Sunday, February 21st, 2016

Shortly after we got to bed we heard it raining, although not very hard.

I woke up once about 7am, made my usual trip to the bathroom, cat napped from then on finally getting up at 9:45am.  It was nice to finally sleep through the night.

We’re out of eggs and we forgot to pick up more yesterday so we’re going to Envigado to pick up more.

It’s a cloudy cool day today, about 67 degrees and near 100% humidity.

We left the finca at 12:15, I gave the black dog a large dog biscuit and the other black dog came out like she was expecting one too.  We had no wait and we were on a bus to Envigado.  We got off by Home Center and walked to Exito for lunch.  On my way I was thinking how nice it would be if every day here in Medellin was this cool.

There was a long line at Frisby so we ordered hot sandwiches at Qbano.  I ordered their Qbano Pork Combo and Teresa their Ropa Vieja Combo.  The total came to about 36,500 (about $11).

We took our usual route to Home Center but found the entrance closed.  Teresa talked to a guard and we found out that it’s because they will be demolishing it to make way for the new shopping mall.  If I understood correctly they are also going to tear down the Exito.  We had to walk downstairs and enter Home Center through the garage.  I could see some construction going on next to the garage so maybe that’s part of the new mall.

In Home Center I showed a salesman the label from my roll of duct tape.  It said “cinta ductos” in Spanish so I hoped he would have some idea of what to look for.  He took me to a display with lots of different kinds of tape and one looked similar in that it had the silver backing.  I guess it makes sense they wouldn’t have duct tape since they don’t have heating & cooling ducts here.

Teresa picked up a roll of masking tape and a spray can of paint for metal (I forget what it’s called in English).  She left it with me while I sat on a display chair and she went into their garden shop.  She came out with 5 large plastic pots and 2 medium sized plants.  I reminded her we still have to buy eggs.  She went back inside and while I was sitting there a man sat down and asked me something.  I told him I don’t speak much Spanish.  In English he told me he worked for 10 years in New York cleaning swimming pools and that it was too hard work so he returned here 3 years ago.  He said he’s a Colonel in the army and he’ll retire after 30 years service.  Of course I may have the chronology mixed up.

He left and Teresa came out with a couple smaller plants.  Because we still have to buy the eggs and carry them up the hill she left behind the medium sized plants, the paint and the tape for another time.  So we bought the 5 pots and the 2 small cactus plants for 144,300 (about $44).

In Exito I sat with our Home Center purchases while Teresa bought some eggs.  When she came out she told me she also had a surprise for me.

We took a taxi to the highway and soon were on a bus back to the finca.  It was a Rapido Ochoa bus that was new and built like a greyhound (you know what I mean).  There were lots of seats and at most a total of 8 people on the large bus.  They had the air conditioning turned on (not a day that we needed it) but I soon found those things above me where I could stop the airflow like you do on an airplane.

There was almost no traffic and we were soon back at the sideroad.  The black dog came out just as we were passing Guillermo’s and the other black dog was right behind.  The other black dog hasn’t shown any aggression in a while so I’ll probably start giving her a small dog biscuit.

We got back to the finca by 4:15.

I found that the surprise was something similar to the sugar donuts I would buy with arequipe inside but these were much larger and the dough is more like a bagel than a donut.

I finished reading Henri Charriere’s 416 page Papillon and I downloaded Robert Heinlein’s 204 page Tunnel in the Sky.

I finished my 2^nd bag of Fritos.  :(

We started watching Kill the Messenger (7.0) on Netflix.

T-shirt of the day: My squad breaks hearts.