I don't even know what to call this.... thx Steph.

Shiny Teeth

I've been on Juliet's case about her teeth brushing habits. She seems to enjoy sucking the tooth paste more than brushing her teeth... typical 4 year old behaviour. So tonight I brushed her teeth really well so that they were nice & shiny...

Juliet: How come I can't hear the dinging noise for when something is shiny?

Does this mean she watches too much TV??

Grad-u-lay-shen

So what's a bigger event... graduating from kindergarten to grade one or graduating from day care to kindergarten? They're both pretty big... and they both happened this week. I already posted about Sammy graduating... today was Juliet. She was very excited about her "gradulation".

Does it get any cuter then that? BRAVO JULIET!

Tea Lover

I love tea. Love love love love love. It's the perfect drink first thing in the morning, the middle of day, right after a meal and just before bed. Winter, spring, summer & fall. Any season. Any day.

Today I'd like to share my favourite teas. As a rule, I don't drink black teas or any teas that need added milk or sweetness. My faves are flavoured green & white.

Winners is a great place to find really interesting green & white teas. One of my favourite jasmine green teas I buy there. It's probably one of the best jasmine greens I've ever had. But the ultimate place for tea is Teaopia. Now I can order fresh loose leaf tea online & have it delivered to my door 2 days later. 

Here are my faves... (photos & descriptions courteous of Teaopia.ca)

Garden of Eden is a combination of white tea, rose flower blossoms, red rose buds, marigold flower blossoms, lemongrass, and apple pieces.

Hello lover!

 

Princess Earl Grey brings the awesome flavour of earl grey to white tea so there's no need to drink it black! Yay! It's a combination of white tea, red rose buds, and the natural aroma of bergamot. Not only does it taste fabulous but it looks beautiful in a jar.

 

Jasmine Pearls are hand rolled green tea leaves and jasmine petals, which can also be referred to as dragon eyes. Personally I think it's just a fancy, more expensive jasmine green.

 

 

Jasmine Superior is made by using fresh jasmine petals in a process where green tea leaves are layered with jasmine petals. The jasmine flavour settles around the leaf during the process of drying... ooh ooh fancy.

Pomegranate Green tea is a combination of sencha, cranberries and pomegranate flowers. It is fabulous and not too fruity. Mmmmmm.

If anyone would like to enlighten me with new & amazing varieties of their fave tea... please do!

The Artist Within...

I am totally on this vintage/creepy doll kick. So much so that it is taking up another day's worth of like... And I still don't even have my first doll.

I've always loved mixed media art. Every time I gawk at someone's incredible ability to grab inanimate objects & everyday materials and create the most unique pieces of art I can't help but wonder... why didn't I think of that? I swear I am an INCREDIBLE artist trapped inside my body with ideas for mixed media art, painting, fashion & choreography that I just cannot express for the life of me. I need to pair up with someone who has the artistic capability to bring my mental art to life. 


Here are some pieces I have found on etsy. LOVE THEM. Click on the photo to go to the artist's store and please don't buy it unless it is for me... :o)

 

 

Bravo Sam!

Sammy graduated from Jardin (Sr. Kindergarten) today. I can't believe my little boy starts elementary school this fall! Here a video of Sam accepting his diploma. Bear with it, it's iphone footage...

I arrived, camera in hand, and of course my battery was dead. What are the chances?? So here are some photos a friend of mine took of the handsome graduate.

 BRAVO SAM!!

 

Princess Juliet

Today's like (or rather yesterday's because I was too tired to post last night) is a 2 for one. The first part of the like is www.Picknik.com which is a photo editing website. I love how it lets me write directly on my photos. The second part is Princess Juliet's birthday on May 28th. It was such an amazing time and the experience as a whole couldn't have been anymore how I imagined it would or could go... it was perfect. She was like a bride getting ready for her wedding... and the playing was so hard & fun that everyone was just happy happy happy.

 

Doll Parts

My mom was at Finnegan's Market this weekend and found this...

She would have made a marvelous addition to my yet to be started creepy doll collection. I'm going to have to pay a visit to Finnegan's this year...

 

Spring Traditions

I didn't get to post a 'like' yesterday because I was pre-occupied with the fact that it was Friday & instead lay on my couch and watched Transformers. So today I will post 2.

Who Made This Mess?

I've watched this video at least 5 times and I have laughed every time... Hard. Click below to enjoy.

Who Made This Mess?

Sammy Talk

I had to post this because it is so funny and I love to share the crazy... or rather creative things my kids say.

