Anyways, I should mention I went to Bogota last Friday to renew my work visa, something that thankfully could be done in the country this time around, as opposed to the first time when I had to leave the country to do so. Though I needed to make the trip to Bogota, it wasn't so bad. I caught a 6 a.m. flight in the morning, hopped in a taxi and made my way to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. After arriving to the old foreign affairs office (they moved 10 blocks at the end of May I was told by the security guard) I took the minor setback lightly. As it was such a nice day and I still had 10 minutes before the office opened I decided to walk to the new office. I was in the north end of Bogota, which is known as the posh, nicer bit. And to me it did look nice, but something else I realized was that it was also much more cosmopolitan than my tiny home of Medellin. Here I found "Exito express" supermarkets, modeled after the small convenient stores and markets you would find in London or New York City. For some reason that was the most striking thing to me - it was a Colombian city acting like a Western city! I also noticed more conservatively dressed people (a difference between Bogota and Medellin I long ago concluded is that people just have better style in Bogota because the average temperature is 55 degrees and they just have more options with layers, jackets, sweaters, boots, etc). People here don't stare at you as you pass by, they don't even give you the time of day. Hallelujah! I felt right at home in the hustle and bustle in the city, where the atmosphere was not as "tranquilo" as Medellin, nor as stressed as New York.
Once I got to the Ministry I settled in to wait my turn, occupying myself with some new levels of Angry Birds. I barely passed 3 of them when my number was up. I proceeded to hand over my papers to the woman, dreading that I had forgotten something, or that the wrong person from work had signed the form. But everything went surprisingly smoothly! I paid my $205, waited just 10 minutes more, and was called back in where I had in my passport a smooth, new visa. I got to Bogota at 7 a.m. and was out of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and on my way to our office with visa in hand by 9 a.m.! I couldn't believe my luck. Nothing has ever been so smooth or less stressful in Colombia than that experience!
Unfortunately my visa process is not finished yet. I still have to renew my "cedula" (like a social security/ID card), something I got up for bright and early this morning with all the papers in hand, foolishly expecting another smooth process. I had even read in the paper about a month ago that some minister declared that these foreign cedulas shouldn't have any cost - even better, no bank lines. Of course when I got to the office in Medellin I was told that that law had been declared, but it hadn't been passed yet. Oh right, of course not. That will take another 6 months. So missing just one tiny requirement, I begrudgingly walked back to the main road, hailed a cab, and made my way to work at 7: 15 a.m. I'll have to give it another shot tomorrow!
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