Friday, May 30th, 2014

Last night I went to bed at 10:30 and had great difficulty getting to sleep.  I finally got up at 7am.

I checked today’s US movie releases and Maleficent (7.5) and A Million Ways to Die in the West (6.6) sound interesting.

Locally, Edge of Tomorrow (8.2) and Maleficent (7.5) are playing.

I had coffee & croissant at Los Mejores followed by an orange juice at Redd’s.

Immediately following my Spanish lesson I took a bus and the metro and was at the Envigado Exito just before 1pm.  I ordered a Philadelphia sandwich and large Coke from Qbano for 17,600.  When I was ordering I asked the server if he spoke English and as usual he said no.  A young lady standing next in line asked if she could help.  I asked her to stand by just in case and after I ordered she complimented me on my Spanish.  She said she is from New Jersey and we chatted for just a minute while waiting to finish our orders.  The food court was packed and after standing for about 5 minutes I finally found a table but I was sure I would lose it as soon as I got up to retrieve my order.  An older man asked if he could join me.  Actually I didn’t understand anything he said but I assumed that’s what he wanted and I was right.  We chatted a bit in Spanish and when I went to get my order I now had someone to save the table for me.  We chatted a bit and after he left I read some more from my Nook.

I was outside just before 2pm and Teresa showed up about 10 minutes later.  We walked to downtown Envigado (I assume that’s what it was because of the large park square with the church on one side surrounded by restaurants and stores.)  We went into a building and after a 10 minute wait she signed a piece of paper and the man gave her a little over 100mil in cash.  It looked a lot like a currency exchange and I noticed the rate for buying dollars was 1,900COP and the rate for selling dollars was 2,000.

We stopped at a restaurant nearby and she had a chicken plate for lunch and I had an iced tea.  We walked a couple more blocks where we caught an Envigado bus to Santafe CC.  We stopped at Crepes & Waffles and she treated me to a large ice cream for a total of 16,200.  We walked around the mall and she oohed and aahed a bit like she had never been there before.  

She was impressed that I knew where a lot of things were.  We sat down a few times and talked a bit.  We made some informal plans to go to Santafe in July but I found out she can’t swim.  She mentioned she has a girlfriend with a finca in Sopetran, Colombia that we might be able to use.  I see on Google earth that it is about halfway between San Jeronimo and Santa Fe, the two small towns I visited with Beatriz last October.

We caught a bus back to Envigado and I got back to my apartment the usual way – metro and a bus.

Reina confirmed that Dylan will graduate in July so I only have 2 more payments to go.  I made plans to meet her at Mall de Laureles on Monday at 2pm.

T-shirt of the day: Please mind your head.