Last night, at 5:15pm it was not only getting darker it was
getting cooler.
For dinner I had a bowl of cereal and one of the
apples. The label on it says Dole and Chile.
I got another notice of the impending failure of the battery
(it turns out there is only one AA) so I changed it.
I don’t know where those dogs across the street have been
for the last week or so, but they are back to their continuous barking.
I decided to wear a long sleeved shirt for a change and I
put on a dark pair of pants but all I have is light colored deck shoes to go
with them.
Beatriz was supposed to be here at 7:30 so at 7:40 I went
downstairs to wait for her outside. I
called her and left a message, I think, on her recorder. I don’t speak the language, remember. After about 5 minutes I started slowly
walking down towards her house. After
sitting outside for only a minute she came out.
Her hair looked nice. (Before, it
was two toned not counting the gray showing at the base by her head so I had
given her something like 25mil to have it done.) We caught a taxi at Avenida 80 and in 30
minutes we were at El Tesoro which is located high up in the hills on the
southeast side of town. It cost about 15mil
($7.89) and there weren’t any traffic jams on the route the driver chose.
Next we had to find the movie theatre. We walked towards a large Cinemark sign but
when we got there it was just a bar where we could see the sign outside. After finally finding a security guard that
we could ask for directions we took an escalator and then a short walk to
another side of the mall to the theater.
There were 3 different lines, 1 main one with switch backs and 2
narrower ones on each side. Of course we
got into the wrong one, on one of the sides and a few minutes later Beatriz
talked to someone and we moved to the main one.
It was maybe a 15 minute wait to get our tickets. They cost 16mil each, 9mil more, total, than
Los Molinos. Now it’s 8:30 and there
weren’t any lines at the concession counter.
I guess Beatriz didn’t have any dinner because she had a hot dog and a
small Pepsi for 10,700 ($5.63).
Still having some time to kill we walked around the mall a
little bit. There is sort of a walkway
separating two different parts of the mall that is rather open and has a
beautiful view down to the city lights of Medellin.
With about 20 minutes left before the scheduled movie start
we bought our popcorn and soda. We
noticed their large popcorn was smaller than a medium popcorn at Los Molinos
and I think overall everything was more expensive. We got a large popcorn for a change and I
think it all cost a little over 10mil.
There were a few coming attractions, but thankfully we were
spared the usual short about Colombian arts & crafts. The nearly 2 hour movie, Red 2, was pretty entertaining with a lot of action, some humor
with an absurd plot and special effects.
Best were all the stars: Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Mary
Louise-Parker, Helen Mirren, Anthony Hopkins, and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
I went to bed at 12:30, got up twice during the night and
finally woke up at almost 8am.
Breakfast was a small bowl of cereal with leftover milk.
I spent the morning at LM studying my chess book. Lunch was a FrisBurrito, cole slaw and a
medium Pepsi for 14,400 ($7.58). The
cute girl that works there questioned why I was always eating hamburgers from
Gordog’s when Frisby sold them. But what
Frisby sells is a chicken sandwich not a hamburger.
It started getting crowded at 1:30 so I packed up and
left. I stopped at the corner store and
had a cookies & cream Polet ice cream bar for 3mil ($1.58) and just relaxed
for a while and listened to their piped in music. I left about 2:30, went home, changed clothes
and went back with my Nook. I had a coke
and a juice while reading my World War II book.
I’m on about page 600 of 900 pages.
As I’m sitting there I’m trying to decide: do I want to buy milk and
just have a bowl of cereal back at the apartment or should I go to LM and have
a bowl of beans with a glass of juice.
About 5pm I finally decided to do the latter.
I had the Frijoles (beans) and a mango juice from El Comedor
de Chava. After placing my order I sat
down at the first available table and found I was sitting next to a couple
playing chess on one of those wooden portable sets with the strange
shapes. I checked it out every once in a
while and they seemed to be pretty equal.
After I finished eating I stood over them watching them finish a game.
The man then asked me, in perfect English, if I would like
to play. His name is Jimmy and he worked
in Boston for
15 years. I had black and I made a
mistake and he trapped my queen but a little later he made a mistake and I
checkmated him. I then played white
against his wife and was able to play my favorite opening but she broke through
to my king and I had to resign.
I told Jimmy I am here almost every afternoon, usually at
the other end of the floor but I usually leave at 1:30 on Sundays because of
the crowd. I’m sure I will see them
again.
As I was leaving I ran into the guy from Frisby who speaks
English. He’s 20 years old and his name
is Daniel. We talked for about 15
minutes until the cute girl showed up.
Her name is Maryann and she is 19 years old. She said she would like me to teach her
English. I told her I could teach her
chess, but not English, but I have a friend who could. It was almost 6:30 and Daniel’s break was
over and he had to get back to work so we said goodbye and I headed back to the
apartment. By then it was quite cool and
felt like it could rain although the sky was a little dark they didn’t look
like rain clouds.
A week from today is the 1st of September – pay
day for me!
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