Thursday, March 14th, 2013

Happy Pi(e) Day!  Get it?  3.14? 

I’m up at 4am because my brother, Jim, is taking a taxi to the airport to return to Chicago.  He arranged with the Golden Palomar Hotel for a taxi to pick him up here at the apartment at 5am and take him to the international airport in Rio Negro.  It’s ordinarily about a 45 to 50 minute trip from Medellin so with almost no traffic at this hour he should make his flight with no problem.  So, I’m up to see him off and then I’ll go back to bed for a few more hours.

At 4:15 I met the night shift whistle guy; don’t remember seeing him before.  I tried to talk to him in my broken Spanish but he didn’t seem interested in trying to carry on a conversation.

At 5:05am and no taxi so my brother wheeled his suitcase and I carried a small bag about 6 blocks to the hotel.  Didn’t see even one taxi available at that hour.  They called for a taxi and by 5:25 he was off.  I walked back to the hotel alone which was a little creepy but even if I got held up all I had on me were apartment keys and a copy of my passport.

I was back in bed by 5:45 and slept until 8:45.  After breakfast Reina told me it was her brother’s wife’s birthday today and she wanted to get her a present.  We also needed to buy a lot of vegetables so we took a bus downtown.  In order to control expenses I decided to take minimal cash with me.  (If you don’t have it you can’t spend it, right?)  After a lot of searching Reina finally found a watch she liked and I think it cost about 45mil.  It looked pretty large and masculine to me so maybe I don’t understand who it is for.  Then she bought a Mylar balloon with Happy Birthday on it.  We went to the gift store where the lady works at a museum near Botero plaza but she wasn’t there.  Another lady, I think she was French, translated for me that the lady was in a meeting for another 2 or 3 hours.  I showed Reina the little money I had left as we would need to have enough to pay for a taxi home with the bags of vegetables I was expecting we would be buying.  She asked if I had more money at the apartment and of course I had to say yes.

After buying 3 good sized bags filled with heavy vegetables for about 25mil we struggled with them for about a block to a taxi.  When we got back to the apartment I ran in and grabbed another 50mil bill I had stashed away.  Of course, the taxi driver didn’t have that much change so we had to sit and wait while he went up the block to find someone he could get change from.  (Of course I did save something as we didn’t have lunch downtown.)

After a nice lunch of salad, potatoes, rice, and chicken with a glass of milk we were going to go to pick up my laundry and then a few things at Exito.  But rain looked so threatening we decided to wait and sure enough a few minutes later it’s poring.  Rain here doesn’t seem to last long so we’ll probably be able to leave soon.  It seemed to slow down so we started out.  I took the old, 1mil repaired umbrella and it opened perfectly right away.  To make a long story short it opened and closed twice and that was it.  And it wouldn’t stop raining.

I picked up my clothes from the cleaners (dry?) which included 6 shirts, 1 pair of shorts, 1 pair of jeans, 9 pairs of undershorts and 5 pairs of socks.  Later Reina made fun of me because I paid 18mil for them when her mother could have done it and folded them nicer.

We stopped at Laureles Mall for ice cream and then made a dash for Viva!  I bought an adjustable wrench for 14.5mil and Reina bought some rice, mayonnaise, tartar sauce, and chicken for a total of 50.8mil.  Since it was still raining I relented and we took a taxi the 3 blocks back to the apartment for 4.4mil.

After dinner I tested the new Shedrain umbrella a few times and it worked flawlessly.  Someday I may take the old and the new to the 1mil man and show him how it’s supposed to work.

Then Reina and I disassembled the new bed in the guest room and reassembled it in Dylan’s room.  By the time we have our next guest we should have at least a new mattress in there.

New bed and nighstand.

I found out that Reina spells her son’s name as Dylan even though his Cedula shows Dilan.