Saturday, January 17th, 2015

Once again I had difficulty getting to sleep.  After an hour or so I got up and took another sleeping pill and quickly fell asleep.  I got up twice during the night, finally waking/getting up at 9am.

I quickly made waffles for everyone; doubling the recipe which made 10 sections, more than enough for everybody.  For each person, I put butter and syrup on all sections but one and put Cookies & Cream ice cream on the other section.  They both liked it with the ice cream.

Teresa wanted me to wear my new shorts and t-shirt with my sandals today.  I guess she wanted me to look like a gringo.  (Later, when I mentioned this to Jhon, he said I don’t have to wear shorts to look like a gringo.)  :)

We all left the finca at 11am.  The killer dogs came out as we passed by the neighbor’s house.  The puppy squeezed under the fence so he got to us first and I was able to give him a dog biscuit.  One of the other dogs got a little of what remained while the doberman gave us a hard time but didn’t threaten us too closely.  As we approached the top of the hill I was pleasantly surprised to see not only the puppy behind us but one of the other larger black dogs.  He was looking for a handout too and wasn’t in the least bit aggressive.  I think I can win over the other dogs with dog biscuits but I wonder if I can win over the doberman.  Time, and lots of dog biscuits, will tell.

We waited about 30 minutes before we got on an express bus.  I called Jhon and told him we would be late – probably not arriving until 12:30.  At one point on the northbound highway another road dangerously crosses it.  

Today two cars tried to occupy the same space at the same time, and even though they were mostly pulled off the road I’m sure that slowed traffic down.  

At Aguacatala we pretty quickly caught a Circular Sur 303 bus but again traffic was slow and we didn’t get to Jhon’s office until 1pm.  

Unbeknownst to me, Teresa made arrangements to return to Laura at 5pm instead of 4pm, but Teresa agreed with me that next time we need to leave earlier – like 10am.  

Since we were supposed to have lunch with her friend Ana we started walking south towards her apartment.  As we passed the corner store one of the men I recognized made a big deal out of greeting me and shaking my hand.  Afterwards, Teresa mentioned something about him being my friend and I told her “not really, he just has drunk too much beer – or Aguardiente” (sp?).  

As we walked past Panaderia Los Mejores I noticed they changed the front.  Instead of one counter for placing and receiving orders and next to it a fenced area behind which the baking is done, now they have the first area for placing orders and the second for payment and picking up your order.  That’s different.  We walked another 3 blocks to Ana’s apartment and Teresa told me she doesn’t live there anymore, she lives close by but she didn’t know exactly where.  

We kept getting the busy signal when we called her, so we sat down in the park for awhile.  Finally, we reached her and during the call all I understood was “up” so we started walking up the hill and then it started raining lightly.  When we were about 3 blocks from the park, Ana called and we turned around and headed back to the park.  We ended up exactly on the other side of the block from Los Mejores.

I met her cute 20 something daughter, Estefania, who looks just like her mother.  

Ana served us a nice lunch of frijoles, chicken, rice, with a couple slices of plantain and fried potatoes with juice.  I told Teresa I liked the frijoles especially, perhaps because they had a bit of onion in them.

After lunch they convinced me to take a little nap in her side bedroom from 2:45 to 3:30.  It rained hard for about 5 minutes during my nap and I heard a little thunder.

When I got up that’s when Teresa informed me that the lesson is until 5pm not 4pm.  That sounds like Jhon.

I told Teresa I needed to buy some medicine at Exito so we left at 4:20.  For some reason Ana walked us to the corner, like I didn’t know where I was going.  At the Exito pharmacy I bought another month’s supply of Tamsulosin for 42,600 and then we called Laura to tell her to meet us outside the mall.

Jhon and Laura met us outside and we talked to him about joining us in the finca for a weekend.  He said he would prefer to visit the next long weekend which he said would be in February.

While Laura was having something to eat at Frisby for 18,500 I went downstairs and picked up 2 new little pocket calendars from Western Union.  According to that, the next Monday holiday is February 16^th.

While waiting for Laura to finish eating I bought a medium Pepsi from Burger King for 3,900 and a little later Teresa was surprised to find out that I could get a free refill.  I went inside Exito and found a bag of chocolate chips but it was too busy to get in line to pay for it.

Teresa wants Laura to come by herself from now on but I told her I want to come back with her next Saturday because I want us to have lunch at Pizza Americana and then buy some things in Exito.  

We took a Circular Sur bus to Aguacatala where Laura took a bus to Caldas to stay with her uncle James and Teresa and I luckily caught a direct bus back to the finca.

Walking down the hill in the dark we got past the killer dogs undetected.

We watched Taxi Driver (8.4), I took my sleeping pill at 10:40 and we went to bed at 11pm.

T-shirt of the day: I call the shots.