Saturday, January 11th, 2014

Last night I had no idea what The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was going to be about (at least it was on my list and not Netflix’s selection for me).  From the title I was expecting a female kung-fu movie.  But it was an excellent drama/thriller with a number of surprises especially the ending.  I highly recommend it.

I went to bed at 11:45, had difficulty getting to sleep (maybe because of the intermittent firecrackers), got up once during the night, was awakened by Lionel’s radio at 6:15, had trouble getting back to sleep (maybe because of sounds like the stacking of dishes and moving of chairs on a tile floor) and finally woke/got up at 8:05.

I was at LM at 9:30 and right away I saw Harry sitting at a table reading a newspaper.  He told me he often has breakfast there on the weekends.  He informed me that 2 guys with guns held up a Laureles restaurant around 8pm the other night and they got all the customers’ valuables.  Harry reminded me he has 2 sons each with their own import company in Guatemala and El Salvador and if I know any business people in the US to let them know there is a contact in Central America.

I had my usual breakfast at Bunuelo Express.  A different young lady than usual served me while the other lady, over time, has remembered exactly what I need and brings me that and nothing extra.  Therefore, I gave her back: the salt shaker, a knife, and one of the packets of sugar.  I did keep the small container of butter, however.

At 10:10 Augusto showed up and I introduced him to Harry.  Then we played 6 games of chess.  My goal was not to lose any games to him today – and I was successful.  Dario showed up while we were playing and I introduced him to Augusto (again!?).  Augusto left about 1:30 but not before asking what time I would be at LM tomorrow – between 9 and 10.  Unfortunately Dario left a long time before so I no longer had any opponents.  

For lunch I had the ribs, fries, and a Coke at SanJote for about 16,500 pesos ($8.68).  They are bigger than what you get at Gordog’s but also more expensive.

I think it was Augusto that mentioned there is a chess club in downtown Medellin.  I had him write down the address: Liga de Ajedrez Maracaibo con Sucre

Liga de Ajedrez means Chess League.

Maracaibo con Sucre - not sure if these are streets.  Btw, “con” means “with”.  I checked my detailed map of downtown and I don’t see either Maracaibo or Sucre as street names.  I googled it for Medellin and I found: “Calle 53 N 47-03 Maracaibo con Sucre”.  I looked again on the map and I finally saw Maracaibo.  Calle 53 & Carrera 47 is near the Coltejer building (Calle 52 & Carrera 49) where Augusto told me they sell chess tables.  I also tried googling just “Liga de Ajedrez” but all I saw were references to the stadium so maybe it moved from downtown.

At 3pm, while I was back at my apartment, it started raining again.  At 4pm I made popcorn with the butter I had kept from breakfast while I read a chapter in my Nook book.  I’m getting near the end now.  It stopped raining about 4:40 but again the temperature is down.

I went through all the iTunes songs on my laptop, deleted the duplicates and rated all the songs 5* I would like to hear in my Oldies playlist.  Some songs will not play unless I have my USB flash drive inserted.  It was backed up with all my songs about 18 months ago.  Later I have to figure out how to get them from my flash drive to iCloud.

I don’t feel hungry and I don’t feel like going out so I think I’ll skip dinner tonight and have a big breakfast at the hotel tomorrow.