Sunday, August 26, 2018

Last night I fell asleep quickly, got up only once (about 5am?), finally waking at 7:30 and getting up at 7:45.

Still no internet!

Even though it’s pretty cloudy outside Teresa still wants to go to Santafe de Antioquia today; maybe because I warned her that from September to December most Sundays I’ll be watching American Football.

Today I’m taking my The Woodpecker Method book with me so I can start over again (this will be cycle #2) solving the same set of chess puzzles.  I’ll also have my cell phone so hopefully I can get internet and to break things up I’ll have the paperback book I’ve almost finished.

We left the apt at 8:30 and quickly caught a taxi to Mall Laureles.  I was surprised to see the office for the Dia de Sol is now a store.  Teresa called and then looked across the street and there his his new, smaller office.

We went to Lucas’ restaurant where Teresa had an arepa with cheese and scrambled eggs and hot chocolate and I had a café con leche.  I also had a couple bites of her food to tide me over until we could get to the restaurant on the road.

The bus left at 10am and we were the only ones on it, resting comfortably in the back.  Just outside town the driver added 50mil to the gas tank.  If the pump really counts gallons then he got just over 5.5 gallons which works out to almost exactly $3/gallon.

We stopped at the usual restaurant 5 minutes the other side of the tunnel where I had calentado and a café con leche for 7mil ($2.35).

We arrived at the resort just before noon.

Teresa spent most of the afternoon crocheting or is it needle point while I completed 40 chess puzzles in a little over an hour.

I also finished reading John Grisham’s paperback The Litigators which I’ll probably exchange for another tomorrow.  I’m learning to concentrate on looking for those books that are #1 New York Times Bestsellers.

I did take one dip in the pool in the afternoon when I started feeling overheated.  I heard a young man speaking English.  He and his uncle are here from California visiting Colombia for 3 weeks.  Tonight they are staying in a finca in El Retiro.

Teresa asked me how much it cost for a taxi from Mall Laureles to Envigado and I replied about 19mil.  She asked me if I would pay the same if the bus dropped us off at our apt so we wouldn’t have to take a taxi.  Sure!

I was happy when we left the resort early – at 5:20 – but we weren’t alone.  The bus was full but at least I got the shotgun seat so I wasn’t crowded and I had control of a window.

We made a stop at the restaurant on the way back but Teresa had me run in and buy 6 almojabanas (sp?) to go and we continued on our way.

Instead of taking the Avenida 80 exit the driver continued south on the highway but he passed the Envigado cloverleaf.  We went deep into Itagui and finally everyone else got off.  He dropped us off at out apt and I paid him the 20mil but I reminded Teresa that a taxi would be direct – it wouldn’t be taking detours through Itagui.

The plan for tomorrow is that Teresa is going to an early morning (7am?) workout at the gym with a girlfriend.  Afterwards she will go to Une to report our wifi problem and I will have breakfast at Carbon de Leña before going to the gym.

Laura came back about 9:30 and reported that Une should be coming to the apt tomorrow.  It’s her day off so I hope she’ll hang around the apt until they arrive (and leave).

At one point I understood Laura was doing something on her cell phone using the internet.  I asked Teresa how could she do that and why doesn’t she show me how to do it?  She talked to Laura and showed me (not that I’ll remember the details) how to piggyback off Teresa’s monthly data that is included with her cellphone plan.

Today’s Step Count was only 2,789 on account of I spent most of the day sitting on my butt.

Joke of the day

Andy Rooney on Prisoners:
Did you know that it costs forty thousand dollars a year to house each prisoner?  For forty thousand bucks apiece I'll take a few prisoners into my house. I live in Los Angeles. I already have bars on the windows. I don't think we should give free room and board to criminals. I think they should have to run twelve hours a day on a treadmill and generate electricity. And, if they don't want to run, they can rest in the chair that's hooked up to the generator.