Sunday, December 1st, 2013

Last night I spent some more time talking to Olga.  I had a shot of Aguardiente (sp?) and we had a dance to the live music.

I learned the name of the little girl that lives across the street is Valentina.

At midnight there were fireworks in the sky and inviduals lighting firecrackers nearby and that’s when the party ended.

Back at the apartment I can hear firecrackers all around me; I wonder how long that’s going to continue.

I went to bed at 1am, finally got up at 3am and put in some earplugs.  I finally got to sleep, woke up at 8:15 and finally got up at 8:45.

Today is officially the beginning of the Christmas season here in Medellin.  I understand the lights along the river were turned on at midnight last night and will be on (at least at night) the remainder of the month (maybe just until Christmas?).

On my way to LM a woman stopped me and asked me something in Spanish.  Instead of giving my usual answer “sorry, but I only speak a little Spanish”, I listened carefully, understood the word Exito from all the words I didn’t know and I pointed at Exito and said “yes, Exito is there”.  She was satisfied with my answer and I was happy I was able to help her.

I had breakfast at Bunuelo Express.  While there the man at the next table appeared to be reading a comic book.  Interesting!

I stopped at Exito to buy salt & pepper shakers and some pepper.  I gave up looking for the pepper myself and, because I forgot to find the Spanish word for pepper beforehand, I asked someone for salt instead.  The pepper should be near the salt right?  She took me to the aisle where they had salt and then she left.  I saw several types but next it was lots of different types of rice.  There was another girl working in this aisle and I tried to ask her for the opposite of salt but she didn’t understand that.  I went and got the salt & pepper shakers I had seen in there before and took them back to the girl.  Through pantomiming with the salt & pepper shakers she showed me some small packages next to the salt.  There were numerous types in different colored packaging.  I think besides the pepper the others were seasonings of different kinds.  The salt & pepper shakers cost 19,900 pesos ($10.46) and the pepper 2,400 pesos ($1.26).

At 12:50 I arrived at Sport Wings for the 1pm Chicago Bears game against the Minnesota Vikings.  I invited Reina to join me and she was sitting there as I entered.  We sat at the long counter near the entrance right in front of one of the TVs.  That’s a good location because that way we don’t have to take up 2 tables.

I asked her if she was okay from her surgery to remove her appendix and she explained she only has 3 small holes from the procedure.  But she did mention they found cancer although everything is all right and she is just taking medication now.

We had 24 chicken wings and legs with French fries; she had a mango juice and I had 2 Cokes for a total of 67,636 ($35.60) including tax & tip.  We finished all but 4 of them which she took home in a doggee bag.

I asked her if she would be interested in trying to restore our relationship and she said she was.  She’s going to meet me tomorrow at Mall de Laureles and we’re going to spend the day together.

I also invited her to join me for the MAC championship football game between NIU and Bowling Green this Friday night at 8pm.  Afterwards we can stroll around Parque Lleras because everything should be open and there should be mobs of people.

The game ended in regulation 20-20 and Reina left in a taxi.  At 4:30 it started pouring (Reina had told me it was going to rain soon).  The game ended in overtime at 4:40 with the Bears losing 23-20.  I caught a Simon Bolivar bus at a bus stop a block down the street.  In the 5 minutes I was waiting a man pushed his motorcycle under the canopy of the bus stop, took off his t-shirt and wrung all the water out of it.

Reina emailed me that the A/N game that was supposed to start at 5:30 started 20 minutes late because of the rain.

It stopped raining hard at 6pm.  It stopped raining by 6:30 but I don’t feel like going out again.  I think I’ll just make myself some popcorn and read my Nook book.