Just in case any of you might be worried that I'm not getting my fill of intellectual and cultural stimulation down here near the equator, I thought I'd go ahead a relate this evenings events.
After a morning's discussion of the political implications of WikiLeaks, I spent the afternoon translating an article analyzing the role of public architecture in the city. At 3pm, right on cue, a deafening peal of thunder shook the building and the skies let loose a torrent of rain. Luckily, for all the fury of the moment, these afternoon showers rarely last long and by 5pm the skies were beginning to clear. This was perfect, since I had seen a poster advertising a dance performance at 7pm and wanted to make it out to dinner in El Poblado before the show started.
I met up with D amidst the last few sprinkles of rain and we hopped in a cab and headed up the hill. Getting off at Park Poblado, I remembered that one of my housemates had previously recommended a restaurant nearby whose name had something to do with fire...well actually not at all, but luckily there weren't that many possibilities on that particular street, and after sampling the food, I'm pretty positive we found the right spot.
As we sat down, both D and I were thrilled to discover that this particular place had not only the usual watery version of what they consider beer down here, but also had the apparently one and only microbrew available in Colombia. Unfortunately, they were out of the specialty dark version, but they did have the other 3 varieties, and we had our first tast of 3 Cordillas. After a month of nothing but the equivalent of Budlight, this stuff was delicious! Once the food came, we were in heaven.
La Fiambrería, the restaurant we had chosen, had a specialty menu of the day that came with 3 courses, so we opted to split that and get an appetizer to round it out. The appetizer definitely stole the spotlight. I couldn't understand every word in the description, but I knew there would be parmesan and ceviche, which was good enough for me. When the plate arrived, it consisted of four small cups shaped out of fried parmesan and stuffed with ceviche and diced mango. ooooh so yummy!!!! The next to arrive was a blended soup of carrots, squash and orange. Equally tasty and wonderfully refreshing. The main course was chicken smothered in some savory creamy sauce with a side of fried veggies wrapped around a smooth center of something googy and vaguely resembling cheese, but with a sweet tinge to it. All that was topped off with a salad of thinly sliced zucchini, carrots and a fruit whose name I can't ever remember.
With all that deliciousness, we nearly forgot about our plans to see the dance show, but managed to skip out just in time for a lovely walk down through a series of terraced parks that eventually brought us back to EAFIT. We arrived just as the doors were opening and filed into a medium size auditorium where we were lucky enough to get second row seats. As the lights dimmed, the announcer informed us that we were about to be treated to performances by 3 different dance troops from 3 of the major universities here in the city, and that we were to receive a full repertoire of Latin American dances, including several traditional Colombian pieces. We were not disappointed. Although the dancers occasionally let show that they were not necessarily practiced professionals, we were treated to demonstrations of everything from salsa to tango to Colombian folk dances to belly dancing!
The performance only lasted an hour, but between a full day of work, a few beers at dinner and a long walk, I was pretty beat and happy to head home. Not wanting to postpone our trip, we flagged another cab and headed back across town. It was still a nice night, so rather then get dropped off at our door, we disembarked on the other side of our neighborhood park and strolled right into a massive book fair! So much for going straight to bed. In addition to the usual jugglers, trinkets and food vendors that often line the walk home, tonight there were at least 20 large white tents set up sheltering row upon row of new and used books. Of course we had to peruse as we meandered towards our apartment and I ended up picking up a book of Latin American short stories. Looking forward to testing my language skills on some literature over the next week!
Now, after a bowl of my favorite new snack, diced mango in sweet yogurt, I am still be serenaded by a musician singing across the street in the style of traditional traveling revelers. However, I'm afraid I may be cultured out for the day and will have to get some rest in order to dully absorb all the splendors that I am sure tomorrow shall hold.
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