I love those short months (month). There should be more of them!
I slept well, woke/got up at 7:45, had breakfast and left
for the bank at 9am. I told Laura I
wouldn’t need her help this time with the electronic payment machine in
BanColombia. When I got there I
understood it was “out of service”.
Drat! I went inside the bank and
with someone’s help I was given turn number H187 and they were presently
serving H87. There weren’t any seats
left inside so I went back outside and leaned against a railing for a while
thinking.
I left there and walked to the other BanColombia where I saw
their electronic payment machine was working.
I stopped in Citibank and took out some cash and then went back to
BanColombia where there were only 5 people in front of me. They had a cashier helping to speed up the
transactions and I soon had completed my health insurance and apartment rental
payments. I got back to the apt just in
time for the beginning of the Today show.
I left at 10:25 and headed to the gym. I got inside using only my fingerprint after
trying for a second time. I checked out
some more machines that I hadn’t had time to try on Monday. I ran into Jose who had just started there
today. One of their personal trainers
Jeison (Jason) helped me with a few machines.
I met a man named Wilma (yes, a man) who also helped me with a machine. At 11:30 I left and had to use my fingerprint
again to exit.
Teresa didn’t have lunch ready until 12:30 but I still
finished in time to leave the apt at 1pm.
(I chose taking a bottle of water over the small umbrella (big mistake) as
I didn’t have room for both in my tech bag with the chess clock there.) I only had to wait 1 minute for a bus to the
station. I took the metro to Estacion
Hospital and was at Dario’s store by 1:50.
I earned the White pieces for the first game and I played the Ruy Lopez
opening and soon he had 2 sets of doubled pawns. I quickly switched my action from the
queenside to the kingside and he resigned on his 21st move. During the 2nd game I heard
thunder outside – uh-oh. I probably
started my attack to soon and was unable to castle and he mated me on his 26th
move.
I wasted (rain’s coming, right?) some
time making a trip to Aventura mall’s restroom.
Thankfully the stall had both a seat and toilet paper. The TP was, of course, very thin but at least
soft. The problem was that while trying
to fold the plies into an acceptable thickness a breeze from an open window had
other ideas.
It still wasn’t raining as I left the mall. I could see a little blue sky to the north
but it was only dark clouds to the south.
I got to the hospital station uneventfully. Just as I crested the top of the stairs I saw
an “orange” train leaving. Five minutes
later a “green” train came through. Five
minutes more and another “orange” train arrived. Surprisingly, it wasn’t very crowded and I
soon had a seat. On the train I soon saw
a lot of people outside with umbrellas and the Medellin
When I got off at the Envigado station people were sitting
on the stairs and more standing around upstairs by the ticket booth. It was actually difficult to wade through the
crowd as they were waiting for the rain to stop or lessen. I ran to a filled metro bus but they let me
on. A man actually got up to give me his
seat but I declined, telling him I was getting off soon. There were a couple seats in the back and 2
ladies waved me back to them but again I declined.
As the bus pulled out there was a lot of standing water it
had to work its way through.
The bus stopped at a red light at the top of the hill and
the driver deemed it safe enough to allow me to get off. I got back to the apt by 4:30 a little wet
but far from soaked.
5pm and traffic leading to the highway is backed up all the
way to our apartment. For about 30
minutes I constantly heard wet brakes squealing and impatient horns honking. That’s the main reason we want to move.
I’m still studying Aron Nimzowitsch’s My System but it’s getting more and more difficult to understand
the point he wants to make. I’m pretty
sure it’s a translation problem as it was originally written in German.
T-shirt of the day: I’m so glad I grew up in the 70’s. I did so much stupid stuff and there is no
record of it anywhere!
No comments:
Post a Comment