Tuesday, March 4th, 2014

Last night I went to bed at 10:45, got up twice during the night, and woke/got up at 6:40.

I packed up my dirty laundry: bedding, 3 shirts but no towels.  I had coffee and pizza at Fresco Pan from 7:30 to 8am.  I had another coffee at the Tinto store from 8 to 8:30 when Olga came out and picked up my laundry.  The pretty lady walked by at 8:12.  I’m beginning to think you can set your watch to her because I recall her always coming by between 8:10 and 8:15.  We’ll see about tomorrow.

I wanted to get a glass of orange juice but for some reason the stand isn’t set up today; maybe because it’s been a little cooler than usual?

In a flyer I picked up yesterday I can see that the “stadium” is named Unidad Deportiva Atanasio Girardot, the chess area is the Parque del Ajedrez and the chess club is the Liga de Ajedrez de Antioquia.

I took a Circular 303 bus and checked out Home Center and Jumbo.  I bought a package of 8 13W bulbs for 34,900 and a small package of suction cup hooks for 4,900 at Home Center but I didn’t find anything I needed at Jumbo.  

Neat Dogger diner in Jumbo mall

Jumbo mall

Jumbo Mall

Home Center store

Makro grocery store

Back at my Exito I bought a nice collapsable umbrella for 31,900.  Now when it’s raining when I leave I’ll use the large umbrella I got with my Exito points and if it might rain I’ll bring the smaller collapsable one.

I noticed there is now a Juan Valdez coffee kiosk in a part of the mall I don’t go through very often.  There is also a “game zone” with prizes for tickets for the little kids.

I took my chess scorebook and my iPad to Viva mall but wasn’t able to get a good Wi-Fi connection.  I started entering the games that I played in the January tournament into my scorebook.  Lunch was Double Steak burger at BK and a medium Pepsi for 12,800 with coupon.  I got a refill for my Pepsi and kept at it.

I stopped at the corner store and finally got good Wi-Fi.  I went through a number of my emails until finally I had to leave for my Spanish lesson.

We reviewed the alphabet again and spent some time on the two different ways of say “I am” – “Yo soy” and “estoy”.  We also started working on verbs starting with “to be”.  

I had the chili con carne and a mango juice at El Comedor de Chava.  I was happy I took my small umbrella with me because it there was a little rain.  The bus ride there was pretty miserable because there were a lot of people and they had the windows closed to keep dry so it was very stuffy.  I’ll try to remember to take a taxi if that happens again.

One of the men who runs the tournament informed me that my USCF rating (1693) isn’t good for outside the US so I understand I’ll be earning a new rating.  My best guess is it will be after something like 16 games.  My opponent tonight had a rating of 1678 and I had the black pieces.  Because I don’t know any opening when I have black I’m usually at a disadvantage pretty quickly.  He had a very strong attack against me and I just kept trying to give him problems and after exchanging pieces we went into the endgame with 5 pawns each.  Neither king could advance against the other so we agreed to a draw.  My 4^th draw of the tournament!  It’s usually rare that I have one draw in a tournament.

I caught a bus back to the apartment for 7mil.