling.  Now, you might think that sounds crap, but when the bowling alley has a guy at the bottom of the lane to put the skittles up and push your ball back to you, it suddenly becomes a bit more exciting.  Granted, not that exciting, but still, you can shove your Superbowl!

One last thing.  It was the Presidential inauguration (?) when I was in Bogota.  That meant loads more police with bigger guns and car bombs going off in various parts of the city and other cities in Colombia.  Didn't hear any explosions and no-one around us was panicking so didn't really car too much.  Anyway, the procession passed off peacefully as did the Bogota Carnival.  Other than that, a bit of shopping was done (bought some boxer shorts!) and that's about it.  Oh, the owners of Hostal Sue get a once-a-week delivery of the best brownies ever!  And they have a very crazy kitten.

Maria 'working it'.
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One very last thing, a lot of the photos are from the Museo Del Oro, which is really good and well worth a visit.  Haven't got a clue what half the things are but they just look strange.  I dare say the museum labels had something interesting to say about the items but I can't remember what that was.  Make up your own stories.  Also went to the Botero museum (Botero is a famous Colombian painter from Medellin).  He paints things very fat, like a fat Mona Lisa, and fat van Gogh Sunflowers.  It's quite interesting but you get bored of fat things after a while.