now this I have never seen before...

kalder says on Jul 9, 2007, 11:13:

French maids' uniforms?

"kalder- have you ever had a woman?"--Sam Salmon

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Leeroy says on Jul 9, 2007, 11:15:

I can't offer any insight into the girls cleaning traffic cones, but my girlfriend too is a "wash your hands" freak.

What gets me is the "hover above a seat but not sit on it for a couple of minutes" ritual I see on the transmilenio. It looks ridiculous, and very uncomfortable. The process was later explained to me - apparently it is "asqueroso" to sit on a chair that is still warm from the body heat of the last person that sat on it. So you hover above it to claim it as yours, but wait for it to return to its cold-plastic state before it is okay to sit on it. While I try to integrate into local culture (drink aguardiente, play tejo, etc...), this I cannot get the hang of. If a seat appears it is mine, I sit on it straight away, y punto.

In London I always used to think it was nice to sit on a "pre-warmed" bus seat...

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podborski says on Jul 9, 2007, 11:16:

practically....but they are a bit over the hill, nothing to get excited about.

But no worries, there are all kinds of other scantily clad women running around.

(Just rubbing it in a little since you can't be here : )

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Tinto (Moderator) says on Jul 9, 2007, 11:17:

Now THAT'S a make-work job. Whoever their boss is has a bright future in New Orleans or Chicago politics.

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podborski says on Jul 9, 2007, 11:21:

too funny Leeroy!

The mother of one girl I was dating was always telling me things that I thought were very funny, like it is better to walk down stairs sideways than straight. Also something about after ironing I couldn't wash my hands for 2 hours or something like that?

She also watched what I ate like hawk, and was forever giving me nutritional advice. Luckily she is a sweetheart and did it all in the nicest way possible.

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kalder says on Jul 9, 2007, 11:21:

You rubbed it plenty in with your blow-by-blow account of the weekend's clubbing. Lucky sods.

Leeroy- pre-warmed bus seats always made me think someone had farted on them.

"kalder- have you ever had a woman?"--Sam Salmon

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Leeroy says on Jul 9, 2007, 11:29:

One would think that in the cold Bogota weather, the rich would pay the poor to pre-warm their bus seats for them. A future business opportunity, methinks...

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Leeroy says on Jul 9, 2007, 11:35:

Yet in the same country the same people will happily go to play tejo, getting filthy with clay and explosive powder residue and pissing in a trough. No one washes their hands there.

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kalder says on Jul 9, 2007, 11:40:

It makes more sense to wash your hands before going to the bathroom. Piss is sterile, so you don't actually need to wash away the odd inadvertent splash. But if your hands are dirty, you don't want to contaminate your todger...

Mind you, you'd be well advised to wash your hands after wiping your arse.

"kalder- have you ever had a woman?"--Sam Salmon

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Leeroy says on Jul 9, 2007, 11:45:

In Indonesia, where I lived for couple of years, one would wipe your arse with your hand. And there normally were no sinks around to speak of. It took me a while to get used to that...

I too believe that tejo is a fantastic game. Anything which involves groups of people (well, okay, men) hurling iron weights at explosives while getting progressively more drunk is okay in my book. I once asked my girlfriend's uncle (who introduced me to the game) if people ever got hurt, like, say, a tejo landing on someone's head and killing them. He shrugged and said "no, no pasa mucho". Well that's okay then...

Curiously, most of the foreigners I know do not like it - they don't even want to give it a try. Perhaps they consider it "below" them, or something.

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Leeroy says on Jul 9, 2007, 11:54:

What amuses me the most is that you can't play without buying beer. Like you just can't. You can't walk in and say "yeah, we want to play tejo, but we don't want to drink anything." They would say "no, buy a case of beer, or get the hell out". A game where drinking is not only allowed or encouraged, but abosultely mandatory,

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kalder says on Jul 9, 2007, 11:59:

One of my brothers-in-law used to have a tejo bar. You wouldn't have wanted to wash your hands in the jakes there.

"kalder- have you ever had a woman?"--Sam Salmon

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Cerealkiller says on Jul 9, 2007, 12:23:

Oh my god leeroy you are the funniest person ever. I do hover above seats, like Kalder said, it makes me feel like someone farted on it. Plus human warmth at 6am where everything else is bloody cold is always a bit suspicious...It takes me forever to warm up a seat or even my side of the bed, so I do find it quite offputting.

In regards to the tejo hahahaha, I have never played it in my life. Are girls welcome though? I have good aim and my liver is fully trained for alcohol binges...Can you play tejo in teams??

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives -John Stuart Mill

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Leeroy says on Jul 9, 2007, 12:32:

Yes, the most common way is to do it in 2 teams - say two teams of 4 each. There are other ways, though, involving writing numbers on the underside of bottle-caps and so-forth. You can only really have a maximum of 10 people per pista, after that it gets crowded and it takes forever waiting for your turn.

Girls are sometimes spotted playing "mini-tejo", basically tejo but you throw lighter weights not as far. With mini-tejo all you have to do is swing your arm, with real tejo (or, "tejo largo") it involves an elaborate dancing/skipping/jumping ritual to get the adequate momentum to throw the tejo far enough. Girls don't normally play "tejo largo" because a) they don't have the strength required and b) they realise how riduculous it looks.

I play mini-tejo every other sunday with my girlfriend's family, and several of them are female. The best player of all of us, in fact, is my gf's sister.

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podborski says on Jul 9, 2007, 12:50:

oh jesus I guess I rest up my liver and my throwing arm

lucky I am only here for a week

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Cerealkiller says on Jul 9, 2007, 12:53:

Sounds like a fun time leeroy, however, if anyone realizes how ridiculous they look, chances are theyre not doing the drinking bit right. I am all for making an ass of myself, so Ill try Tejo largo one of these days...

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives -John Stuart Mill

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Robert Jorge says on Jul 9, 2007, 20:42:

Tejo is one of the many things I miss about Colombia. The only injury I ever saw, was to myself. I was on my 10th Aguila, mas o menos, and I went into my backswing before the step, hop forward - and I didn't realize I was at a perfect arm's length away from a concrete and brick barrier. Basically, it was like punching a brick wall with my fingers, second knuckles to the tips, with a 6 pound steel weight in my hand. I then consumed aguardiente to help kill the pain. Everybody else thought it was quite funny.

BEWARE of gold diggers.

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kalder says on Jul 10, 2007, 00:43:

It always looked lethal to me. Drunk old guys lobbing steel weights around, my brother-in-law bobbing, weaving and dodging as he collected the empties.

"kalder- have you ever had a woman?"--Sam Salmon

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