So long and thanks for all the fish*

Criminal Minds is on right now. 

Again.

It's on every night here, one of the only shows in English so we seem to watch it a lot. The wife of one of Peter's co-workers used to work homicide with the RCMP in Vancouver. I once asked her if she ever watches shows like the CSI and Criminal Minds type shows. She said that she COULDN'T STAND all the CSIs, but that Criminal Minds and Cold Case were both pretty accurate. 

I'm going to miss it, I think... along with a certain Dr. Reid.

* * * * * * * * * * * * 

Although I've written all year about our time here and the things we've done, I haven't spent much time describing some of what makes it such a special place. I've left out a lot of details.

Like the smells.

While I definitely won't miss the smell of the Septima with its thousands of unruly taxis and almost equal numbers of obnoxious smoke-belching buses, there are many smells here that will always make me think of Colombia... the scent of rain in the air (which happened probably 80% of our days here!), corn grilling on street corners and meat grilling on parillas, smoke from cedar and eucalyptus wood fires, and the sweet scent of jasmine flowers (now one of my all time favourite smells).

And the sounds.

The ringing bells of the church next to our apartment building, the buzz of the gate letting cars and people into our complex, the somewhat-out-of-place-yet-completely-normal sound of horses' hooves on the pavement below, the bells of the propane trucks, the vendors in the market, the "buenos dias'" and "buenos tardes'", the "permissos" and "gracias'", the buzz of the phone in the kitchen when the portero would call up, the sound of our doorbell early on Tuesdays and Fridays signalling the arrival of our maid...

Ah, Rosalba, our maid.

At first I was completely against the idea of having a maid. I didn't need help. I didn't like the idea of some stranger being in my house, doing my laundry, touching my stuff. Someone I couldn't even communicate with. Then I got pregnant and so sick I could barely drag myself out of bed before noon. A person gets used to not cleaning bathrooms or the kitchen, or changing beds, or vacuuming, or doing laundry pretty darn quick, letmetellyou. Having some help around here (even if it was only two days a week compared to most people's five) has been nothing short of phenomenal.

But Rosalba is definitely not the only person I'll miss. 

There are other people... great, lovely, amazing people.

The friends we've made here have been really wonderful. The Canadian Embassy is not huge, and there are definitely some, uh, "colourful" personalities within its walls, but in general it's a really nice group. Even though our post was only a year long, most everyone embraced us -and our growing family- with open arms. Many (both Embassy staff and others from the expat community) went above and beyond to make us feel welcome and at home and cared for and loved.

* * * * * * * * * * 

As I sit here, it's after 1am and I'm sure I'm going to be tired in the morning. That will, however, hopefully make the nap I have planned for the afternoon even more effective.

You see, we have this wee overnight flight with four kids that leaves Bogota just before midnight tomorrow night.

(Or more than likely after midnight since the flights from here are rarely on time.)

DOESN'T THAT SOUND LIKE FUN??

Even though we haven't left yet, I'm already feeling a bit nostalgic about this place. This country. This city. These people and the year we've spent among them. I honestly don't know if I'll ever be back here...

There is much I'll miss.

*10 points** to the first person to correctly identify the origin of my post title and tell me who said it.

**In this case, the 10 points will actually be a tagua (also known as "palm ivory") ring that I picked up at the market today. You'll have to agree to send me your full name and address, or we'll arrange to meet if you're local.

ETA: I published this post at 1:12am, and although Kelly commented at 3:01am (so says google reader), Sara aka @squirrellykoala responded to me via twitter (since she couldn't get the comments to work) at 2:21am. I am impressed that you both knew the answer AND THAT YOU WERE BOTH UP SO LATE. The correct answer is, OF COURSE, that "So long and thanks for all the fish" is a parting message from the dolphins before they leave earth prior to its destruction in the fourth book "in the increasingly inaccurately name Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy" and is also and also the title of said book. Congrats Sara! We'll touch base when I'm back and unpacked.

loose ends

Have I really only posted once since July 15th? Hard to believe that much time has gone by, yet when I think about all that's happened it seems incredible that we fit it all in!

