9-21-08

Manny is 4 months old today! It's hard to believe, since he looks like he's about 6 months old! We had a great weekend and hope to share all of the fun with you through our journal below, and pictures.

Thursday and Friday (9/18-9/19)
Not much to report for these two days. We went for walks both days and took a couple naps with Manny. On Thursday, we went to a store called Maku, which is a very large Souvenir shop with 4 floors! We bought Manny a Colombian Soccer jersey, which we'll have his name embroidered along with the number 08 for the year he was born. We took a picture of him in it. (So cute) There is an embroidered wall hanging in our hotel room that Manny just loves to stare at. It's a farm scene, and is very colorful. We found one exactly like it at Maku, so we bought that to put up in his room. We also purchased some fun gifts for friends and family back home. Friday, we walked to the mall, Unicentro. We've done quite a bit of walking, which is helping Johnny and I lose some weight. Let's hope we don't find it when we get back to Minnesota!

Saturday, 9-20-08

We took a trip to the Salt Cathedral with another family from Minnesota.  Steve and his daughter Ellie came with us.  Steve and his wife Carie just adopted their second daughter Emma.  They adoped Ellie 5 years ago.  Ellie and I have become fast friends : )

Our tour guide, Paola, picked us up at 9am and we drove for about an hour north of Bogota.  The salt cathedral is amazing.  The pictures can not do it justice because of course we are in a dark tunnel, but hopefully you can get a feel for what we experienced.  There is also a link below for the salt cathedral's website, where you can read about the history and see more professional pictures.   

Click here to see the Salt Cathedral Website

After the tour, we drove down to the village below and had lunch at a beautiful Colombian restaurant.  We had Ajiaco soup, which is a very popular dish in Colombian cuisine.  It's like Chicken soup, but it's very thick with a potato base.  It's got half of a cob of corn in it along with chicken and other veggies.  You put fresh creme', capers and avacado in the soup.  Yummy!  After lunch, Ellie and I went out to the playground because she was dying to get out and play.  She showed me a few tricks on the monkey bars, and then said, now you try it.  Yeah Right!  I tried hanging from the bar and I felt like my arms were going to come out of my sockets.  Getting old, is so much fun : )  Our tour guide was a lot of fun, and of course Johnny had her laughing so hard, she was crying.  She wants to bring us on more tours while we're here, so we'll have to take her up on that.

Sunday, 9-21-08

Another Sunday taking advantage of the streets being closed for pedestrians.  We walked to a beautiful old part of Bogota called, Santa Barbara.  We saw the Zona Colonial (Colonial area), which consists of the Santa Barbara church (constructed in 1665 and modernized in the 20th century), the old country manor of the same name (now a mall), seminaries, schools, and the famous Mercado de las pulgas, which is the large flea market. We also had lunch at a wonderful restaurant where I had some of the best roasted chicken I've ever had. It was right up there with The Redstone's fire roasted chicken.  We are now snuggled in for the night and almost ready for bed.  We can't believe we will be starting our third week here already!  Fortunately, time has been moving very fast.  The strike is still going.  We heard that they will meet again for negotiations, this Thursday.  We are praying for resolution!  Have a great week, and we'll try to post more this week.  

Love,

Dulcie, Johnny and Manny