Saturday, December 17, 2016

I slept well getting up only once during the night, finally waking/getting up at 9am.

The Colombian Peso closed at 3,007 to the US Dollar.

I left the apt at 10am and after a 5 minute wait in downtown Envigado I was on a bus to Poblado.  (At one point the driver slammed on the brakes and I had to catch myself because I was sitting in the middle seat in the back with no seats in front of me.)

At MBE I received my annual SS Benefits Letter for 2017 – I get a 0.3% raise – Woo Hoo!

There is a fair going on in Parque Poblado that Teresa wants to stop at later so she asked me what time they close.  I asked and was told 11pm so I’m sure that will be enough time.

I did another 30 minutes of tactics on Chess Magnet School.

Laura arrived about 1:15 and 5 minutes later we left to have lunch at Federal Ribs.  I’ve read some reviews that it’s supposedly southern cooking and that it’s second for ribs only to Mu in Parque Lleras.

Teresa wanted to go what she thought was a shorter way – uh oh!  Her way we still ended up on Avenida Poblado so I think the distance we saved could probably be measured in yards.

At first we couldn’t find the restaurant until we went to the other side of the block we were on.  I’m guessing I probably wrote down Calle 30 instead of Calle 30A.

The restaurant looked nice, nothing fancy, but I thought the food was underwhelming.  First I ordered onion rings for everyone to share.  One seemed to be cooked correctly and the others seemed to be a little overcooked, close to burned.  They tasted good so I’ll give them 4 out of 5 points.  I ordered ½ plate of their special ribs with their Federal sauce.  I had read that they were fall off the bone but these were anything but.  They were pretty chewy and by the time I finished the first of 4 ribs, the others were cold so they couldn’t have been very got to start with.  There wasn’t a lot of taste to them so I give them only 3 points.  You get 2 sides with the rib plates so I ordered Cole slaw and corn-on-the-cob.  I had one taste of the Cole slaw and didn’t want anymore they only get 1 star for that.  The corn-on-the-cob was pretty good so I’ll give them 4 stars for that. 

The ladies were going to have salmon until the waitress told them they specialize in ribs.  Duh!  The place is called Federal Ribs not Federal Fish.  The ladies weren’t impressed with their ribs either.  The whole experiment cost me 112,537 pesos or $37.50.

We walked down to MT’s apartment and we all took a taxi to El Poblado.  I thought we were going to the flea market at Parque Poblado but Teresa directed the driver to a flea market at San Fernando Plaza’s parking lot.  They looked at a lot of knick knacks but didn’t buy anything.

We walked down to Parque Poblado and looked around there and I got off easy with the purchase of a small creche (it fit in a box that was less than 1 ½ x 1 1/2 inches) for 20,000 pesos (about $7).

We walked back down the Gold Mile looking for a place to stop for a drink but everyplace was too noisy for MT.  I didn’t mind either.

We ended up resting for about 30 minutes on a park bench in front of Parque El Presidente and then taking a taxi back to the apt.  I asked the driver why there isn’t more traffic today and he said it’s usually like this on Saturday afternoons.  I think we need to get out more on Saturdays – there’s usually not anything on TV anyway.

Back at the apt I wrote and submitted a restaurant review to Trip Advisor for Federal Ribs only giving them 3 out of 5 stars.

I did another 30 minutes of tactics on Chess Magnet School.

The music from the area of the park started at 6:30 but thankfully ended promptly at 11pm.

T-shirt of the day: Have water.  Drink beer.