Tunja

Here I am, about to enter my third (!) week in a little city in Colombia called Tunja, which I'm pretty sure stands for either "land of the feral cows" or "seriously underwhelming weather-ville." The area is steeped in history - in fact, I was told that the church on the center square, the Plaza de Bolivar (one of 29343298 things in this area named after Andean liberation general Simón Bolívar) is the oldest church in the Western Hemisphere, although I'm not totally sure that's true. However, the city has recently gone through a period of rapid growth, demonstrated by the many cow pastures randomly sprinkled throughout the urban areas. Sitting at the food court in the mall, one can have a staring contest lunch date with a speckled cow right on the other side of the glass. OK, so it's not a huge place - but with 150,000 people, it is quite a bit larger than Walla Walla (30,000), Olympia (50,000) or even Bellingham (80,000).

The other nickname comes from the fact that Tunja's climate resembles a mild but typical October day in Seattle - 365 days a year.Everyone keeps telling me that it's a very cold place, which at first I found a little strange, because I'm from Washington, and it never gets below 40 here. but then I realized that though it never gets below 40, it almost always is about 45 or 50, and it NEVER gets above 70. Not only that, but the building that I work in is 250 years old and has an arched glass ceiling that doesn't actually come into contact with the rest of the tiled roof, meaning that the building is basically outdoors temperature - cold. Tunjanos, as (I think) they're known, embrace this aspect of their city. In fact, one of the busiest corners on the main plaza is called "Esquina de la Pulmonía" - literally, "Pnemonia Corner."

They say it gets especially windy in August. Oh boy.