Megan and I arrived in Bogota on Tuesday and stayed through the weekend, only for 5 days, but I think we got a good feel for the city. We stayed with friends of friends in their apartment in the north. Our bedroom has a view of the mountains that border the eastern side of the city, part of the Andes moutain range.Bogota has a pretty mild climate, similar to San Francisco and no seasons.  Though when it rains here, it means it. Growing up in Seattle I´m certainly used to the rain, but rain up north is drizzly and consistent.  Here, its an event.On Saturday, we slept in and woke up to a homemade breakfast of banana and strawberry pancakes, cheese and coffee.  Our hosts have been so generous and eager to share their city with us.  After breakfast, the four of us caught the bus to el centro, downtown and walked to the base of La Monserrate, so that we could view the city atop themountains that we have been waking up to every morning.  The hike is about 2500 feet and very steep.  Megan and I are not adjusted to the altitude (Bogota is more than 8,000 ft above sea level), so I definitely felt more winded than usual. It was a good climb, took about an hour to get to the top.  We made it just in time - about 20 steps from the top, we felt the first raindrop.  We snapped some quick photos, to capture our accomplishment.  Unfortunately, because of the cloud cover we could not get good photos of the city. However it was incredible to see the city from this height.  Bogota is a vast and sprawling city, with a population of almost 8 million. From our viewwe could see the apartment we were staying at in the north to the center of town in the south. Megan and I had walked that distance when we got here and it actually looked impressive from bird´s eye view. We had covered a lot of ground, but nothing compared to the extent of the city´s borders.We ducked into the church for shelter, hoping the rain would let up shortly.  It proceeded to downpour, immediately flooding the brick plaza, interspersed with hail stones. We decided to make a dash for the trolley down the mountain.  At the bottom we caught a cab and about 45 mins later (because the streets were flooding) we weresitting at the restaurant drinking hot soup, just what we needed as we were all sufficiently soaked.We waited out the storm, and walked back to the apartment.  Since Megan and I have been here, the most common thing we get from locals on the street is ´´hola monas´´, hi blondies. So when we were walking home, twolittle girls were following us.  One of them, probably six years old, yells after me ´´Monita, monita, su camara...´´ She was telling me that my camera was going to fall out of my bag, which it was.  But it was so funny hearing from a six year old, ´´little blondie´´.  So that is our nickname here and now we hear it everywhere we go.That night, just before we were going to leave for a night out, the rain started again.  It was truly impressive, absolute torential downpour and no signs of letting up.  The power went out, though the building generator kicked in immediately.  But we decided to open a bottle of wine and get comfortable on the couch for a night in.It was a perfect day and Bogota is really a wonderful city.