week one in Bogota

I feel like we’ve been little hamsters on that exercise wheel during our first week here. I’m quite sure we’ve never gotten as much accomplished in one week at other posts. There’s been the usual embassy housekeeping stuff that always has to be done, but they've been so efficient here as to be relatively painless. The other big issues in our life were housing and schooling for Mac.

Housing

We were placed in a temporary apartment when we got here. It really was fine and the location was decent enough that I knew we could survive until our permanent housing was ready. The embassy originally said the new apartment would be ready on Friday, August 13, but let’s be honest: if you’re reading this and you’re State Department, how many times has housing actually been ready when promised?

Well let it be said that Bogota’s GSO delivered. We were moved yesterday morning into a fabulous apartment in the exact location that I wanted. None of our stuff, including air freight, is here yet but as the embassy provides all the furniture for our tour here and we have loaner linens and kitchen stuff, we are content.

The apartment is more than we could have ever dreamed of. It’s an older apartment but it’s got character and is in very good shape. And it’s completely humongous and too big for the three of us. We have 4 bedrooms, 3 ½ bathrooms, kitchen, laundry room, maid’s quarters (which will be storage for us), living room, dining room, office, den, playroom, terrace, and solarium. We also have 3 parking spaces in the garage (for our tiny little Corolla) and a storage room in the garage. Every room has got more built-ins and closet space than we have stuff for (maybe!), and the master bedroom walk-in closet is beyond belief. And it’ll be the only time in our lives that we live in a penthouse apartment (and it’s a two-story penthouse to boot). We have tons of enormous windows so the apartment is really nice and airy and light. We obviously don’t have our stuff to make it our home yet, but we have put out all those gorgeous rugs Jimmy bought in Afghanistan so we’ve added a little character for the time being.

We are located in the Chicó neighborhood which is the “trendy” area of the city with a ton of great restaurants, shopping, etc. We are 3 doors down from a small, but nicely stocked grocery store, 2 doors down from a fresh pasta store, about 3 blocks from a big mall, and 5 blocks from the most magnificent fruit and vegetable store I’ve ever seen. Within about 5 blocks, we’ve eaten at a delicious Peruvian restaurant, an okay Mexican restaurant, the most divine Italian restaurant, an international restaurant called 1492 that was very good, and a very ordinary but Mac favorite, Subway. (As an aside, the Italian restaurant here is called De Lucca. If you’re a faithful Story Tales follower, you may remember that we ate in Charleston a couple weeks ago at another extraordinary Italian restaurant called Lucca. Is it a coincidence that two of the best Italian restaurants are named the same thing??) (As another aside, we have eaten at all those restaurants since we arrived last Sunday and not since we moved into the apartment yesterday!)

In short, I think we’re going to be very, very happy at this apartment.

Schooling

You may recall that school for Mac has been a thorn in my side for about 4 or 5 months now. I am at least 50% grayer than I was in January for the worry over schools in Bogota. We went to the “American” school (although it’s an international school and not American in name) on Tuesday for his testing. Let me tell you that this was a process. Mac got a checklist on a lanyard around his neck that included a reading test, English and Spanish writing tests, DRA, an interview with the counselor, and an interview with the principal. Jimmy and I had to interview with the principal as well. You don’t even have to jump through these many hoops to go to college!!

We all obviously passed our respective tests because we got an email the next night (Wednesday) that said he’d been accepted so we at least knew he was going to school somewhere. The problem was that we had to notify the school in writing by Thursday if he was accepting the spot and he wasn’t even testing at the British School until Thursday morning.

The three of us went for testing at the British School on Thursday morning. The only drawback to this school is that it’s way out of town (but after the car bombing in town on Thursday morning (!), I decided that the school being out of town might be a positive). The British School is much smaller in enrollment (500 versus 2000) and that appeals to me enormously. The British School is also much more diverse in terms of nationality of students: no one nationality can represent more than 50% of the student body so unlike the “American” school which is anywhere from 70-85% Colombian according to who gives you the statistic, the British School is this great hodgepodge of cultures and nationalities. I love, love, love this.

Mac was taken away to do some testing for about 1.5 hours, during which time Jimmy and I had our interview with the school psychologist. This was no fluff interview. She asked questions like what is the best and worst thing that Mac inherited from each of you and if Mac were sitting here, what would he say he likes most and least about each of you. YIKES! We should've had a mock interview before we went in. (Mac also said his testing was much harder than the American school, which seems to be an underlying principle of why the British school was even started here, which is another thing I love, love, love about the school.)

The facilities at the American school are far nicer and more extensive than at the British school, but I was sold on everything about the British school from the moment we entered the grounds. The garden alone was enough to sell me, but Jimmy wouldn’t let me make a decision based on flowers alone. Jimmy was very much in favor of the American school because of its sports opportunities, but even he walked away from our morning at the British school believing that Mac would get the best education at the British school. We can supplement baseball training at home but we most certainly cannot supplement an entire education every night!

We got the call from the British school that afternoon that Mac had been accepted, and although Mac wasn’t entirely convinced that’s where he wanted to go, we were entirely convinced that’s where he needed to go, so we informed both schools on Thursday afternoon of our decision. I am so excited about this decision and can’t wait for him to start week after next.

I’ve bored you enough for now so I’ll close but there’s more to come, especially after our internet is set up on Tuesday (supposedly) and I don’t have to “borrow” the internet from some dear soul in close vicinity who has an unsecured network!!