Happy April Fools Day!
7:30 this morning I’m sitting on the
balcony and I notice some old guy limp by wearing a hat that says Chicago on
it. A couple minutes later he’s back and
asking me something – I think directions.
In my limited Spanish I give him my usual Spanish reply – I’m sorry but I
don’t speak much Spanish. I then tell
him I am from Chicago and motion towards his hat but he doesn’t appear to
understand the connection.
Reina told me Dylan misplaced his
house keys either at the finca (country home) or Laura’s house so we have to
stay nearby until we can give him the extra set of keys.
Saturday night I told Reina I didn’t
want her to have to work today on her birthday so we went to Laureles Mall for
breakfast. (She told me she doesn’t want
to stay in the apartment all day.)
At Laureles Mall we had an
inexpensive breakfast (11600 pesos; $6.50) at Bunuelos Express. The same one I had previously which included
eggs scrambled with tomato, arepa w/ cheese, some kind of roll, and hot
chocolate. We stopped at the pet store
there and took a look at the dogs. (No
new kittens.)
I then tried to win another stuffed
animal at the claw machine but they are all either too heavy or they have them
on the extreme edges of the machine where the claw can’t quite reach them.
We then went back to the apartment and
at 11:15 Dylan and Laura arrived and I gave him the extra set of keys.
About noon we took a bus
downtown. We stopped at a large “mall”
that we have had lunch at many times before.
This time we ate at Estado Texas and I had a hamburger, fries, and a
coke (8mil $4.50) and Reina had the Colombian special of the day (9400 pesos
$5.25). Then we walked to a small Exito
and bought a large tub of ice cream (22,680 pesos $12.50) and then to a small
bakery called Santa Clara and she bought a large cake for (38,600 pesos
$21.50). We took a taxi to her mother’s
house where we had cake and ice cream with the family. About 4pm we took 2 buses to her friend’s
house in Buenas Aires barrio. She
apparently raises poodles for sale. We
saw 3 adult poodles and 1 of her babies.
She charges $100 but they are only 4 weeks old. Reina says she currently has 10 poodles. When it came time to leave Reina asked me I
wanted to take a bus or taxi. I told her
let’s take a bus to downtown and then a taxi to our apartment. But when we got downtown I saw that we only
had 7mil left and I was pretty sure it would take at least (in rush hour
traffic) 10mil to get home so I told her that we needed to take a bus. She made a comment that she thought I didn’t
like to walk. Well, if she hadn’t spent
so much on cake and ice cream we might have had enough money to take a taxi.
Later Reina took offense with the
fact that I’m keeping track of all of our expenses. She is afraid that her friends and relatives
will think I’m stingy. I told her I’m
sorry but I’m a numbers person and that’s what I do. Besides, we’ve run out of money within the 1st
5 days the last couple of months and had to borrow money from friends and
relatives so maybe it’s time to try something different.
I checked my USAA account and the
Social Security deposit hasn’t shown up yet.
Not good news! Social Security
told me the money would be in my account on the 3rd of the month but
one expat told me that for foreigners the money is deposited on the 1st
of the month. I guess I haven’t had
enough experience to be sure what the rule is.
And maybe uncle sam is late sometimes?
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