Friday, June 6th, 2014

Last night I went to bed at 11:15, woke up at 5am and got up at 6am.  I hope those pills I started last night are working!

Today is the 70^th anniversary of D-Day.  I wonder how many World War II vets are still alive.  I know my Uncle Charlie is still kicking!

I used my iPad to take a photo of my receipt for the hotel down payment I made at BanColombia yesterday and sent it to Hotel Guatatura.  They acknowledged it and asked for my name and telephone number so I gave them my number and Jhon’s.

I checked the GNC website and though they have 4 stores in Colombia they are all in Bogota.

Teresa mentioned yesterday she would like to take a trip with me to Jerico and, since I’ve been hearing a lot about it from the expats lately, I agreed.

I had my usual breakfast at El Comedor de Chava followed by a little Spanish study.  Mall de Laureles now has flags up for all the countries playing in the World Cup.

I had my usual orange juice at Redd’s.  

During my Spanish lesson I got a call, the usual one ring, from “Mario”.  Jhon thinks she wants money but I think she just wants sex, and I’m not interested.

I got an email from the Guatatur hotel in Guatape confirming my reservation.

I got an email from Teresa.  She would rather meet on Sunday and she can make it early, like 9am.  Since she can meet me early I suggested we meet at Acevedo station at 9:30 am and go to Parque Arvi again.

The new movie releases opening in the States this week include: Edge of Tomorrow (8.1) and The Fault in our Stars (8.7).

Playing locally, there is: The Maleficent (7.5) and The Fault in Our Stars (8.7).

Well, I had an interesting afternoon.

I left the apartment at 1:15, took the Circular Sur 302 bus and got off at my Urologist’s building.  I walked behind it and found the Museum of Modern Art.  It is open every day except Mondays and admission is 8mil.  I then took a taxi for 3,500 to Premium Plaza CC.  Now I could see it is only 3 blocks from the Industriales metro station.

I was in line at the theater at 2:15 to buy my ticket to the 3pm showing of The Fault in our Stars.  There were about 20 people ahead of me, mostly young girls, sitting on the floor but the box office was dark.  At 2:40 they opened the box office and by 3pm I had bought my ticket for 7mil and made a trip to the restroom.  When I came back 6 girls that were behind me previously in line were now ahead of me.  More and more girls kept joining them until I counted 19 of them ahead of me to buy snacks.  Shortly after 3pm I had my medium popcorn and large soda for 11mil and I walked into the theater.  

It was pretty dark but the movie hadn’t started.  I was wondering why they wouldn’t have all the house lights turned on if the movie hadn’t started yet.  For house lights all they had were 8 sconces on the walls, projecting light towards the wall and up and 2 of those weren’t working at all.  I found my seat and by 3:15 it still hadn’t started.  The patrons were mostly girls of about 12-13 years of age, playing with their cell phones, taking pictures of themselves and others, shining their lights and creating lots of laughter.  At 3:25 the movie hadn’t yet started.  At 3:35 a couple of theater employees came in and made an announcement.  Not only did I not understand them I couldn’t even hear them.  I took the opportunity to make a quick trip to the restroom.

When I came back I stopped down by the screen where the employees were talking to a few of the patrons.  I asked if anyone spoke English and one young lady spoke near perfect English.  She is in her last year in the University.  I learned that the girls in the theater are in their last year of high school which probably means they are close to 17.  The film they have to show isn’t compatible with the equipment they have to show it and something about some computer code.  The young lady was with her mother and of course she had a lot of questions about my situation here in Medellin.  At 4pm the theater finally made an official announcement that they weren’t going to be able to get it started and they would either sign our receipt allowing us to get into another show, or give us our money back.  I went for the latter.

I snuck back into the theater and retrieve my soda but my popcorn wasn’t in my seat where I left it so I took the popcorn that was in the empty seat next to mine thinking that someone just moved it.  But this popcorn was with sugar not salt.  On my way out of the mall I found a sports store with a much thicker yoga mat for 65mil.  Unfortunately I didn’t have that much cash with me.

I found the exit to Calle 30 and walked down about 3 blocks to the Industriales station, took the metro to Aguacatala, got off and caught my usual bus back.  A blind man got on the bus and handed out rolls of some type of mints.  While standing near the front of the bus the driver made a sudden stop and the poor man hit his head on the divider separating the driver from the passengers.  I bought a roll of his mints for 500 pesos.

Back at my apartment I’m going to take a shower and have a bowl of cereal for my dinner.

T-shirt of the day: Sharpshooters of the Adirondacks.