Little Eloise (or Lolo, as Andrew calls her) is now eight weeks old. Holy smoke! She's still as sweet as can be and is far more amazing than any parent of a newborn has the right to hope or dream. She cries only when desperately hungry (which rarely happens as she's on her own schedule and I feed her whenever she seems to want it), when she's having trouble burping (which she does seem to struggle with a bit), or when she's tired of having the hiccups for the sixth time that day. She rarely ever spits up... even when I'm too lazy to burp her in the middle of the night. She often has a 6-7 hours stretch of sleep each night... she wakes up less than Andrew! She's smiling more and more each day, and has even treated us to some little giggles. The boys eat it up and I'm sure it will be no time before they're constantly competing to see who can make her laugh (with Andrew having a wee melt down when it's not him).

Also during this time, Peter and I left the boys here in Bogota with my mom (bless her!) while we travelled back to Canada to shop for a new house. While Colombian women traditionally don't take their babies out of the house until after 40 days, Eloise travelled internationally, stayed in a hotel, visited several new restaurants and pubs, went to her first tweetup, went shopping, met almost all our amazing friends for the first time, and travelled home. 

We saw twenty-two (22!) different houses in two (2!) days before finally deciding on one. It came down to a choice between two very different homes... My choice had a loft, finished basement, MASSIVE although super empty yard that backed onto the highway, but walking distance to a school. Peter's pick had bigger rooms, a garage, a smaller yet more mature yard, nicer finishes, partially finished basement (that we can finish to suit our needs), but will mean a bus ride to school for the boys (should we send them). I was almost in tears the night we had to decide from the stress of it all. In the end, I convinced myself to like Peter's choice and he decided he'd be much happier in a place where I was happy. Aren't we cute? Truthfully, we would've been happy in either place, but we put an offer in on the one Peter liked. In all honesty, come winter -and snow and ice and freezing cold weather!- I'm sure I'll be plenty glad for the garage (which the other house didn't have) and will happily declare it was MY IDEA ALL ALONG.

On the way home our flight from Ottawa to Toronto was cancelled, putting our connecting flight to Bogota in great jeopardy, making me freak out a bit since the boys had been promised they'd see us that night and prompting me to snap at the Air Canada ticket agent. After sitting around for an hour waiting to find out if they could route us through Chicago, New York or Miami, it turned out that the flight to Bogota was actually going to be delayed enough that we could get on the next flight to Toronto and still make our connection. And while waiting, we met a Colombian lady travelling to Bogota alone with her two small kids who not only all speak French and a bit of English and Spanish, but the mom also babywears and they live a few blocks from our new house! Not sure what the odds of that happening are.

During our trip, I joked with Peter that we should be taking different planes. We're like the President and Vice President, and shouldn't be travelling together. What if the plane went down??

But it didn't. The boys were thrilled to have us home, as was my mom. They all survived the 10 days (ten!) without us... and I survived the time without them! Having never left them alone for even a night (with the exception of some sleepovers at my sister's house and Liam spending one night at a friend's), this trip did afford me with a fair bit of anxiety. But I held it together. Three cheers for me!

And to be honest, the trip was good. Really good. Peter and I got to do some shopping, see almost all our friends, visit our much-missed church, eat out LEISURELY... and we bought a house that we're all excited about. Seeing so many houses with four kids in tow would've been nothing short of a nightmare... can you imagine!

* * * * * * * * * * * *

As I sit here typing, all our household goods have been packed and it feels like we're once again living in a (very bare) hotel. As soon as we got home from our trip, we started in on the task of deciding what to pack up in our shipment of goods and what to keep aside to carry back to Canada in our luggage. Clothes are a given, but we needed both cool weather clothes for here in Bogota and warm weather clothes for back in Canada. We also needed to keep out bed and bathroom linens, all the necessary new baby accessories, and enough cooking basics (ie, spices) to keep us going for a couple weeks before we get our house keys.

The boys are going a bit crazy with so little to do... read: they've been playing an obscene amount of wii. They've even badgered me into playing, shattering the carefully and deliberately crafted illusion that I know nothing about that confounded machine. We have been out to the park and the market a few times, and also drove out to Chia (a nearby town) and spent a super fun afternoon with some friends from the Embassy.

Hopefully we'll be able to take full advantage of our last few days here before saying goodbye to Bogota and Colombia.

