Friday, June 28th, 2013

I went to bed at 10:45, slept through the night, woke up at 5:45, got up at 6:30.  It’s so nice when I sleep through the night without getting up once.  But why, because I had a light dinner?  I wish I could figure out what the secret is.

Jhon told me I could buy my milk from the corner snack shop so I wouldn’t have to wait until Exito is open nor walk quite so far so this morning I gave it a try.  I told them “I need a bag of milk” in Spanish and the lady tried to give me a package of cigarettes.  I looked in their deli case and I thought I saw it right there.  They finally understood what I wanted – I guess I didn’t pronounce it right.  It’s about 10 cents more at 1,900 pesos ($1.06) but it’s cold!  Maybe because it says it’s pasteurized. 

My next Nook book is Unbroken – A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption.  I think it’s about a World War II pilot whose plane is shot down over the ocean and spends a long time trying to survive in a raft.

I have an 11:30 dental appointment so I’m going to catch the bus at 10am.  That should give me plenty of time to get there.  Today I’m probably going to skip the Flip Flop Sandwich Shop in order to cut down on the walking.  Or maybe I’ll have lunch there and take a taxi down the hill to Monterrey C.C.  I’m going to play it by ear.

I see some of my pension money is in my checking account this morning.  Sweet!

I left home about 10am and got to Monterrey C.C. about 10:45.  By 11:10 I was outside the building of my dentist.  I sat in the shade for a while to cool down as I had just walked about 10 blocks.  The dentist spent about 30 minutes cleaning my teeth himself – not a dental assistant – and noticed a few more things.  There is a swelling of the area of one of my gums that is going to need a little work and he took x-rays of the area.  I paid 120mil ($66.67) for today’s cleaning and walked up to the Flip Flop Sandwich Shop afterwards for lunch.  I got there about 1pm and it was a little crowded with travelers from nearby hostels.  I wanted to order a chicken salad sandwich but they said they still trying to catch the chicken so I had a very good BLT with potato chips and a coke for 10mil ($5.56). 

I walked down what I thought was the same route as yesterday to Monterrey C.C. but I must have taken a wrong branch somewhere because I was starting to not recognize anything.  I saw that I was in a situation where it seemed like I was on upper Wacker drive and I needed to be on lower Wacker drive.  I found some steps down but still nothing looked familiar so I decided to break down and I caught a taxi home for 10mil ($5.56).  On the way, after just a few blocks, I saw Monterrey but I still don’t know what I did wrong.

To summarize:

      ·        It’s about 45 minutes by bus (Circular Sur 303) to Monterrey C.C.
      ·        It’s about a 25 minute walk from Monterrey C.C. to the dentist.
      ·        It’s about a 20 minute walk from the dentist to the Flip Flop Sandwich Shop.

 I spent the next couple of hours talking to Jhon at his office.  He told me there’s a 2 bedroom 2 bathroom apartment available across the street for just a little over $400 a month.  His sister is trying to find a renter so he borrowed the keys from her and we took a look at it.  It’s on the 4^th floor of an older building.  The apartment is of an older style and the bedrooms were really small.  I told Jhon thanks but I’m not interested.  Then I took him to see my apartment and he saw how large and spacious it is and he understood why I didn’t want to leave.

Dinner was the large shish kebob and mango juice at SanJote for 12mil ($6.67).

Then I watched Dateline NBC on USTVNOW.