Friday, June 21st, 2013

Went to bed at 10pm last night; got up twice during the night and finally woke up at 6:30 feeling pretty good.

While having my coffee on the balcony I noticed a man on the roof of a house down the block drilling 2 holes in the roof in which he inserted a small flagpole with a black flag in each.  It’s more like a pennant really than a flag.  I wonder what that’s about.

On the way to Exito I noticed they had painted the number of a new bus route (195ii) in a parallel parking spot in the street just outside Viva mall.  I remember a couple weeks ago Gente newspaper introduced some new Laureles bus routes.  I saved each of them not knowing if I might need them one day.

Bought my milk at Exito this morning for 1,520 (84 cents) as usual. 

 

According to a Note on my iPad, Angel is 4 months old today.  Happy Birthday Angel!  

Yesterday I got an email from the owner of the apartment building.  She translated my rental agreement from Spanish to English for me.  What I understand now is:

1. The lease is extended in 6-month increments.
2.  The $1000 deposit I made is a guarantee of payment for utility services and damage to the apartment when I move out.

The following is the email I just sent to Rosetta Stone:

I followed your configuration instructions without any problem.  I then completed a small portion (lesson, topic, whatever) in R.S. where I had a couple of opportunities to speak and it seemed to work fine.  Then on the next lesson after a couple more opportunities it doesn't recognize my voice and responds with:

"We expect you to be speaking here, and we aren't detecting any input from your microphone.  Would you like to launch Microphone Setup?"

About 11:15 I left for Philly Steaks.  It was a little further than I thought – about 12 blocks (some the short side, some the long side).  I got there at 11:50 and it was closed.  I asked at the snack shop next door and the only thing I understood was “or later”.  So, I walked 8 blocks back to Viva mall and I had the chicken teriyaki special at Sarku for 9,900 ($5.50).  After that I studied my chess course at Laureles Mall until Dario showed up; he won the first game although I was ahead in the endgame but due to time trouble I didn’t find the right moves.  The second game was close but then he had to leave; I wrote down the time left on each clock so maybe we can continue the game next week.  I found out the woman I’ve seen him with isn’t his wife but as he said “a friend”.  It was nice that he treated me to an ice cream cone before he left (I was really starting to feel the heat) and showed me that he and his girlfriend were working on Sudoku puzzles.

For dinner I wanted the hamburger of the day at Burger King but found out their special is over so I had a Whopper Jr. for 5800 ($3.22) and a small strawberry milkshake for 5400 ($3).  Their milkshakes are so thick they give you a straw they call a Burger King Pipe and it’s about double the diameter of a regular straw.

I bought a kilo of strawberries on the way back to the apartment.  I had half of them with my medicine so I’m hoping that will help me sleep through the night.  The rest will be with breakfast tomorrow.

I’d like to see the new movie World War Z starring Brad Pitt.  I’m not a big fan of zombies but this movie may be an exception.  I checked the Medellin theatres and it isn’t here although it opened in the US today.  If it’s like After Earth it should be here next week.