Sammy: Grama, you have stripes.

Grama: I have what?

Sammy: (touching Grama's face) You have stripes on your face 

Grama: (realizing that Sam is referring to her wrinkles) Yes Sammy, I have stripes.

creepy dolls are awesome.

Hi. Today I am going to share with you a picture my mother took in a flea market in Colombia. I love it.

This doll is magnificent. I have decided that I love creepy dolls, and the creepier the better. I think I am going to start a collection so I hope my mother can go back to Colombia and find this doll again because I must have her. 

Do you have any creepy dolls to share?

Resting In Peace

I love cemeteries. Especially those with century old graves and beautiful elaborate statues. If I have my way... one day I will travel the world for the sole purpose of visiting & photographing cemeteries.

Today I want to share some photos I came across of some amazing cemetery statues. I would love to have a beautiful statue somewhere representing my life after I go....

Do you have any cemetery photos to share?

ABANDON

Good morning!

I was going to post something from a woman who has an amazing imagination, but because I want to respect her usage rights I have sent her an email asking if and how I could post a link to her photos with her consent. Hopefully I will be able to share it with you sometime soon.

Until then, I am going to share with you another series of photographs that I like. During my husband's long night shifts he often sends me links from a website called EnglishRussia.com


It's a cool site and so I wanted to share it with you and post a few links. These are from a series of abandoned places, which make for some of the COOLEST photography.


Here are a few of my faves...

These are from Chernobyl, photos taken by Alexandr Vikulov.

An abandoned city (Promyshlennyi)... Photos by Oleg Shvets

If you like these then you'll probably also like...

Kadykchan 

Fire Station & Medical School


Car Factory


Abkhazia



I could easily spend days photographing abandoned buildings & cemeteries... but more on that tomorrow.




 

40 Days, 40 Likes

Hi there. I'm not going to go into how lazy I've been as a blogger and such but rather try to just start anew and hope to pique your interest. 

I'm going to challenge myself and try to post for 40 straight days, 40 things that I like. First off... I'd like to mention my last blog post and tell you all the you MUST go check out the link I posted. I would love to hear your thoughts about it. I've watched it a few times and love it every time.

Okay... so lets get started. I've had this link in my inbox for sooooo long that I've wanted to post so I am going to use it for my first like. 

Alexa Meade is an artist who doesn't paint on canvas but rather directly ON her subjects and then photographs them to give the illusion that they are paintings... it's quite incredible.

Her Flikr photo stream is here 

For more info you can visit her website at http://alexameade.com/portfolio.html

So... what did you think?? 

Grand Corps Malade

Ya. It's been a while. Guess I just haven't been motivated. Anyway my husband showed me this video today. Loved it enough to share. I wish I knew how to put the video right in my blog but until then.. click here.

Dear American Airlines...

Hello,

My name is Chelsea Charlebois. I am sending this fax with regards to the above mentioned reference numbers. My mother, MS. Misses*, had submit the first complaint to American Airlines via email which was responded to by Lisa Fields. I subsequently submitted a second complaint as I was the passenger travelling, also responded to by Lisa Fields. I was unable to express all of my concerns via email therefore  I am sending this fax to inform American Airlines of the details of my return flight home from Bogota, Colombia to Montreal/Ottawa, Canada on March 9th & 10th, 2011. I hope that we can resolve these issues as quickly as possible.

My first flight was to leave Bogota, Colombia at 8:00am on March 9th, 2011. This flight was delayed an hour for reasons that even the captain of the plane had trouble describing, as he said to all of us passengers. There was a mix-up in air traffic control with regards to the altitude in which we were supposed to fly to Miami. For this reason instead of taking off we had to taxi down the runway and clear the runway for the problems to be figured out. As I said this delayed the plane an hour, and even the captain referred to it as perhaps being a result of the language barrier, not weather related.

We arrived in Miami an hour late and by the time I rushed through customs and to get my baggage the American Airlines associate would NOT let me on my connecting flight to Montreal, which was scheduled to depart at 1:35pm. At this time it was just after 1:00pm and they directed me to the re-booking counter. The next flight available was not until 8:35pm, arriving in Montreal around midnight. This was the first in a series of problems that caused distress not only to myself, but to my husband AND 2 small children who were anxiously expecting to see their mother at 5:00pm that day, when my original flight was supposed to arrive in Montreal. Living approximately 2 hours from Montreal, this also caused problems for my family to pick me up at the airport. Bringing 2 children ages 3 & 5 to Montreal late at night and in a snow storm might I add, was not exactly the ideal situation. Our daughter has special needs and finding a last minute babysitter was not likely. At this point I had no choice but to plan to stay in a hotel upon arrival in Montreal as I had no one to pick me up at the airport in the middle of the night.

