Hotel Life

We are on day #10 of our journey here in Colombia. The newness of the trip has started to wear off. At first it was kind of neat, but now we could really handle the comforts of home. Ruben has been entrigued with all the amenities here at the hotel. Ruben found a drinking fountain just his size next to the toilet (budee) sp.
the staff both at the Hotel Sinu in Monteria and here at the Hilton in Cartagena love to talk to him and play with him. The angel that he was for the first few days has given way to the little devil that he has evolved to. He smiles and laughs when he is doing something he knows he shouldn't. When he doesn't get his way, he does a fine imitation of a clown. He falls to the ground and flops around with his legs and arms sprawled out. His voices pauses to let his lung capacity build up and let out an off key cry. Tracey and I have a hard time not laughing. The hilton has a nice play area for the kids and several pools. One has a slide, but it looks too dangerous to put Ruben on, and you at home know what type of luck dad has with slides. (dad slid down a steep slide in Billings and hydroplaned across the pool up 5 concrete stairs and had a grapefruit sized hematoma for several months).
Tracey and I are getting the hang of communicating with the locals. Going out to dinner is the best!
A taxi to the restaraunt $6,000 pesos, dinner $35,000 pesos, watching Tracey order off the menu PRICELESS!!!
Lets just say, we never know what we are going to get. We haven't had any real trouble with the food. Then again, my gut is like superman, it would take kryptonite to burn a hole in it.
Tracey's is like a paper bag. You never know when the coco cola light is going to break a hole in the bottom.
Speaking of food, We are on the Dr. Laveau diet. It is not world known, but those of you at work know what I am talking about. We have been skipping lunch and eating a nice dinner. Dr. Laveau is a cardiologist that I work with. He doesn't eat lunch, and likes to see patients through the lunch hour. If you are reading this Dr. Laveau, I do miss our work routine and all the yellow sticky notes and requests for records. I'm sure Lily is keeping you in line in my absence. This has been a difficult diet for me to handle. I am making it work here in Colombia, but don't see it succeeding at home.
We took a taxi to the Castille de San Felipe this morning. This is a very old (1600-1700's) castle with a lot of history. It took close to 100 years to complete. It was built to keep the spaniards out and also was key in protecting Cartagena from other invaders. Will report more on this later.