Monday, February 18th, 2013

At 8am someone about a block away started using a jackhammer. It was time for me to get up anyway.

Reina tells me her sister lost her job and today she wants to visit a friend and then help her sister.

After lunch we took a bus downtown by putting together all of the small coins we had.  Besides those all we had left were large bills of 50mil pesos (about $25).  Reina stopped at a small store and bought a tube of glue for the towel holder that had fallen down in the guest bathroom.  The owner refused to take the large bill but a nice guy standing next to her in a White Sox hat gave her the change she needed.  When he looked back my way I  gave him the thumbs up and said “Go White Sox” but I don’t know if he understood me or not.

We took the metro north to the end of the line at Niquia.  We walked a short distance to a mall and bought some ice cream at Helados Popsy for 16,000 pesos.  I had a malt and Reina had a sundae.  While we were there we walked through an Exito and I bought a small 14W/50W light bulb for the garage door opener for 10,490 pesos.  I couldn’t find the special utility bulb that is more resistant to vibration that I was looking for but this will do for now.  We then walked a few blocks to a small grocery store where we met her mother.  We paid for some groceries she picked out and then took a bus to see her friend.  On the way a guy in a White Sox hat gets on the bus and hands out small suckers to everyone.  He took them right out of his big bag of suckers.  Reina bought 2 for about 200 pesos (about 10 cents).  

Her friend has a small kiosk across the street from a hospital.  Basically, she sells snacks; chips and pop.   About 4:30 we left her and walked a few blocks to catch a bus home.  We waited until about 4:45 before the bus finally came.  About 10 minutes later we got off in a downtown like area and as we were running to catch the next bus which was sitting just ahead I noticed a small store selling light bulbs and I thought I saw the utility bulb I was looking for.  I noted the address (Carrera 52 #53-91) just in case I couldn’t find the right bulb and we were in this area again.   Too bad we were in such a hurry as we sat in the bus without moving for 10-15 minutes.  I would have had plenty of time to check out the light bulbs.  On the way home, again it seemed like the bus was in no hurry and we didn’t get home until about 6:20.