The happs:

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With this working 6 days a week while maintianing a social life, I´m not going to be updating the blog very much. Besides now it has now turned into everyday sort of things and I don´t think they´ll excite you too much anyways. Do, however, keep checking every now and then for a new entry!

So I´ll try to give the highlights in short:

1) My bday. Yamile threw me a surprise bday party! It was complete with a bakery-bought cake, located on the rooftop of Blue House Hostel, with my Blue House family and a few other friends. The girls there had actually offered the rooftop to me the day before for my bday. Yamile must have sprouted this idea once I had told her in-shock that they wanted to open the place up for me. It was sooo great, and Yamile is amazing! It´s soo great to have her here (heh, not just for bdays)!

2) Blue House gave me a week´s worth stay for FREE!!! Totally didn´t see that one coming! They´ve continued to be awesome to me. They knew I needed yet another week and presented this generous gift to me during my surprise party! So awesome!!

3) A week had passed since my bday, and I was supposed to have left Blue House, but I ended up staying an extra night since there was still nothing to be found. First, it was the week before Semana Santa (Easter week): no one really works. Then it was Semana Santa, absolutely everyone was on vacation, so really no glitter of hope there. Then the week after that, Obama came to town and he ruined all the fun. There was super high security everywehere, and I mean over the top high security (ie. everything was shut down; restaurants, bars, stores, etc..). They weren´t even allowed to sell alcohol (though beer was still sold, apparently it´s not alcohol??)! So aboslutely no one was working that week either. My friend Andres, that was to live with us, told me not to worry. Next week we´d for sure find something, but with this continuous episode of unfortunate events prohibiting people from working, made me not so optimistic -as I´m sure you can only imagine. So I had this offer from my Uruguyan boss to live next door, seriously next door to the hostel I work at, in a room from this old lady in her house. I decided to take it, since I needed to be out and just couldn´t ask the Blue House for more time. This week, as there´s always something, Yamile and Peter suddenly left to Peru until May 6th, for this mediation thing. They had to leave so abruptly, because they've just managed to get the last 2 spots. So that means I have to hold off a while longer on findng a place. But 2 of the guys I work with also want to live with me. Accodring to them, when I first came, I apparently had already promised I would live with them. They want to find something for next month. At least I have that option, which will most likely happen as Yamile´s plans could change in case of epiphany while meditating.

4) The old woman. She was hesitant at first at letting me in, though she wants me in her house to make some money. At first, she didn´t want to give me a copy of the key to the outside door. My boss and I tried convincing her how ridiculous that idea is. Obviously, she´s not going to want to open the door for me in the middle of the night for my drunken booty, nor is it right if she wants to leave the house and I might need to get in. So she finally gave in the day after I moved in. Her problem was she was worried about me losing the key and not replacing it. Apparently, if a Colombian loses the key, they wouldn´t dare think they are the ones that need to replace it. It´ becomes the landlord´s problem. Luckily, my boss managed to convince her that us 'foreign folk' are of a different breed. We expect to have to pay for a new lock or key, should we be at fault for losing the thing. -Silly foreigners, how practical! But the thing about her giving me the key, is she baracaded me out my my second night there!! My good friend Willie from home plus his friend, Pang, came to visit on Wednesday. Of course, I took them and a group of other guests from the hostel to a big event that happens every Wednesay. Naturally, it turned out to be a wild and crazy night. I returned at about 5am, soaking wet from a random 'after the club dip in the ocean,' to find that my key wasn´t working! So I went to my hostel and had Alfonzo, a guy I work with, help me but he couldn´t open it either. In an instant, he decided that ringing the doorbell was necessary. He rang it and immediately ran away, leaving me there alone!! Ahhh!!! Doorbell ditch!! She answered without a problem though and since then, hasn´t barraced it!! Haha! Woopsy!

The other problem, I can´t really use the kitchen whenever I want or need to. My room is located outside her main entrance to the house (the set up is very hard to describe), so if she´s not there, she locks the door to her part of the house. This means I can´t get to my food in the kitchen if I need to! Luckily, I´m at work almost always or with friends, so leaves little time to need her kitchen, though I´m sure I´ve got some rotten Mortadella in there by now that I would have loved to have eatten! Urgh.

Also, I can´t have friends over, which kills me, especially because Willie and his friend are here. There are three, count them THREE beds in my room! I can´t even let them in to show them what it looks like, let alone help them save some money and have them stay with me! Nuts!!! So I need to get out toute suite -though I must admit it is a great room, Grandma is nice to me, and is warming up to me as well.

5) Willie is here!!! He´s working his way up from Argentina to home in California, and had to make a stop in Colombia for a visit!!! Soooo awesome to see a familiar face, and he cooks me dinner and breakfast while I´m busy working away! Score! I just feel really bad he happened to come at the sametime as Obama; and therefore, everything was shut down so he got to see a completely different Cartagena. But he did get here a few days before Obama came, and during the weekend of Obama I sent him and a few others to the islands, which they friggin loved! He left the other day though for Taganaga (3 or 4 hours away), but I very luckily and coincidentally happened to get a three day weekend off this weekend!!! So I´m going to go meet him in Santa Marta for the weekend! Off to get some killer hiking and beaches in! His friend, Pang who´s from London and wildly fun, already left. We´ve also picked up a new traveling friend, an actor from Germany, named Stefan. He´s super cool and went with Willie to Taganaga, so I´ll see him there too!

So that´s everything in a nut shell. Sounds more negative than it really is...or maybe I´m just used to this ridiculousness by now, so it´s not so bad. On a super positive note, I already know so many random people around here. Literally, everytime I walk around my neighborhood, somebody is waving or saying hello to me -one of my aboslute favorite things that always happens when I live abroad!!! I realized it the other day, and was surprised by just how many people I already know! It´s also worth mentioning to all of you out there who are concerned for my saftey: while I was still living at Blue House, I went out for my manager´s and co-worker´s (at El Viajero) bday party, and we pulled an all-nighter. I didn´t return until 1pm the next day! The next evening, I was speaking to the ex-receptionist, Marisol, and she asked me where the heck I was the night before as everyone was so worried about me. The new night-boy at Blue House had gone to her house (next door), to tell her that I had never returned! Apparently, the cops came looking for me (there are night cops that patrol outside of Blue House and when I worked there, pretty much patroled from the inside..they all like me) since they had noticed that I still hadn´t come back! Of course, the morning staff had to hear about it since I still wasn´t back by the morning. They wanted the others to be aware and on the look out for me! I´ve never had so much surveillance in all my life!!!! Crazy!! Though despite all of these spies, I do feel loved and a lot more safer than I already know I am! So don´t worry about me out there! Hehe! I´m in good hands!

Well back to work and then straight off to meet up with Willie and Stefan, and possibly bring a few Colombian friends with me! So stoked for these three days off!! Much needed! Oy!

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