Saturday, March 4, 2017

Well, for the first time in a couple weeks I didn’t sleep real well last night.  I know there were a number of things on my mind I wanted to remember to take care of today.

I woke/got up at 8am.

I told Teresa I forgot to keep yesterday’s receipt for my Isoklon purchase.  She made a couple of calls to Todo Drogas and then gave me the name Juan Benites.  I left the apt about 8:45.  I first stopped across from the apt we want to rent in May and was disappointed to see the “for rent” signs have been taken down.  Well, I guess it wasn’t meant to be; there’s probably something better out there for us.  Teresa’s going to check out the apartment complex down the street.

I walked to Todo Drogas and asked for Juan Benites and right away he handed me a receipt.  The only problem is I bought 2 packages and this receipt was only for one.  I explained the discrepancy and within 5 minutes I had a new receipt (listed as a copy) for 2 packages.  Walking down the street I ran into Alan.  He said he had just come from the gym – Comfama.  I briefly told him about the new gym Smartfit as he seemed to be in a hurry.

I stopped at a BBVA ATM machine but the maximum it dispenses is 300,000 pesos.  I stopped at a Davivienda ATM but its maximum is 400,000 pesos.  I stopped at BanColombia but my card still doesn’t work there.

Back at Citibank I went thru all the steps for withdrawing cash and then it told me there’s a problem so I didn’t get any cash.

As I turned around a man asked me if it was working. I told him no and then he switched to English.  I told him it’s been a few days now that it hasn’t worked.  He talked to the guard in Spanish and I understood he directed him to the other Citibank locations.  I gave him details about the one that’s down the hill by Exito.

He left and after a few seconds I remembered I could withdraw 780,000 pesos from Servibanca.  I ran after him and caught up with him a block away.  I told him and he explained that he’s Colombian, he worked first in Canada and obtained citizenship there and then moved to the US and obtained citizenship there.  Now he’s retired living off his Social Security income.  Because of all the bank fees he takes out 1,000,000 pesos 4 times a month so he’ll wait until he can get to Citibank again.  I explained that I was using Bancolombia but my new debit card with a chip doesn’t work there any longer.

He gave me his name Luis Carlos Maya, his cell phone number 310 466 2024, and said if I’m ever in La Ceja (Spanish for eyebrow) to look him up.  I gave him one of my personal “business” cards.  Back at the apt Teresa told me that La Ceja is a nice area, but cool as it’s near Rionegro, and he probably has a finca there.

I checked online and it looks like El Viejo y El Pancake is now open for breakfast.  I’ll try to get there next Tuesday.

Speaking of money, lately I’ve noticed the Dollar has been getting stronger against the Colombian Peso.  It closed for the week at 2,976 COP per Dollar so it’s going up.  Probably something Donald Trump said.

We’re probably going to have MT talk to Social Security next week about the progress on her Bancolombia deposit request.  In preparation for that I put all of her information on one page and translated it to Spanish.

I found the EnCicla (bicycle rental) website, EnCicla.gov.co, and, with the help of google translate, started filling out their registration form.  They asked for a copy of both sides of my Cedula and the front of my Civica card.  I walked to the paper store where I paid about 4,400 pesos to have them scanned to my memory drive and also I printed the information page for MT.

On my way back to the apt I walked through the park but I only observed one chess game in progress.

Back at the apt I checked the files and they all had a file type of .lnk aka shortcut.  I need them to be in a .pdf or .jpg format.

I went back and ended up having to go back behind his counter and show him a regular .pdf file as compared to this .lnk file.  He ended up just returning my 4mil.

Back at the apt I used my iPad to take .jpg photos, emailed them to myself, used my laptop to download them, copied them to my pictures folder and then used them as attachments to their form.  

The system finally appeared to accept everything.  Now I just have to wait for their acceptance email.  Then I believe there will be something on my Civica card indicating I’m eligible to check out one of their bicycles.

We watched Midnight Express (7.7) and then The Hills Have Eyes (6.4) on Netflix.

About 7:30 we discovered we didn’t have any running water.

Teresa called Wilson and ordered chicken breast dinners for the 3 of us.  At 8:30 I went down to Bocados Bar where I waited about 15 minutes for him to finish packaging everything.

It was such a sunny day all day today that if it’s the same tomorrow Teresa wants to go to Santafe to work a little on her tan.

T-shirt of the day: I run entirely on caffeine, sarcasm, and inappropriate thoughts.