Thursday, December 5th, 2013

Last night I finished Dan Brown’s Inferno.  I don’t know what to say except it does have a twist at the end and again there is a shift in some of the characters.  I think I need to read it again just to make sure the story jibes with what you know about the characters at the end.  

For my next book I downloaded Fabric of Man by P.W. Abbenhaus.  Here’s Amazon’s description of the book: “After centuries of speculation, Dr. Gabe Miller is going to Turin, Italy. His task is to once and for all verify the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin – the purported burial cloth of Jesus Christ… Unknown to Dr. Miller, he is being sent to steal blood samples from the Shroud. His company has perfected a way to use DNA from any blood samples to recumbently clone humans. In Italy, Dr. Miller is protected by the head of Vatican Security, Father Dolan, reformed mercenary who has a closet full of skeletons he is atoning for. Miller has no idea what he is getting into, but quickly discovers that people want him dead. As Dolan protects Miller, they uncover the real secret behind the trip to Turin, but not before a woman is impregnated with the clone. Miller and Dolan know they have to rescue the pregnant woman. Once they do, the trio is hunted across the United States by a multitude of fanatical groups.”

From the reviews I’ve read it has a good plot but needs some work on the delivery.  It might be good, it might be a dud, but at least it only cost me $3.99.  :)

I went to bed at 10:30, got up once at 1:30 and took another Imodium, went back to bed and woke/got up at 7am.  The earplugs are helping a lot although I don’t find them comfortable and they tend to work their way out of my ears.

I had a large orange juice at the little stand on Avenida 80 then walked across the street to Viva mall to withdraw a little cash.  The Davivienda ATM only gave me 2 options, neither of which was to remove cash.  I guess it’s out of money so I used the ATH ATM and had no problem.  I bought a banana at the same stand as yesterday then had a cup of coffee with Gonzolo at the Tinto store.  He played some nice piano music of American classics.

At 11:30 Dario called to inform me there will not be any chess played today in his building or the entire month of December but he would see me sometime in Mall de Laureles.

I caught a bus about noon and got off at EAFIT on Avenida Las Vegas about 12:25.  The first taxi I got into I handed the driver the lawyer’s address and for some reason he didn’t seem to know where it is.  I got into a 2^nd taxi and, no problem, we were off.  I was pleased to see him go up (east) one of the only streets I am familiar with in the area – down the hill from my dentist’s office.  But half way up this quiet street he turned north and then east again and we were soon bottle necked as 4 lanes were trying to merge into one.  When we finally got up to Avenida Pablado he turned south and drove right past where we would be if he had stayed on the original side street that had no traffic.  I think I conveyed to him that I was not pleased because he could have gone a better way but in his defense he may not have known how far south we were going to go before he needed to continue east again.  I got to James’ place – a gated community with 3 large towers right at 1pm.  The guard called James and he asked me my name but had a big problem with “Terry”.  I told him “no problem” and we had a good laugh over it.  I walked down to the 3^rd tower and up to the 13^th floor where I met James.  Besides working on Visas he also works in real estate.

I gave him a 400mil down payment and he checked my passport and Cedula.

The first step is I have to request a Benefits Letter from Social Security to be sent to a Fax# he gave me.  From what I remember it will be going to Miami where it will be translated and apostilled and sent to Bogota.  That process should take at least 10 days.

The second step is I have to have new pictures made – 3cm x 4cm on a white background.  I need a CD copy and 3 others printed.

When we finished I asked him to call me a taxi to take me to Oviedo C.C. and he told me it was a short walk from there. 

I walked outside his gates, turned right and soon followed a path down that became a sidewalk and in about 3 blocks I was at Santafe mall on Avenida Poblado – within sight of Oviedo C.C.  I checked the movies there but I’m not interested in seeing Thor, The Last Exorcism 2 or Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and I’ve already seen Hunger Games.  I spent a couple hours walking around the mall only stopping once for a small strawberry shake.  I saw a small store called Corel Paisa that had lots of western gear.  They had a beautiful leather duster for about 400mil, cowboy hats and they even had 6 leather saddles.  I also noticed: one of my daughter’s favorite stores - Forever 21; the ice rink with ice skating and the bumper cars; an apple store called iShop; a Victoria’s Secret; and even Santa Claus sitting in a sleigh behind 2 large reindeer.  I stepped into a bookstore just as I was leaving and priced a Time magazine at 14,000 pesos.  Santafe is large but I wonder how its size compares to Woodfield, for example.

I was in Oviedo about 3:30 for the 4:10 showing of Paranoia.  On my way in I noticed some more interesting stores:

American Bagels that doesn’t have any bagels. Lol.

Jugar (local 143) selling a beautiful chess board for 719,000 pesos.  (I was just imagining attaching it to a table.)  It also sells several different types of jump ropes.  

At the theater I noticed a poster for an upcoming Robert Redford movie.  I checked IMDB.com and it must be All is Lost (IMDB 7.5) which debuted on November 7^th in Greece.

I bought a Preferred seating ticket for 14mil.  (I don’t know why as there were only 4 other people in the theater.  I could have saved $2 and sat anywhere lower than the row I was in.)  

One of the coming attractions was for a movie starring John Travolta.  I checked IMDB.com and it is Killing Season (5.3) released in the States last July 25^th.

The movie wasn’t anything special.

After the movie I left the mall walked over to my dentist’s building, down the street to Avenida Las Vegas and immediately caught a Circular 303 bus. 

Back at the apartment I checked my email and here are some recent Colombia Expat postings regarding Colombia mail service:

Soystar1: Today, was a good day until I stepped into Servientrega to mail a document to the VA's office. As you might guess, mailing anything back to the good ol' US is fairly expensive. However, my jaw dropped when the employee informed that it is 97k pesos to mail a one page form to the US. Mind you it was a simple transaction. As an excuse for the high prices he stated it was a four-day transaction. Curious me asked, well, how about if I mail something later on, and I really don't need a four-day mailing. So, he casually thumbs through his price list and informs me it's 63k pesos without breaking a smile. Perhaps, I am missing something here but there has to be another way to mail documents back home without lessening the Colombian debt structure. Any ideas?

Colombia Gringo: You have to use the 472 mail service. This service takes about 3 weeks or so. Never send anything worth value in this service :)

TheLocoGringo: When I need to send mail to the USA and I can not wait, I use Fed Ex here in CTG. 60 mill more or less and it is arrives in 2 days. If there was a cheaper way, I have not heard about it. Rice and beans, 2mill, a taxi ride across town, 5mill, anything you want done right......priceless!

I think I found one of the first inconsistencies in the new book (Fabric of Man) I just started reading.  On page 27 “Gabe didn’t hear what the Archbishop said but he nodded and pretended he did.”  But a couple paragraphs later Gabe responds to what the Archbishop said (that he supposedly didn’t hear).