Friday, July 12th, 2013

I went to bed at 9:30 last night, got up only once during the night and finally woke up at 6:30.  The milk from last night still seemed to be good so I had it with a bowl of cereal this morning. 

I got an answer from Eddie.  He seems to be ok with coming here.  I sent him my address and suggested he come here tomorrow at 11am and I would show him my apartment, then we would walk to Laureles Mall and have lunch and talk until no later than 2pm.

I checked the show times for The Lone Ranger and it’s playing at Los Molinos at 6pm and 9:10pm tomorrow night and at Unicentro at 9pm.  I sent Beatriz an email suggesting the following itinerary:  we meet at Jhon’s office tomorrow at 4pm, go to Exito and buy the cell phone cover she wants, have dinner at Il Forno in Viva Mall, then go to Los Molinos and buy tickets for the 9:10pm show.

I started reading (ok, looking at) yesterday’s issue of Gente newspaper and I learned that UPB stands for Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana so it’s a university that’s on several of my bus routes.

I just got my first call on my new cell phone from Eddie – while I was sitting on the toilet.  So I’m talking to him in a real echo chamber – I wonder if he could tell.  Lol.   One thing he told me is you shouldn’t put too many minutes on your phone because in time they expire.  We hung up and he called me back about 2 minutes later using Skype.  I gave him a real good idea of where I am and we decided to meet today.  He says he should be at the intersection of Calle 44 and Avenida 80 about 12:30 and then he’ll call me back.

I stopped at Jhon’s office and told him of my meeting with Eddie and that I would introduce them when we walk by on our way to lunch.  Jhon told me when Virgin cellular entered the market one of the things they offered was that your minutes don’t expire for 60 days – and the other companies changed to compete.

When I got back to the apartment I found the utility and communication bills just inside the front door.  I’ll inspect them and report on the change tomorrow.

I also learned from the Gente newspaper that it comes out on Thursdays from 4pm to 8pm.

Beatriz called me about 12:15 and I invited her to see the movie tomorrow night.  She asked if we could meet at my apartment at 3pm and I agreed.

Eddie called about 12:30 as he is just a couple of blocks from the circular and asked if I could meet him there and we would go to lunch first.  I got there just about the same time he did and we called each other but with the loudness of the traffic we couldn’t figure out where the other person was.  I told him to stay put and I would walk around the circular until we met.  After I crossed one street I finally spotted him.  We walked to Laureles Mall and he had Bandeja Paisa at El Comedor de Chava and I had the Hamburger Combo #3 at Gordog’s.  While we were there Dario stopped at my table and I introduced him to Eddie and then Dario and I exchanged cell phone numbers.  We had a nice chat and then I showed Eddie the stores there, I took some money out of the ATM at Viva, and then I showed him the stores and food court there.  He then took a look at the prices of the tablets in Exito and we stopped at Jhon’s and I introduced them to each other.  We chatted a little and then went to my apartment.  He was surprised my apartment it is so big and I have 2 empty bedrooms. 

We went back to Jhon’s office and invited him to join us for a drink.  Eddie was disappointed he couldn’t find a 1 liter beer but he had 4 beers, Jhon had 3, and I had 1 large and 1 small Pepsi.  While we were there the pretty seniorita who walks the dogs came by and Jhon stopped her and asked if that was her dog.  It wasn’t but she has a poodle and a black Labrador retriever of her own.  He asked her name – Mary – and he introduced us to her.  She admitted that she is very shy.  She has very nice legs and she knows it because she’s always in shorts.  We finally left about 6pm and Eddie started walking to the Floresta metro Station.  (It turns out there is a metro station only a 10 minute walk from our house.  I wonder why Reina and I never used it.  I seem to recall she had some safety concerns about it.) 

Eddie is going to visit some more cities in Colombia and he will return to Medellin on or about August 28^th and then return to the States before he moves permanently next summer.

I then went to Exito and bought another 30 day supply of my enlarged prostate medicine for 38,850 ($20.45), a medium sized bottle of olive oil for 15,600 ($8.21), a package of paper towels for 11,570 ($6.09) and another package of Trident gum.