Analysis of a City

I´m getting close to a third trip to Bogotá (next week), and wanted to share some of my experiences on expenses. This time we´re off to get US citizenship for Avril. Here are some of the costs for the three of us…

1. Hotel. We are renting a room at Casa de Huespedes Doña Flor for $49 for one night (3 people). Doña Flor rents out rooms and whole apartments, and is located 200 meters from the US Embassy. We have also stayed in hotels near Parque 93 as well as central Bogota in the past. We found a hostel near Parque 93 for the 2 of us last February for $33…not the most attractive, but a place to sleep. In downtown Bogota, we stayed at a nice hotel for $71. Last November, I found a very comfortable hostel right in the thick of downtown (private room double) for only $22 called Hostel Sue. Finding a deal on hotels in Bogota requires some work though.
2. Bus. Medellin to Bogota one way: $26. We have bargained down to as low as $19. Look for the guys with the Bus company logos on their shirts selling tickets before arriving to the ticket booth.
3. Fly. If you prefer going by air (domestic), expect to pay a little more than $100 each way.
4. Food. Very economical. Expect to pay about $5 per person or less eating out. 

Although these prices are quite economical, Bogota is the most expensive city in Colombia. In any other cities such as Medellin, Cartagena or Santa Marta, you can expect to get even better deals.

Best New Site for Travel

Check out Hipmonk the next time you go to purchase a flight. Very simple, very clean. The visuals make your results immediately obvious. The default is set on agony…their word for difficulty in travel. So the least troublesome flight is up at the top….those without stopovers.

My first search gave me 17 results on one page that were visually easy to read. After selecting a flight, you are directed to a return flight. After selecting the return flight, you are directed to the website offering the chosen flight at that price.

Very slick and easy layout…everything that I look for in a website. No more hours and hours of searching for that great deal. I haven’t made a purchase yet, but once I left the Hipmonk site, I was directed to the next site, Orbitz, Expedia, Priceline, whatever. Once at that stage, I see no reason why everything wouldn’t go smoothly as it normally would when purchasing tickets online.

Zeusbox

Got some time to kill? Check out Zeusbox to find some excellent wallpapers for your desktop. There is no doubt in my mind that rotating wallpaper images on the desktop instills creativity. There is nothing worse than seeing the same desktop image day after day. What a bore! I have mine set to change every 30 minutes on the Mac. You can do the same with Windows 7. Older versions of Windows require 3rd party software, none of which are any good.

When browsing the site, make sure that you download the images that are correct for your display. On my 13” Macbook, the resolution is 1280 x 800, so that’s what I stick with. I downloaded a couple hundred tonight, and will probably get some more some other day when I have nothing better to do. Check it out at www.zeusbox.com. Don’t let all the wallpaper girls on the home page throw you…there’s plenty of nature, beaches, mountains, plants, etc. categories with literally thousands of pics.

http://www.dangraf.com/

Web Design

I’ve finally figured out the key (for me anyway) to website design. That is, borrow, until I figure out the right way to do it. I’ve been downloading some free templates from www.globaltemplates.com. So far I have redone www.dangraf.com as well as my www.grafsurv.com website. I have yet to redesign the horribly bad design at www.graffamilytree.com, which is bad even by standards 15 years ago. So check it out quick, as I am about to replace it with a newly improved (and how couldn’t it be?) design.

I have been so impressed with the designs at www.globaltemplates.com, that I am thinking of purchasing some of their premium templates. In the meantime, I leave their small little advertisement on the two websites I have already redone, and will do so for all the rest. They deserve it! So, if you lose track of this blog, just look at the bottom of any of my websites that doesn’t look ridiculously bad.

I’m not saying that my studies of web design over the years has failed me. Even with these templates, it takes some smarts to be able to put it all together and make it “mine”. It definitely helps to have some html, php, dreamweaver, seo, etc. under my belt. 

So far, I have been able to get away with only using Dreamweaver, and a free Mac program called Gimp for my Photoshop type of work. The idea of investing in the entire Adobe Suite doesn’t really interest me (not at their prices anyway). Any kind of suggestions would be greatly appreciated.