Last night I watched episodes 2 & 3 of Persons
Unknown. I’m not sure how long I
will continue watching the series as it’s starting to get ridiculious.
I went to bed at 11pm, got up once during the
night, woke up at 5:30 and got up at 6am.
As I walked past the little playground area next to the community center
I saw Maria from the Tinto store in there playing with a beautiful huskie. I was at the hotel at 7:05 and had to wait
until 7:15 for them to have breakfast ready.
I waited about 20 minutes for a Laureles 191 bus
(yep, I saw one pass as I was approaching the street) but I noticed a Santra
Belen 316 bus pass by that listed El Hueco as one of its stops. Today I got off at the stadium metro station
and by the time I got to the Chess League I only had 10 minutes before the
start time.
This game was against an unrated player and I
had the black pieces. I was able to play
my opening but I blundered on the 10th move and he got a free pawn, he
had a better position and I hadn’t castled yet.
I held out until the 49th move. His name is Juan Mejia and since he worked in
New York for
a while he spoke very good English. He
was working construction in Bogota
but had a little accident and is presently on crutches. He lives in Envigado and he invited me to
join him next Sunday to watch the Superbowl at a Gringo restaurant that serves
good barbecue. (I could take the
Circular 302 bus to the Aguacatala metro station, take the metro to Envigado
and then take a taxi, if necessary, from there to the restaurant. Since it would be late coming home I would
probably just take a taxi.)
Today I didn’t see Brenda at all nor the woman
who spoke English. L
I wasn’t real hungry so I decided to just have a
little street food for lunch. I decided
to walk around the stadium itself instead of the 4 square blocks it’s situated
on. There were a lot of little stands
set up selling all types of food. First
thing I had a slab of pineapple for 1,500 pesos. I was wondering if the stadium had a
pool. Hah! It has an olympic pool, a syncronized
swimming pool, an underwater pool, a diving pool, and pools for lessons. In fact it has almost everything: a building
for table tennis, softball field, roller skating area, numerous soccer fields
(of course), sand volleyball, and a sunken “bowl” for kids to ride their bikes. I’m sure I missed some things.
Next I had an empanda and a soda (grape, ugh) for
4 mil.
Walking back to the Chess League I saw a large
truck pull up and numerous police get out.
I also saw 11 horses with riders that were dressed like “rough riders”. The area around the stadium was already
barricaded off and I had to tell a policeman I was playing chess at the Chess
League to get back in. I had a Guanábana
ice cream cone for 1,200 pesos and a bottle of water for 2,500.
My next opponent had a rating of 1600 so this is
the game I really needed to win to finish ahead in points for the
tournament. I had white and played my
usual opening but I ended up resigning on the 36th move. While we were playing we heard a lot of those
plastic horns being blown. Today A/N is
playing Medellin
at 5:30 and people are already arriving.
When I finally left the Chess League at 3:30 I saw MANY police. All men that came off the street were being
frisked and ladies purses and other packages searched. I saw 5 horses and riders at the corner near
where I catch the bus. Beautiful
animals! Lots of people were in the area
walking around the stadium. There are
vendors selling food, A/N pennants and jerseys.
After waiting at the bus stop for about 10
minutes a young man asked me in English where I am going and I told him
Laureles. He said he was going to Belen
and the other woman to Laureles and did I want to share a taxi. I told him I was in no hurry and I would
rather wait a little longer for a bus. I
finally caught one about 15 minutes later.
As the bus was driving south on Carrera 70
(Avenida Colombiano) the streets were packed with people (all in A/N jerseys)
for the first 3 or 4 blocks. Talk about
tailgating; they really take their soccer seriously here. This is 2 hours before game time, remember!
Dinner was a burger and medium milkshake at
Burger King for 14,300.
Tonight I’m just going to take it easy and watch
a movie or two.
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