So I waited in the Miami airport from the time I got through customs (just after 1:00pm) until my next flight... over 7 hours. No American Airlines associate did anything to make that stay less of a hassle... no apology, no offer of vouchers for food... nothing. I would understand if missing my flight was my fault, but clearly it was not. And I was transferring from an AA flight to another AA flight so I wondered why the plane wasn't advised that there was a delayed passenger from an AA flight from Bogota... perhaps that is not your policy. This was NOT my fault and there was nothing done to make up for the inconvenience it was causing.

I waited in the Miami airport for over 7 hours. I boarded my 8:35pm flight to Montreal, which didn't even take off until 10:00pm because there was an issue with someone's baggage. That is ANOTHER delay of 1.5 hours. We finally took off and after only half an hour into the flight we made a complete u-turn and headed back to Miami due to a mechanical problem with the aircraft. At this point my husband was at home tracking my flight progress on various websites and was able to see the status of my flight with only a 6-minute delay. You can imagine the distress it caused him to see that my plane all of a sudden made a complete u-turn, dropped in altitude by 17000 feet and greatly reduced it's speed. It may sound ridiculous but the idea of a hostile take-over or crash most definitely crossed his mind. This was a VERY stressful moment for him. As soon as the aircraft landed again in Miami I phoned my husband and informed him that we u-turned... of course he already knew as he was tracking the flight. Although upset that I was not on my way home he was relieved to know that everything was okay. We were told that there was another aircraft ready to leave at midnight to take us to Montreal. Once we arrived in the gate we were informed that this was not the case and that we would be put up in hotels until the next flight left in the morning.... at 6:00 or 7:40am.

I was quite far back in the line and by the time I got to the re-booking counter it was close to midnight. I asked if I could please change my flight to arrive in Ottawa, which is only 1 hour from where I live, to make it easier for my family to pick me up. This was not a problem as the Ottawa airport was only 94 miles or so from Montreal, so the American Airlines associate gladly gave me a flight leaving from Miami at 10:40am on Thursday March 10th arriving in Chicago, and from Chicago to Ottawa. I was also given a hotel voucher, a dinner voucher and a breakfast voucher. Also included were 2 shuttle vouchers to get me to and from the hotel. I assumed at this point that everything was fine and I relayed that info to my husband and my mother, so that they could stop worrying and try to get some sleep. What wasn't fine however was that I did NOT get my luggage and I was not given any kind of hospitality package, such as a tooth brush or any other essentials I might have needed from my luggage, to replace the fact that my luggage was unavailable to me. Unprofessional.

I managed to finally find the shuttle service that I was to use to get to my hotel, no thanks to the directions given to me by the AA associates. The service, SuperShuttle, was not prepared to accommodate the amount of passengers that American Airlines had provided vouchers to. I must comment that it is not very professional for AA to send their clients to a service that they aren't even sure can accommodate them, as was the case. After waiting an hour for a shuttle all of the other passenger given vouchers to SuperShuttle gave up and took a $30+ taxi, paid out of their own pockets, to their destination hotels. I waited for the shuttle to arrive as I was not prepared to pay $30 for a 10 minute taxi ride. By the time the shuttle arrived and drove me to the hotel it was after 1:00am.

I arrived at the hotel, The Hotel Chateau Bleau at

1111 Ponce de Leon Boulevard, Miami FL, 33134

. The building appeared to be nice. I went into the lobby to get my room. The old man at the counter accepted my voucher and gave me a key card to room #408. He then proceeded to tell me that I was not staying in this building and pointed to a dark building across the parking lot where I would be staying. I didn't think anything of it as I was so tired and just wanted to get some sleep. I walked over to the building and inside. The building smelled horrible. I took the very dated elevator up to the 4th floor and proceeded to my room. I know looks can be deceiving so I didn't think anything of the not-so-nice conditions of the hotel and thought that perhaps the room would be nicer. I opened my door and turned on the light, which immediately sizzled out. NO electricity. The carpet was covered in white chunks of something that looked like plaster, and I couldn't turn on any light or lamp in the room. I went back to the lobby of the main building and asked for a room with electricity. The man didn't seem surprised to hear there wasn't any in room #408 and gave me a key card to room #602. I went back over, up the elevator to the 6th floor. I began looking for my room and even had to turn on lights in the hallway to find it. When I found my room, that had broken pipes above the door, and opened the door I tried to turn on the lights and there was no electricity again. I looked inside one of the lamps and the light bulb was still in the socket but it was smashed off. I didn't need to see anything else to know that these were not acceptable standards for AA to have sent me into. I went back to the lobby again and demanded for a decent room in a building that didn't smell horrible. The man at the desk told me that if I didn't like it I could go find another hotel.... once again not the level of service I would expect AA to expose their clients too. I left.

