Sunday, March 31st, 2013

Happy Easter everyone!

Again I don’t seem to know what’s going on.

7:30am we took a taxi to the Stadium and walked around it with lots of other people.  People flock here on Sundays for walking, speed walking, jogging, roller skating/blading, and bicycling.  We stopped at a kiosk and had a cup of fresh orange juice and we shared a cup of fresh papaya and mango.  Then we walked across the street and had breakfast at a sidewalk café.  For 19mil total we each had frijoles (beans) with rice, 2 eggs, an arepa and juice.  We plan to return to the stadium some Sunday and try out our roller skates.

We took a taxi to Carrefour and I pretty much emptied my account of pesos.  While there I bought some medicine I needed.  Without a prescription I got a 15gram tube of 5% Aciclovir for $3 (that would probably cost $100 in the States and will probably last me the rest of my life), 30 Tamsulosina for $23, and 4 Sildenafil for $3.20.  (The spellings might be a little different because of the language difference.)  We walked across the parking lot to Home Center and bought horizontal blinds for Dylan’s bedroom and ours.  We then took a taxi home but realized we picked up the wrong color of blinds for our room so back we went to return them.

Later I understood from what Reina said that we were going to meet her mother and Aunt Helen for lunch at Exito.  I was surprised when she wanted to take a taxi because Exito is only 3 blocks away.  But she said we are going to Exito Centro (downtown).  When we got there she paid the bill for the last 2 months of her apartment’s water, electricity, and television.  We then walked across the street to a large open plaza and she showed me two identical statues except the first was nearly destroyed by a bomb in 1995 and it had a plaque on it naming those who died in the explosion. 

I was again surprised when we hopped on a bus.  What, we’re having lunch at another Exito?  Then I realize the bus is for Aranjuez – the barrio her mother lives in.  Now I‘m thinking we’re having lunch at her mother’s house.  We get off and walk a few blocks and we’re at Parque Explora.  It’s one of the places I wanted to visit I just didn’t think we were going to be here on Easter Sunday.  It’s interesting that while all the small kiosks are closed all the large stores and attractions are open; so much for this being such a religious country.

Parque Explora consists of a planetarium, an aquarium, and an Interactive science and technology park.  The later area has 2 3D movies “The Last Reef” and “Dinosaurs”.  The planetarium has 3 movies – “Astronauts”, “Passport to the Universe”, and “We Are Astronomers”.  

I paid 76mil for the 4 of us to enter the park; I’m not sure why but it cost 18mil for 2 of us and 20 mil for the others.  (Age discrimination?  Lol)  We walked around looking at some of the exhibits and then we had lunch which I think cost me a little more than 40mil.  Then we walked through the aquarium which, of course, is not as large or as nice as Chicago’s.  Reina took a lot of pictures of the fish with her cell phone camera.  We had a 3:10 appointment to one of the 3D movies so we had to hurry off to the theater.  They gave us the usual glasses and since we were a few minutes late it was dark and the movie had already started.  After less than 5 minutes Reina informed me that Helen didn’t like the movie and wanted to leave so we left.  We then left the park (next time Reina and I will come alone and we’ll spend the day there seeing everything) and went next door to Jardin Botanico, their botanical garden.  (At least it was free.)  A lot of people were sitting around in the grass having picnics.  We stopped for a few minutes at an old train car and bought some ice cream.  We walked around a little but then we had to leave because Jesus was coming to the apartment at 5pm to put up the blinds.  

Jesus arrived on time and put up the blinds.  We’ll pay him 20mil when we get the rest of our April deposit.