Feliz Cumpleanos...

Another item to mark off my bucket list. Spending a birthday in a third world country...
I don't think it ever was actually on my bucket list, but I can definitely mark it off now. Today is Sunday, which is suppose to be very quiet in town. However, someone forgot to tell the guy across the street. He decided to pull out his chainsaw at 630 this morning. I guess nobody told him it was my birthday and all I really wanted was an extra hour of sleep this morning.
If my girls and family at home is reading, thanks for the birthday cards that Tracey kept hidden from me. I think Ruben enjoys them too. Especially the one that plays music. I think Ruben thinks by biting it is how it plays music. So naturally he is chewing on all of them...
Today our friends from Boston and us decided to be adventurous and venture to the mall. We tracked down two taxi's (one taxi is like a chevy aveo and only fits 3 people) and headed to the mall "Alameda". It is pretty nice with many similar stores that we would find in the US. Most of the clothes that has print is in english, which I thought was kind of strange. We went to the food court for fast food, but again we are in Colombia and nothing is very fast. For a change I went to the chinese booth. I ordered, and it took about 30 minutes to get our food. Let's just say I was even hungrier by the time the food arrived. The mall was pretty hoping. I think it is because Sunday is the one day where most people are off here. There was even a church service going on on a wing of a upper floor. We walked around and even found a dollar store.
Jamie and I have never had sooo much fun. It was like two big kids in a candy store. We tried on several hats (pic's), our kids were smiling and laughing at us. I think the wifes wanted to pretend they were not with us, but we were the only caucasions in the mall, so there cover was blown. We bought a few items, and it didn't break the bank, then went down stairs and had some helado (ice cream). It was actually very good. We rounded up two more taxi's and headed back to the hotel for a afternoon dip in the pool to cool off. Taxi's in Monteria are very cheap. It costs only $4,000 pesos no matter where you go in town. That is about $2.50 american. you couldn't get a taxi for that price anywhere in the states that I know of. It's almost 9pm here, and we just got done skyping with my kids. They sang happy birthday to me, and it was great to hear their voices. Ruben is pretty amused by seeing their faces and hearing their voices. I wonder how long the interest will be once we get home.