Thursday, April 18th, 2013

I had an online chat with Citibank this morning.  The lady there told me if I called Citibank at 1-800-374-9700 they would be able to fix my problem.

I asked Reina if I now have medical insurance or if something more needs to be done.  A little after breakfast we first took a walk down to Avenida 80 and stopped at a building with a big white cross and the sign Cruz Blanca (Cross White) on it.  We had passed it several times before and Reina had commented that it was a real good place.  We stopped in and Reina spoke briefly with someone there who gave her a slip of paper with the following on it:

DEPARTAMENTO DE CARTERA

CL 39C 73-11 Primer parque de laureles

TEL 411 45 44 – 412 60 99

CTALINA MARIN DAVILA –

Catalina.cruzblanca@gmail.com

Later Reina wrote 413 21 57 next to the other 2 telephone numbers.

To be continued…

Next we went to where Reina had her dress altered (incorrectly) at Carrera 84 42C-28 and she left it again to be redone.  It should be ready Saturday.  When she returns to pick it up, I’m going to go too and leave my new shorts to be altered because they are about 1 size too big.

We went across the street and down a block to Papeleria Papelmax at Carrera 84 #43-21 Tel: 252 02 88 and I called Citibank at 1-800-374-9700.  (But first she preceded that number with 005).  The best the lady could figure out what went wrong is that the address associated with my Nook is in the US and the address associated with my Citibank card is Reina’s address in Colombia.  To change it to my current correct address I have to send them a signed, notarized letter.  1^st, I don’t know how to mail something from here.  2^nd, I don’t know how I would get something notarized here.  3^rd, I don’t know if that would be acceptable to Citibank seeing as it would all be in Spanish.  I think the best thing to do is to try to change my Nook address to match my current (old) Colombia address.

I changed my Nook address to match my current (old) Colombian address but I’m still getting the error message “Your credit card has been declined…” when I try to download a book.  Very unfair!  Very disappointing!

After lunch we walked to the insurance office listed on the paper we received yesterday.  It was about a 30 minute walk and I noticed a number of interesting restaurants on the way there.  The location was another Saludcoop building across the street from Parque Laureles #1.  Reina talked to the lady there and it didn’t sound like the news was good.  She said something about the fact that I couldn’t get insurance because I wasn’t working.  We then went to the other end of the block and went inside another building identified as Sura.  This building was nicely air conditioned but they led us out to a courtyard (not air conditioned) with a couple of folding tables and chairs and the lady talked to Reina for about 15 minutes.  Still I still didn’t have a good feeling that things went well.

Then Reina and I split up: she headed off to Angela’s (I gave her 2mil for ice cream) and I went back the way I came to write down the names of some interesting restaurants.  Many of these are within a block of the Blue Marlin restaurant that my brother and I visited back in March.  The Cuban restaurant was the same one we went to back on March 13^th.  Now I can go back and update it with the correct address.

Ay Caramba (TexMex; chicken fajitas; Trip Advisor #111 of 264): Calle 40 #45-60

Brassa Country (brasa means barbecued): Av. Jardin at Nutibara Circular 74B #39B-29

Milagro’s.

Archie’s (Pizza; Trip Advisor #99 of 264):

Chef Burger Bar (Trip Advisor #82 of 264):

La Bodequita Havanera (Cuban): Transversal 39 #75-10 (2^nd Parque Laureles)

On the way to Angela’s house from our apartment (2 blocks south of Golden Palomar Hotel) we always passed a store that sold only women’s clothing.  Finally the last time I walked past there I noticed the sign that said something like Ropa Hombres Piso Segundo which I knew meant Men’s clothing 2^nd floor.  So today I went there and found a lot of t-shirts for 15mil ($8.33) or less.  That’s exactly what I’ve been looking for.  Early next month I’ll buy several t-shirts.  They also had a lot of shorts but they all looked more like swimming suits as I saw pull string ties.  I’ll look more closely next time.  I wonder if they will accept my debit card.

On my way back I stopped at Laureles Mall and had a large Pepsi at Frisby for 3800 pesos.  I found a free newspaper there named Gente which according to Google Translate can have a lot of meanings: people, folk, town, or dweller.  I went through it while I drank my Pepsi and noticed an article about Brassa Country restaurant and recognized a picture of Laureles Parque #1.

I finally got the house number of the local restaurant along Avenida 80 (37D-19) across from Viva where I had lunch back on March 13^th & 19^th.   I’m sure I’ll be having a number of lunches there.

4pm and it’s a real rain storm with lots of thunder (I can never see the lightning).  It poured hard for about 45 minutes.

Today Helen is having surgery on her knee.  Tomorrow Reina is going to go to Helen’s house to help her and won’t be home until about 9 or 10pm.

When finally I could ask Reina what the insurance companies said, her response was: “we have to find another company on Monday, go somewhere else. your age is 67 and you have to pay a lot of money each month 550 000 best we were somewhere else so you can pay less ok