Sunday, November 24th, 2013

Last night I went to bed at 10pm, didn’t wake up until 5:30 and finally woke/got up at 7:30 feeling great!  I didn’t take any Excedrin Migraine and I guess I didn’t need it although there is still some minimal soreness in my neck this morning.

We’re only supposed to have a high of 70 degrees today and it is quite overcast.  I love days like this!  

Breakfast today was the buffet at Golden Palermo Hotel.  I learned the price of breakfast has gone up to 12mil.  I found some more brochures there for Christmas and other tours.

On my way through Viva mall I ran into Gloria and we confirmed our lunch date for Friday at 2pm at Mall de Laureles.  I told her I would be willing to meet her where she works but now she insists she meet me at LM.  She is so cute!  I sure hope she can write – meaning spell, put spaces between words, use punctuation so we can communicate effectively on Friday.

I stopped at the pet store and talked to Wilson.  I hadn’t seen any pets there for quite some time and Wilson told me the store is under quarantine for the entire month of November because the pets were getting sick.

I was at Sport Wings just before 1pm and they had no trouble finding my game.  I found out they close at 11pm on Friday’s so I think I’m safe watching the MAC Championship game there on December 6^th.  It started raining at 1:30 and the temperature plummeted.  I wouldn’t have minded having a long sleeved shirt from then on.  My game on Fox had US commercials and a guy sitting at the next table was watching the Miami game on Fox and it often showed the “NFL Sunday Ticket” screen in place of US commercials.  Unfortunately, the Rams scored 2 touchdowns very quickly in the 1^st quarter and the Bears never recovered.

At halftime I took out my “Spanish Phrases for Dummies” booklet I hadn’t looked at in months.  I had highlighted with a yellow marker words I new back then.  This time I highlighted a lot more words; most of the book in fact.  Most of what is left are phrases like “Are there rooms available” that I most likely won’t be needing.

I left late in the 4^th quarter when the Bears were down 35-21 with little chance to come back.  The final score was St. Louis Rams 42, Chicago Bears 21.  A little consolation is the fact that the Detroit Lions also lost to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 24-21 and the Green Bay Packers tied the Minnesota Vikings 26-26.  

I had the large Classic Burger deluxe and 3 Cokes for a total of 30mil.  Today I noticed for the first time there wasn’t any “propina” (tip) added to the bill so I left a 5mil tip.  I’m not sure if I missed it all the times in the past or something changed in how they calculate the bill.

Since a month has passed since I signed up for Exito Points, I stopped to buy an umbrella using my 1,000 points and 8,250 pesos.  I gave the cashier my temporary card and my Cedula.  She called over another man and all I understood was that I could buy it yet with my points.  He called over a young cashier named Carolina who spoke English.  She explained to me that first of all I couldn’t use a copy of my Cedula it had to be the original and I had to wait longer than one month but she couldn’t tell me how much longer.  Sigh!