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Still one more posting left from the Bogota trip. (Benjamin is now learning to rollover. He still can't solo quite yet, but did roll from his front to his back mostly on his own tonight - 12/1). He works hard every day and will get it soon.) Benjamin now rolls proficiently from front to back and back to front as long as he is not on hardwood floors.
This beautiful manger scene is only about 50 yards away from the Expertos Queseros tree but fortunately carries no advertising logos.
We walked by this tree for several weeks waiting for them to decorate it with something really nice, and then one day were horrified to find that instead, someone appointed by a Colombian dairy food company, Alpina, had mounted cheese wheels all over it, and a "Cheese Experts" sign where the star should be. The cheese wheels even light up at night. I was considering protesting this abomination until I found the Alpina display in the mall where they were handing out free samples of the Holendes Navideno cheese. It *is* pretty good stuff, I have to admit, but I think it looks better on crackers than on a tree.
Angela really enjoyed playing on the slides and among all the reindeer at the Mall. Here are some more scenes of the decorations/play areas for kids, including the slide from the 2nd to 1st floors.
If you look closely into the soldier's horn, you can see a couple of pink soap bubble wands. There are actually several of these mounted on a wheel that rotates the wands into the soap, and then air blowing through the horn makes the bubbles. You used to need to get your kids to make the bubbles, but automation has now taken that job away. It is not known whether blowing soap into the air was meant soley for decoration, or to double as an air purification system.
We sometimes walked to a park, which is about 13 blocks from our apartment, for Angela to play in a larger playground. Mostly we enjoy the walk. The last time we were there they were decorating for Christmas. Most homes and business put up some decorations, all very tasteful. The last week we were in Bogota we went on a tour of the Christmas lights in our area. It was fun!