I stood on the corner of the street in Miami at 2:00am and phoned my husband in tears. I didn't know what else to do. I was in a city I have never visited before, alone, in the middle of the night. My husband was horrified. This coupled with the aircraft's sudden u-turn earlier on took "10 years off [my husband's] life" as he put it. He was afraid of what could happen to me. The street was empty, but luckily a taxi drove by and I flagged it down. In tears I described my situation and the taxi driver offered to drive me to another hotel. The taxi driver waited for me to go in to see if they had a room. They didn't have a room at the Fairfield Inn but the front desk made 2 phone calls and managed to find a room at the Best Western. The taxi diver drove me there, free of charge.

I booked a room at the Best Western at a discounted rate of $179.99 + tax for a total of $203.39USD. The man at the front desk was VERY kind and on a side note, informed me that the Chateau Bleau Hotel used to be a Best Western but 2 years ago lost the franchise because it's standard were not up to par. I found this very interesting, coupled with the fact that on the website for the Chateau Bleau there is absolutely no mention NOR photos of the building they tried to put me up in. I wouldn't be surprised if American Airlines was under the impression that their guests were staying in the main hotel, unaware of the condition of the actual building I was booked into.

The next morning I took the Best Western shuttle at 8:00am to the airport. I went to my gate and waited. I spoke with my mother and she suggested I go speak to an AA associate right away regarding my hotel fiasco. I was already at the gate so I found 2 AA associates to speak to, an operational coordinator by the name of MR. Mister and an associate, girl. I told them what had happened and they were not impressed. They were not impressed with the conditions I described in the hotel, nor with the service I received from the man at the front desk. They took the name of the hotel and assured me it would be looked into. I agreed that American Airlines has a reputation to uphold and by sending clients to this hotel they were most definitely NOT helping their company's reputation. I also asked at this point to be reimbursed for the hotel I paid for. MR. Mister assured me that this was NOT a problem at all but that he could not do it at the gate. He printed out a paper with the details on it and told me to submit it to an AA associate when I arrived in Ottawa. I would then be reimbursed in Ottawa and Ottawa would in-turn request to be reimbursed by Miami. MR. Mister also gave me the address to his Managing Director: MR. Boss, American Airlines Inc., Miami International Airport,

P.O. Box 997990

, AMF, Miami, Florida, 33299-7990. He suggested I forward him a letter describing my experience so that there would be a definite investigation into the conditions of the Chateau Bleau Hotel. Let me mention at this point that the man at the Chateau Bleau Hotel kept my voucher, so he is being paid for my stay regardless of the fact that I did NOT stay there. This too should be looked into.

My flights to Chicago and then to Ottawa were fine and when I arrived in Ottawa, MUCH to my surprise, my bags had arrived too. I was very happy about this as I was informed that there was a pretty good chance that my bags stayed on the original flight to Montreal. Someone did their job well that morning in making sure my bags got re-ticketed to my Chicago-Ottawa flights. Bravo. However, much to my dismay there were NO American Airlines associates to complete my re-imbursement. I was told by a company that represents AA that they would not reimburse me for my hotel stay, as MR. Mister had described. I was not happy about this but was tired of waiting around in the airport and wanted to see my family who were anxiously waiting for me outside the gate. I decided that I would deal with the issue of reimbursement for the hotel and compensation for the distress I and my family experienced as a result of all of this, once I got home.

My husband has described to me that he has never been more stressed about the safety of his wife in the 8 years we have been together. I too have experienced great distress over the events of the past 2 days. I was supposed to arrive in Montreal at 5:00pm on Wednesday, March 9th 2011 but instead was jerked all over the place only to arrive home over 24 hours later. My safety was compromised not only by the sub-par conditions of the hotel, but also as a result of the horrible customer service I received from that hotel. They were obviously NOT concerned about my safety when he suggested I go find another hotel at 2:00am, knowing that I was a stranded passenger and client of American Airlines. Although it is not your fault that this hotel was horrible, ultimately the responsibility lies in your company's hands for having put me, your client, in that situation, among others:

-Not offering apology or assistance in the fact that my original mis-connected flight, through no fault of my own, caused me to be delayed in the Miami airport for over 7 hours.