Villa de Leyva, the grand finale

If you've missed the initial six-post-long photo bomb of our trip north of Bogota, here are the previous posts from our trip to Villa de Leyva over Easter/Spring break:

swimming

part I (Villa de Leyva at night and our hotel)

part II (the Ostrich Farm) 

part III (Dinosaur Park, more swimming and one of the best pizza joints in Colombia)

part IV (Villa de Leyva Plaza Mayor, family pictures)

part V (lemonades and lattes on the plaza)

Since I recognize the very real chance that you're all bored beyond words of all the pictures from this trip, I'll keep this post low on narration. These are mostly pictures of the colonial architecture that Villa de Leyva is known for -notably the church- along with a few shots of some of the people.

* * * * * * * * * *

By the time we were done our little coffee break at the plaza while waiting for the shops to open, the sun was out and blazing, the square was filling up... and the boys were cranky and in no mood to shop. So Peter took the three of them up to the car while I head a few blocks over to the yarn shop I'd been anxious to peak into.

The wool and other fibre in that store were incredible! All hand carded, spun and dyed. Amazing stuff. They sold many hand-knitted items (some drool-worth sweaters, bags and rugs) as well as the yarn itself. I'd chosen several balls of yarn to buy, with dreams of sweet baby girl knitted things swirling away in my head. The  problem was that none of the skeins were priced. All were weighed on a somewhat sketchy and not-so-accurate looking hanging scale. 

I also have GRINGO practically stamped across my forehead.

Luckily (it turns out), my credit card wouldn't work when I went to pay... good thing, since the total was around $400! Yikes. I'm thinking providence saved me from getting more than a wee bit ripped off there as I hadn't chosen that much wool, but would've had no way to "argue" the price with them. I still thinking longingly back to that amazing wool, but am thankful to have not gotten fleeced (*snort*).

* * * * * * * * * * * * 

I met up with Peter and the boys, we said goodbye to Villa de Leyva and hit the road in search of the pottery town of Raquira. 

We had a map. 

We had a GPS. 

We still got lost.

And we got stuck behind these guys...

After a 40 minute detour of sorts, we did manage to get on the proper highway, headed in the proper direction, and eventually made it to Raquira. By this time, the boys were tired, hungry, even crankier, and not at all interested in getting out a poking around shops. Even amazing shops like the ones lining the streets of this neat little town.

So I got all of 20 minutes to race around with my camera and snap some shots while half-heartedly looking for a sandwich shop or something similar. In the end, I did get some interesting pictures, but only got to buy a Pepsi and a lemonade.

People, I could've spent a whole day wandering around this place. *sigh* But the boys had all come down with bad colds while we were in Villa de Leyva and they just really needed to get home. Their needs came first.

I'm such a good mom.

Cause seriously, check out this place!

This concludes our trip to Villa de Leyva. I'll return you to your regularly scheduled blog full of stories of my kids supreme silliness, complaints about this awful cold (that threatens to be with me until the end of this pregnancy... or the end of time), belly pics and anxiety over name choice.

Thanks for coming along for the ride.

more from Villa de Leyva

Here are the first five posts from our trip to Villa de Leyva over Easter/Spring break:

swimming

part I

part II

part III

part IV 

That last post gives a good synopsis of what the town is known for, why it's a tourist destination in Colombia and why we went there. Good reads. Good pics.

This post is less about Villa de Leyva -the 400+ year old church, the colonial architecture, the whitewashed walls and green balconies, the columns and cobbled streets- and more about, well, my super cute boys.

These pictures were all taken around the square and at a little cafe on the plaza mayor while we enjoyed lemonades, lattes, and chocolate milk while waiting for the shops to open.

(Some of us might've also needed to use a washroom, so we had to buy something to earn the right...)

courtesy of seven year old Liam

oh man... like father, like son! love the last one!

my boys. love 'em.

my favourite part of this picture is Liam laughing in the background

work it Andrew

no jazz hands? no "rock on"? 
what's this? a decent picture of Liam?? 

I would've loved a couple hours to walk around Villa de Leyva on my own (just me and my camera), but honestly I doubt I would've captured anything that would mean as much to me as these pictures. 

My boys.

And I even managed to be in a couple shots!

For the first time, I'm linking up to Embrace the Camera at The Anderson Crew. I've also added this post to the Photo Story Friday links at Better in Bulk and My Chaos My Bliss. Even though this was all only four weeks ago, I'm going to link up for the Flashbacks at Christopher and Tia and More Than Words too. Look at me multitask!

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