Last night I left the apartment at 5:45 for the Bears
game. As I was approaching the bus stop
I saw my bus – Circular 302 – in the distance pulling away. In less than 5 minutes (5:55) I caught the
next bus – probably because it was still rush hour. It was about a 30 minute ride to Monterrey
C.C. When I saw the large ramps overhead
in the distance I got off (6:25) only to find out I wasn’t there yet. Keep in mind I was going in the opposite
direction to what I was used to. It was
another 15 minute walk. Good thing I had
some extra slack time built into my estimate.
Next time I’ll get off only when I know I’m there – better to be a block
too late than 8 blocks to early.
I got to Patrick’s Irish Pub at 6:55 – just 5 minutes before
kickoff. The upstairs with the big
screen TV was closed – probably because there were only about 6 customers in
the place. There are about 8 large –
maybe 50” – screen TVs and I could see that they had ESPN HD and ESPN+ but not
regular ESPN. I talked to the manager –
Michael Patrick from Michigan
and he tried to find the game on one of the screens. I was badly in need of something cold to
drink but didn’t want to order anything until I knew I was staying. If he didn’t have the game I would probably
wander around and see if I could find it somewhere. Maybe Chris at FFSS would have it although he
might not be open this late. After about
15 minutes Michael finally was able to stream it from a PC to one of the
screens in front of me.
It was a good game. The
1st unit of the Bears looked good in their turn on the field. But then the Chargers aren’t usually a very
good team. I found out they have Wi-Fi –
the password being 88888888 or 8 8’s as I might want to bring my iPad some
day. The limited menu is all in Spanish
except for the titles of the food. I
might want to translate the descriptions so I have a better idea of what I’m
getting. I wanted to try their Fish
& Chips, but like Chris’s chicken at FFSS, Patrick’s has yet to catch the
fish. Lol.
While I was there I had Chicken Wallace for 16mil ($8.42)
which was fried chicken strips – more breading than chicken which made them
pretty chewy. I brought the remainder of
my bottle of water with me which I used to take my enlarged prostate medicine
30 minutes after I finished my chicken.
I also had 3 Cokes at 3mil each ($1.58) and a serving of vanilla ice
cream for 8mil ($4.21) for a subtotal of 33,000 plus something called Ser Vol
(tip?) for 3,300 ($1.74) for a grand total of 36,300 ($19.11). Not too bad for 3 hours of fun and the young
waitresses look cute in their little green outfits and boots.
On my way back to my apartment in the taxi I tried to make
the taxi driver feel good by again telling him, in Spanish of course, “there
are a lot of beautiful women here in Medellin”. The answer I got this time was “there are
more beautiful women in Sabaneta”.
Interesting!
I got to bed at 11:15 but woke up at 1am, had a small glass
of water thinking I might be dehydrated from so many cokes and went back to
bed. I think it took me a while to get
back to sleep but at least I didn’t wake up until 7am and I’m feeling pretty good.
I bought a bag of milk from the corner store for my
breakfast cereal then took my dirty sheets and towels to the laundry. They will be ready for pickup on
Tuesday. That woman working there is
cute but she’s probably married to the man who works there. I have to keep reminding myself – no new
girlfriends unless they speak English!
On my way back I cut through Laureles Mall and ran into Dario waiting
there to meet someone for a business meeting.
I stopped at Exito and bought a different kind of cereal – a 500 gram
box of Musli. When I got back to the
apartment I translated the description on the box “Corn-based cereal, oats, rice, fruits (cranberry) and
honey” for 15,250
($8.03). Oops, I thought those were
cherries in the picture. Oh, well,
that’s how we learn. It’s
not even 10am yet and I’m sweating in my jeans and gym shoes.
I turned on my cell phone and saw that I got 4 missed calls
about 8am this morning from a number I don’t recognize – 313 721 7468. Could this be Reina calling from a different
phone? Jesus?
One nice thing I like about Rosetta Stone is that they go
back and periodically review previously covered material.
Jhon and I had lunch at Likkes restaurant. The cute black girl was working there
again. I would classify her mainly as a
runner – she is constantly delivering take-out food to local stores.
I was at Laureles Mall just before 1pm but Franklin didn’t show up until almost 3. He thought we were meeting tomorrow. We played 4 games, I won the first 2 and he
won the second 2. We made plans to meet
again tomorrow at 10am to play some more.
I had a drink (coke) with Jhon at the corner store for about
an hour and he told me he has 2 new clients tomorrow from 8-noon so we won’t be
able to do breakfast tomorrow. I bought
a bag of milk just before I left for a bowl of cereal for dinner.
About 7:30 Beatriz showed up unexpectedly. She told me she stopped here last night
while I was at the Bears game. I guess I
didn’t tell her about that because we weren’t going to be meeting anyway.
She took me a few blocks away to a small supermarket – like
a Pick n Save – that had a limited selection of real inexpensive stuff. My receipt says the place is called Tienda D1. I bought a package of butter microwave popcorn
for 1500 pesos (79 cents), a 200 gram (7.05oz) package of granola cereal for
1600 (84 cents), and 2 packages of mini arequipe wafer cookies for 950 each (50
cents). And they charged us 50 pesos (3
cents) for the plastic bag. I checked
back and the popcorn at Exito cost me 2,600 ($1.37). Regarding arequipe, per wikipedia: Dulce de leche is a confection
prepared by slowly heating sweetened milk to create a product that derives its taste from the caramelisation of
the product, changing flavor and color. Literally translated, it means "candy
of milk" or
"candy [made] of milk", "milk candy", or "milk
jam" in the same way that dulce de frutilla is strawberry jam. It
is popular in South America, notably in Argentina,
Uruguay, southern Brazil, Colombia,
eastern Bolivia and Venezuela. In Colombia "Arequipe" is
made with corn starch for a soft custard like texture.
We shared one of the packages of wafer cookies and they are
real tasty. She says it’s her daughter’s
favorite. Beatriz left
about 9:30 and I had a bowl of the Musli cereal and it was very tasty. 30 minutes later I took my medicine.
She gets off work tomorrow at 2pm and she’s going to meet me
at Mall de Laureles and we’re going to have lunch together.
Interesting Spanish language fact
The definition of “damas” is “ladies” and also the game
“chequers”.
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