-Not offering any kind of essentials I might need as a result of not having access to my luggage for an overnight stay

-Not offering appropriate service in the sense that the shuttle I was given a voucher for was not able to accommodate me, nor other passengers, in a timely manner (over 1.5 hour wait)

-Not verifying the standards of the hotel or service being offered at the hotel to which you booked me into, thus risking my personal safety.

-Causing overall and undue stress to myself, my husband, my mother and my children for not understanding completely why their mother was not coming home as scheduled.

I am aware that my mother has filed a complaint, and this is my written statement and consent to begin to rectify this situation. I hope that we can figure this out in a timely manner, as I would very much like to put this experience behind me. I find it very unfortunate that a company of your stature was involved in such horrible events, and I am hopeful that we can come to an agreement with regards to some form of compensation for such events.

I kindly request a timely reply to this matter, and can easily supply the paperwork via email or fax that was printed for me by MR. Mister at the Miami airport, along with the receipt from the Best Western hotel. Please advise if this letter can be forwarded by you on my behalf to Managing Director MR. Boss, CC'd to MR. Mister, or if I should mail a letter. I do expect to receive confirmation that MR. Boss is aware of the situation and I would like to be informed of the results of any inquiries into the Chateau Bleau Hotel.

Thank you for taking the time to read my statement and I look forward to hearing from you.

Respectfully,

Chelsea Charlebois

*names have been replaced for confidentiality.

Remembering Bad News Brown

While I was in Colombia we went to an amazing Sunday flea market. As I walked through the rows and rows of artists & vendors I came across a really great harmonica player. I stopped to listen to & watch him play because anything harmonica reminds me of Paul Frappier, Bad News Brown, and with his tragic death still fresh in my heart it was even more special for me to just take a minute to listen, appreciate & remember. I took some photos and continued on my day.

This past weekend Paul's mother was visiting with my mother in Colombia and my mom shared this story with me. 

Together they went to the very same Sunday flea market and they too came upon the very same harmonica player. Of course they stopped. I never spoke to the musician but Paul's mother took out her phone and showed the harmonica player photos of her son... of course he knew exactly who it was. "Ah... Bad News Brown!" What a beautiful moment. Paul's death was news to this fellow harmonica player. He played him a tribute.

Throughout this tragedy the out-pouring of emotion, support, strength, love & memories that have come out of Montreal and the thousands of friends & fans Paul has, has been incredible to say the least. You never stop to think about the people Bad News Brown reached with his music across the globe until the chance comes along for you to be in a flea market in Colombia, South America, and have a fellow harmonica player know exactly who Bad News is. I just thought that was an incredible moment and even thought I wasn't there to be a part of it I still feel it's power.


To Bad News Brown...

home again home again jiggity jig

I've been home for a little over a week now and haven't gathered up enough strength and/or interest in picking up my computer to write about my trip. Shame on me. I not only sucked at blogging from Colombia, I'm evidently just as lazy here at home.

I thought I would be better at blogging while I was on my trip... but obviously the R & R was also from my computer. I barely checked my email and only signed onto fb once to apologize to my girlfriend for leaving her a message that I was stuck in a Bogota jail and needed her help. She didn't find that as funny as I did at the time... 

So... what can I say about Colombia. What a melange of experiences. I kept taking notes about the various oddities so that I would remember to talk about them. Now I just have to incorporate them somehow...

I was talking in my last blog about the craziness that is Bogota. Well much of that is the traffic. There are no rules. There are as many lanes in the road as there can be made by the sizes of vehicles that are driving at any given moment. At a red light people walk up & down the street trying to sell you anything from fruit to fly swatters, trees, flowers or umbrellas. Forget squidgy punks... here at the red lights you get knife jugglers, fire throwers & acrobats. Anything to make a peso. And people also randomly decide that they will help you park your car on the street somewhere & open your door for you in hopes of getting something. It is quite funny to see.

