Wednesday, December 10th, 2014

I got up once during the night finally waking/getting up at 7:45am.

We left the finca at 10am.  We waited 20-25 minutes for a bus to La Estrella (Spanish for The Star) and took the metro from there to Parque Berrio.

First we stopped at Magifoto where we realized we forgot to bring my dark shirt.  I told Teresa 'no problem' we still have time for that.

We stopped at one of those lottery booths where I added 20mil to my cell phone.

We stopped at Natalia’s office where she gave Teresa back the order for my prostate exam.

We went a few doors down to Camino de Real CC where for lunch Teresa had some kind of meat she said wasn’t chicken and I had a hamburger for a total of 32,200.

We walked up to the top floor to use their restrooms and there we found a food court that Teresa said she didn’t know existed.  She was last up there 4 years ago.

We went back down a level and stopped in an Internet Café that was air conditioned with about 5 separate phone booths.  I asked the young man working there if he spoke English – no.  But I did learn they have a fax machine and I can call the US for 500COP (about 25 cents) per minute.

I showed him the phone number for Social Security (SS) and asked him what numbers have to come before those and he said 007.  I called SS at 12:50 and at 1:40 I got disconnected.  I called back, and after the initial questions when they put on the elevator music, I gave the phone to Teresa and went outside to find an ATM machine because I knew I didn’t have sufficient cash to pay for my calls.  I came back 10 minutes later with some cash and Teresa was still on hold.  An operator finally answered at 2:20 and she proceeded to ask me questions to verify my identity.  The one thing I couldn’t do is tell her the address of my MBE account in Miami that is associated with SS.  She said she couldn’t do anything for me without verifying my address.  Sigh!  While I was on the line I asked her if there was any good time to call SS – day or time wise.  She said there is no good time – it’s always busy.  She confirmed that I cannot set up a My Social Security account because my home address is not in the US.  I asked her if SS had an apostille service and she didn’t even know what that was.  I asked her if there was any other way I could get my Benefits letter other than calling for it and we got disconnected.  Sigh!  So at 2:30 I paid 46mil and we left.

We walked a few blocks south on Avenida Oriental where we caught a bus to Parque Envigado.  There we stopped at $efecty where I paid 125,800 cash for November and December’s Une (wi-fi) bill.  Teresa told me January’s bill will be 62,900 so that is consistent for a monthly bill.  She found out we can’t pay the Direct TV bill there, we have to go to BanColombia.

We stopped and had a little ice cream for 15mil and then picked up a burger for Laura for about 10mil.

We caught a Fredonia bus at 5pm and were back at the finca by 6:20.

I understand we are a little late paying the Direct TV bill of about 144mil so Teresa called Elizabeth and we have to pay it at the bank first thing tomorrow or they will disconnect us.

After that I need to find an Internet Café somewhere, Caldas or Envigado or back in Medellin, to call Social Security again.

T-shirt of the day: Never stop dreaming.