Wednesday, February 17th, 2016

Well, despite getting up 3 times during the night to go to the bathroom, I slept well probably thanks to the fact that it rained in the morning which kept all the dogs close to home.

I still have an internet connection but once again there’s that questionable red x across the internet icon at the bottom of my screen.

We left the finca at 10:20 and I gave the black dog a large and small dog biscuit.  We were on a bus after a 10 minute wait.

I saw a large new sign next to restaurant #2 by the highway.  This is the restaurant that looks like the highway will have to go through.  The sign said “Lote Industrial El Doral 44,000 mts”.  I think their advertising premium industrial space for sale next to the highway.

We saw the same man get on the bus who usually sells toothbrushes and floss.  Today he was selling the Security Credit Card Wallet for 5mil.  I told him the information on the box is in perfect English and the same wallet in the US would sell for $10 (30,000 pesos).

We took a taxi to Nueva eps in Envigado.  Teresa took a number and we’re 30 away from being served.  I said I would see her in about an hour and I stopped at Bancolombia where I made a cash withdrawal and then went to the park to play chess.  After about a 10 minute wait one of the players set me up with an opponent.  In the first game he was ahead in position but his king was exposed and I ended up checkmating him.  In the second game I thought I had an advantage coming out of the opening but then I overlooked something, he took a pawn, got a passed pawn and it was downhill from there and I lost.  

I met Laura and Teresa at Carbón de Leña where I had pork shish kebab and they had fish.  I paid the total of 63,500 on my way to the restroom.  When I came back there was a street person in my seat finishing the last of my food.  I stood next to the table blocking the view of him from the cashier and waiting for him to finish.  He was finished but just as he was taking his last gulp of juice the manager/owner came over and told Teresa why he didn’t like us doing this.

I understood Teresa got me an appointment for Friday February 26^th from 11am to 3pm to drop off my biopsy results.  

We took a bus to MBE where I picked up the 3 “documents” waiting for me.  The real estate documents I was expecting were not among them: just my pension deposit receipts for CSC and Zurich and another (my 3^rd) 1099 from CSC.  I asked how much it would cost to send my son’s birthday present and I was quoted 169,500.  I asked if there was some less expensive way and after checking for a few minutes she came back with 129,500.  Teresa told me her friend Elda’s daughter is here visiting from the states and she could take it back with her and mail it from Miami.  Not only would that be cheaper I think it would have a better chance of getting there – and quicker.

I stopped at the copy store next door where I had my 1099s scanned and put on my flash drive for 5,000 pesos.  While waiting I met a couple English speaking guys – one had been here 3 months and the other just arrived today.

Across the street in Parque Poblado there were tents set up selling jewelry, plants, and a few other things.  It’s interesting how Teresa skips all the jewelry tents and goes straight to the only 2 tents selling plants.  She picked out a small cactus for 5,000 pesos.

We took a taxi to El Tesoro where we bought our tickets to The Martian for 10,800 pesos each (about $3.25).  It’s so expensive (lol) because it’s in 3D and that includes the rental for the glasses.  I bought a large popcorn (not that large compared to Oviedo’s), a large soda for me and medium soda for Teresa for 26,900 (about $8).

The movie wasn’t as good as the book: they left out a number of scenes like figuring out how to make oxygen, repairing the HAB and how he avoided an oncoming sandstorm on his way to the MAV.  Still, it was nice to see how things you pictured in your mind from the book translated visually to the screen.

Teresa spent some time in Zara looking at their clothes.  She kept pointing out racks of inexpensive clothes – 49,900, 39,900, 29,900, 19,900 but she didn’t find anything suitable for her.

We took a taxi to Poblado station and waited about 20 minutes for an express bus back to the finca.  I gave the black dog a dog biscuit on the way down and we got back at 8:15.

T-shirt of the day: Sweet babe.