I also mentioned a little something about Bogota's ecological thinking. Another thing I find interesting is that not everyone can drive, everyday. They have a system they call "pico & placa" which doesn't really translate but refers to peak times for driving & license plate. Your license plate dictates which days you are allowed to drive, so that there are not too many cars on the road everyday. You'd think that was nonsense given the amount of traffic everywhere everyday but it's true. Unless of course you have a bullet proof car... then you can drive anytime you want. I have yet to figured that one out.

Telephones. Or rather, cellphones. Instead of using public pay phones most Colombians looking to make a phone call will do so with anyone holding up a sign that says "$200 minutos" or whatever the price may be. 

People buy cell phones and then sell the airtime to other people as if it were a pay phone... in this case for 200 pesos per minute. So, as strange as it may be, you often see a group of people standing under this type of sign talking on a cell phone that is chained to someone or to someone's 'buggy' if they happen to be selling other goods and/or services. I can only assume that 200 pesos per minute is cheaper than a regular pay phone and that using someone else's cellphone is cheaper than buying your own. Why else would you do it? it's definitely a strange sight.

Let's talk about yoga. I took a few yoga classes while I was here, which were fantastic. The teacher, Orlando, was amazing. He invited us up to his land in the country where he is planting an organic garden. We seized the opportunity to get out of the mad city and drove out into the country for a day. BEAUTIFUL. What a difference from the mayhem of the city. The only way to get near Orlando's land is via a muddy road littered with little casitas, donkey's, goats, chickens & people walking their angry cows. The road doesn't even get you all the way there.... you have to hike up the mountain to arrive at his 2 acres or so of tranquility...

We had a yummy picnic, did some wandering & enjoyed the view.

The little hut on the property was built out of mud & sticks in 1949. It measures about 2 x 2 meters and it is amazing that it is still standing, especially with an area that gets so much rain!!!


It was a great adventure and I was happy to get out of the city and see some of the Colombian country side. It's way more my kind of pace.


After our lovely day we stopped in a small town called Chia to eat at the the world famous Andres Carne de Res. Um..... don't really know how to describe it. C R A Z Y! This places has the capacity to seat 3000 people. It is packed full of eye candy like you wouldn't believe... and the party goes on day & night. Loud music... dancing on tables... you name it. Even the bathrooms are fantastic. Although the menu is NOT vegetarian friendly I did manage to find something. But I was there more for the experience, not the food. And what an experience. My mojitos came in a huge bowl and after my first I quickly forgot how the altitude affects alcohol consumption. 

 
Lucky for me I do remember most of the night so it wasn't a complete write-off. But I couldn't get out of bed until 2PM the next day, missing my only chance to take a balance yoga class... NOT impressed. My party at Carne de Res was memorable (mostly) and fun fun fun, but I lost a day in recovery. I could include some pictures I took but it may be easier to just Google image "Andres Carne de Res". I would go back just to go there again.

We spent an afternoon in La Candelaria... which is a historical neighbourhood downtown Bogota. The architecture of the old buildings & churches is spectacular and you really feel like you are in South America. It's a definite to-do on the must-see list for the city. The Plaza Bolivar was full of activity as usual. Lots of people selling their treasures & walking their llamas and of course, the pigeons out number the people 2 to 1. There was also some sort of a demonstration going on so as a result there were a few extra police officers...

That afternoon we went to the Police Museum which was very informative. Colombia has produced to police chiefs that have won the title of world's best police officer... who knew? I didn't even know that existed. It's like the Oscars of law enforcement. Who judges them? They also have an entire area dedicated to the infamous Pablo Escobar, complete with his Harley, guns, Ray Bans, cell phone, video camera and a roof tile covered in his blood from the day they finally caught and killed him. That too was very informative. Crazy man that Escobar...

We spent a lot of time walking around different neighbourhoods in the city and took lots of pictures. Even without my camera strapped around my neck I stuck out as being a tourist from a mile away... I never figured out why. Given the diversity of Colombians I thought for sure I'd blend in... must be the freckles. 

Oh I almost forgot to mention the party bus. Yep. The party bus. It's exactly what it sounds like... actually it's probably better. It looks like this...

It drives around all night from bar to bar. You can get on & off with your drinks at will and don't have to stop the party or the dancing in between stops! It's a club on wheels minus the actual sale of alcohol. Duh-Winning! Ummmm... perhaps we should start a bus like this in Montreal...

So I'm getting lazy again so I'll leave the rest of the story up to the pictures I took which you can see here, and if you have any questions you can just ask. Comments and praise are welcomed too... :D

In my next entry I will fill you in on all the gory details of my trip home. Saying it was horrendous is putting it lightly... 

Ciao.