I'm sitting on the balcony looking out at the lit up hills of San Antonio (the district I live in). Straight ahead is the florescent glow of the football stadium, on the hill to the right is Cerro de las Tres Cruces and below the hill is the San Antonia Iglesia. I just put chocolate chip cookies in the oven. Or actually, cacao-con-azucar-chunk cookies. You can't really buy chocolate chips here. I found a small, nasty-looking package of chocolate-flavored chips in the mercado but decided the cacao (which is actually for hot chocolate, and so has cinnamon in it!) would be tastier. Obviously I sampled a lot of it during the mixing process and it definitely is quite tasty. Speaking of chocolate, it is really hard to find good chocolate here!!! I went the last week and a half without any (impressive, considering I usually don't go more than 24 hours without chocolate), and so I have consumed two whole bars in the last 36 hours, in addition to the cookies. They sell little milk chocolate bars called Jet everywhere, but those shouldn't really be considered chocolate. Finally yesterday I found some real, good Colombian chocolate in the larger shop down by the river, so I stocked up.

Colombia was eliminated from the Copa America yesterday by Peru in a shoot out, and the US women's team lost the World Cup championship to Japan today, also in a shoot out, so it's been a rough weekend. I had a bit of fun though. Thursday afternoon 5 of us from work (3 Colombians, Theresa the German, and I) did a little chillmaxing in our house. It was about to storm so the air was really thick and humid, and we sat out on the balcony and smoked and watched the huge cracks of lightening. High person Spanish is much easier to understand because it is much slower. We eventually got hungry and walked around the corner to the sandwich shop, but while we were eating it started to pour SO HARD, and so we lazily decide to hail a taxi for the one block back to the house. Unfortunately I left my phone in the taxi, so I am once again disconnected and loving it.

Friday after work my friend took me to Chipichape (I think that's how you spell it? That's how it's pronounced at least) which is the biggest mall in Cali, and known for being a posh hang out place because a lot of the stores there are on the expensive side. Since Cali is also the plastic surgery capital of Colombia (and apparently lots of people from the U.S. come down here to get surgery too since it's cheaper) a large percentage of wealthy Colombian's have implants. Women mostly get boob (teta in Spanish!) or butt jobs, and men apparently like the pectoral and calf implants. So, people watching in Chipichape has another whole level of fun: trying to guess what's real and what's not! Spent several hours doing that and drinking coffee...

People watching has also led to the discovery that Colombian's do not have a concept of PDA. They don't seem to notice the difference between their bedroom and very public areas (malls, grocery stores, public parks, etc, etc) and will make out HARD CORE (grabbing, rubbing, caressing included) anywhere. Also, it's such a common sight, that other Colombian's don't blink an eye if people right next to them head towards second base. I think it's kind of hilarious, but it does still make me a slightly uncomfortable.

After the mall on Friday, we went to a club in this little party village called Manga. It's a strip lined with clubs and people selling snacks and cigarettes, located on the edge of Cali. It was a friend of my friend's 30th birthday, and so there was aguardiente galore. Like a lot of clubs here, the music was a mix of salsa, merenge, other types of latin music I don't know, and electronic. Whenever the type of music would switch, they would BLAST this fog horn sounding thing, which was TERRIFYING (to me at least...everyone else just thought it was funny when I jumped).

Now it's back to work tomorrow, but that's ok. I had a really good meeting on Friday, and there's another one tomorrow, and so it's finally becoming more clear what work exactly I'm supposed to be doing. Also, since I moved offices last week, my boss is paying for all of my meals (SCORE), which is a serious money saver and allows me to try a lot of Colombian foods. Everyday at lunch there is soup, rice, potato and meat, dessert or fruit, 3 types of juices, and salad. And it's actually pretty yummy. On Friday we had Tamales in banana leaves.

In the time it took me to write this, two batches of cookies have come out of the oven. I'm taking them to work tomorrow to thank my entomology lab, since I've now moved out into DAPA. Given the lack of normal ingredients, they taste ok but are not the most appetizing looking things...