Thursday, April 17th, 2014

I forgot to mention in last night’s post, Marcela speaks English!

I went to bed at 10:45, got up once during the night, was awakened at 5:15 by someone buzzing one of the apartments.  I guess that didn’t work so then they started “honking” the horn on their motorcycle.  I finally woke/got up at 7:15.

I noticed traffic was lighter than usual and then I was surprised that there weren’t any tables set up in LM.  I walked over to Viva CC and at 8:30am was told by the security guards that it wouldn’t open until 9am.  So I walked over to Los Mejores and had coffee and a croissant.  From inside where the bakers are working I could hear the song “Don’t worry, be happy” and another tune I don’t know the name of.

I stopped at the Exito pharmacy and bought another 30 days supply of my enlarged prostate medicine (44,850) even though I have an appointment with an Urologist next week and he will probably change my medication.

I was back at LM at 9:15 and had another coffee at El Comedor de Chava.  I asked Lucas what “asi” means as Teresa used that word often yesterday.  The best he could come up with was “like” so I think it’s one of those mainly meaningless filler words like “um” or the Canadians use of “eh” at the end of their sentences.

I studied all my Spanish verbs twice this morning and was able to move a few of them to my “known” set.

I had a double Whopper burger, small fries and small Pepsi at BK.  When I went back for a drink refill, the workers were all in the back and when they saw me in the front I was trying to reach the fountain to refill my drink with Pepsi.  I almost made it too, and that generated a laugh from all of them.  The young lady cashier I’ve flirted with there, Alexandria, came up to me and I said “que mas?” which is like the Colombian way of saying “what’s happening”.  (Jhon taught me that last week and this is the first time I’ve used it.)  That put a smile on her face because I was speaking like a paisa (someone from Antioquia).  Then she starts talking to me in English and she tells me she’s shy to speak English.  I told her her English is better than my Spanish and she could have saved me a lot of trouble by speaking English earlier.  :)

At 3pm I left the apartment and took a bus to Los Molinos.  I got to the theater by 3:35 and there was a line.  (It’s a holiday week here remember?)  I got in line and 5 minutes later the line had doubled.  I paid 10mil for a general seat for the 4pm showing of Divergent (7.5).  I had just enough time to buy a small popcorn (7mil) and medium Pepsi (4,700) and got to my seat 5 minutes before it started.  There were about 2 dozen people there so I guess most of the people in line were there for another feature.  It was an interesting movie especially because it takes place in Chicago.  I recognized Navy Pier, where Wabash meets Michigan Avenue, Marina Towers, the Sears Tower, and, of course, the El.  At one point they talk about meeting at State & Monroe.  I made one trip to the restroom at about the 75 minute mark; luckily I was able to  choose a seat at the end of the row.

When I came out, the lobby and the line for tickets outside was getting very long.

Back at the apartment I had an email from Teresa.  She wants to meet at Mimo’s outside of Exito again before we leave for the movies.

I’ll probably skip dinner again tonight; I can have a package of crackers if I get really hungry.

T-shirt of the day: On an Illini t-shirt - Illinois Mom