Day 38 - Great heights and great thefts

So on Day 38, Friday, July 17th, my phone was stolen. I'll get to that in a bit though. Therefore, all of the following photos were taken by Sally or Juan Davíd.

At around 2:00, Juan Davíd and I left to go to Colegio Americano to pick up Sally and go sight-seeing together. Once we picked her up, we walked probably 20 blocks until we got to El Museo Nacional. The first thing that we saw was a meteorite that had hit Colombia. It definitely did not look like what I would have thought a meterorite would look like. It seriously looked like something that was morphed using cement and then painted or something! There was a good portion of gold trinkets made by indigenious groups of Colombia, which wasn't too interesting for us since we had already been to El Museo de Oro which was filled with only that. However, there were some things made in silver, which were a little more interesting. There was a silver harness that was used by Simón Bolívar (the man who liberated much of Latin america from Spain) as well as a silver crown that had been given to him. It was really cool and I took pictures of them, but of course, they are forever stuck in the phone that was stolen from me. There was also a room that had a textile with a design made entirely of feathers. There was also a printing press that had a moving shadow behind it showing how it was made, which was really cool. Also, there was a diversity wall with tons of paintings showing Colombia's diversity. Some of the "frames" on the wall were moving animations on tvs, but it definitely reminded us of Harry Potter!

There were also some different areas that showed some of the violence throughout the Colombian conflict. Another thing that was really interesting was a pair of shoes that a Colombian soccer player had worn in the Berlin Olympics of 1936 and some other things from the Olympics like a discus and a medal. Of course, I no longer have those photos either. There was also a giant frame that used to have a painting that was not there for some reason, so we took advantage of the opportunity and took a picture inside the frame! Luckily, that photo, Sally did have!

(to be posted. Sally hasn't sent her photos from the museum to me yet)

Afterwards, since Sally and I were kinda hungry, we tried to find someplace we could get a quick snack. We ended up stopping at a coffee shop called OMU. I got carrot cake bread and café latté, which was basically just coffee and milk mixed. However, it wasn't sweet, and since I'm still adjusting to coffee, I had to put in a pack and a half of sugar! It also came with a chocolate covered coffee bean, which I still haven't tried yet but am really curious to try! Then, we went to get into line to go to the top of the highest building in Bogotá, the Colpatria building, which is a bank. (There is another building that is being built near it that is already taller than the Colpatria building, but it's still in construction. Once it's finished, the Colpatria building will be the 2nd tallest in Colombia and the 5th tallest in Latin America! The building is 643 feet tall.) It cost $5,000 COL to go up to the top, which was actually the same price as my coffee and bread, $1.80 USD. Thank goodness it wasn't any more than that, cause that was my last Colombian bill! I need to go exchange some more money! We waited in line for a bit. The line was surprisingly long. We went up in the elevator to the 47th floor, I believe. We had to walk the rest of the way up to get to the 50th floor. We got there at a perfect time cause it was just starting to get dark. It got dark while we were still on the top. You could see so much of the city and Bogotá is a BIG city. Well, it's a very populated city. There are roughly 8 million people that live there! The city is 613 mi². Nashville is only 526 mi². The entire island of Oahu is 597mi². So yeah, it's pretty big, and we were in the city area, so it's no wonder my phone got stolen, unfortunately. Once we left the tower, it was dark enough that the tower was lit. There are LED lights on the tower that show all different things. Normally, it showed the colors of the Colombian flag moviing, but sometimes it would show different things that were relevant to Colombia at the moment - like some bike race. In the LED lights that were lines between the windows, you could see cartoons riding bikes! It was amazing, and I'd include a video if my phone hadn't have been stolen.

Afterwards, we walked down the streets for a bit. There were a lot of street vendors but this time, it seemed like a lot of the vendors were selling used stuff. Literally, some of the stuff that people were selling were obviously used. It was like a garage sale! It was weird. I saw used shoes, half-used bottles of perfume, and a very worn algebra book! There were also lots of books for sale. Every once in a while, we got a whiff of pot (see "Things I've Learned In Colombia to learn about the legality of marijuana - it's interesting!). There were some street performers, like a "statue" person dressed kinda like a robot. Then there was a Michael Jackson impersonator, who may have very well been good, but his music system kept stopping and therefore, he kept stopping his dance. The funny thing was there was a camera man videotaping him and two days later when in Fusa, we saw the dude in a commercial on TV! There were also charicaturists and chalk drawers. There was one man that did quick paintings using spray paint like what has appeared so often on the internet. There was one chalk artist that was working on an amazing rendition of Girl with a Pearl Earring on the street, and later on we saw someone drawing two whales. I took a picture of the whales, and that is the last time I remember using my phone. I had been keeping it in my left jacket pocket, which had a pocket cover/flap, but that obviously wasn't enough. Since my good camera is currently broken, I wanted to have my phone easily accesible to be able to take pictures. I made sure to not keep it in my back pocket, but I really didn't think I would have problems with it being in my left pocket, especially since I kept latching arms with Sally due to it being cold. Shortly afterwards, we caught a bus. I don't remember ever using my phone while on the bus. All of us sudden, Juan Davíd told us we needed to get off. At that moment, I realized I hadn't seen my phone in a while but didn't have much time to look around since we had to get off and since the busses are so bumpy, it really would've been hard to do such. But still, I probably should have looked around better, it was just that Juan David was already off the bus and I needed to hurry up before the bus left.But I really don't think that I left it on the bus, but I really am not positibe. I just know that the moment I got off the bus, it was not in any of my pockets nor in my purse. I really don't know why I didn't react as much as I had before. I literally left my phone at the mall three days earlier, returned after 45 minutes, and miraculously had it returned to me by the officers. I guess I was just in shock that I had lost it again and just hoping that God would come through again. The last time, I cried because it looked like i wasn't going to be able to get it back. I started thinking of all the bad thing that had been happening to me ever since I arrived to Bogotá and started worrying that perhaps all of those things were signs that I shouldn't have ever come to Bogotà. But this time, I really wasn't reacting as badly although I was almost positive I had been pickpocketed and that there was next to no chance of me ever seeing it again.

Unfortunately, my phone had a log-in pin. Which in hindsight, it would've been better if it hadn't had that cause the theif would have been much more likely to use the internet without thinking about the fact that I could track the phone. However, though I've tried several times to try to locate it with FindMYIphone and to change the phone to be in Locked Mode, I can't do either until the user connects it to some form of internet. I had a Colombian network witg 3G internet on it, so there should have been no problem with it accessing the internet. Because it's telling me that it's "offline," it could only mean that the thief turned it off, put it on airplane mode, it died, or perhaps they switched the SIM card. I'm not too sure what would happen if they changed the SIM card. I've never stolen a phone, so I'm not too sure how that works. But it seems that it's a lost cause and that I'll never be able to get that phone back. The worst part is all of the photos that I had on it that I didn't get to upload. Also I had days 22 through 37 all written out on my notes. So now, I have to try to go back and remember what happened on those days. NOTE TO FUTURE SELF: make it so that my phone's notes and photos are connected to icloud so that I can acess them if I lose, break, or have my phone stolen. Also, download the app Prey BEFORE it gets stolen.