Tuesday, March 21, 2017

I went to bed at 11:30 and woke up about 3:30 with a strong cramp in my right calf.  I woke up twice more during the night resulting in a fitful night of sleep.

I was going to have a banana with cereal for breakfast but Teresa informed me the bananas are still green.

It’s official, I have a cold, I believe my 2^nd here in Medellin.

I left the apt at 9:45 and while walking down the street a man in his car asked me where Exito was.  What, I look like a Colombian?  In Spanish, I told him there’s one down the hill and another a couple blocks away.

I did 20 minutes on the treadmill, stopping at the paper store on my way back to the apt and printing a couple pages of chess notes.

I left the apt at 4:30 and after waiting 10 minutes for a bus I walked down to the station.  I had a glass of orange juice at Herman’s shop and he convinced me to add something for an additional 3,500 pesos that’s supposed to be good for colds.

I noticed they replaced the railings separating the two lanes of pedestrians on the way up the stairs.  In the station going downstairs, now they have railings separating the two directions that they didn’t have before.

At the chess league I found that the first person I played (and lost to) had a rating of 1669.  The second person I played (and beat) had a rating of 1593.

While waiting for the games to begin I met a Cuban guy named Jose Gomez who spoke perfect English; he lives in Florida with his Colombian wife and they also have an apt here in Las Americas not far from my old apt in Laureles.  Like me he has only 1 point (1 win) but unlike me he hasn’t played chess in a lot of years so he must have been good.  I also met a Colombian named Nelson who also speaks a little English.  I saw Jose and he told me he was waiting at Parque Envigado last Saturday night in the pouring rain.  Not too smart.

My next game was on Table 20 and I had black against Luisa Fernando Velencia so I was pretty sure it would be a girl or woman.  The tournament director started all the clocks at 6:30 and I waited for her to arrive.  After 15 minutes I got up and talked briefly with Jose Gomez in an area away from the players.  He was playing a young boy who just stared at the board and hadn’t moved anything (after his first move) for 20 minutes.  (All Jose had done is fianchetto his king’s bishop.)  I got a cup of café con leche at their little store and back at the table my opponent arrived 20 minutes late.  She was a young woman about 20 years old. 

After copying my name from my score sheet she made her first move and then got up and walked away somewhere.  When she got back she moved quickly and gave me a lot of problems to solve.  I ended up beating her in the endgame when we each had about 4 minutes left on our clock.

I returned the chess clock to the TD (tournament director) and reported my win.  On the walk back to the metro I ate my Snickers bar.

At the Envigado station there was only a short line at the ticker counter so I added 20,000 pesos to my Civica card.

I was back at the apt by 10:15.

T-shirt of the day: Official Drinking Buddy.  Available 24/7.