Thursday, July 31st, 2014

Last night I went to bed at 10:30, got back up immediately to take my Passiflora (Passion Flower) drops, had a little difficulty getting to sleep, got up once at 4:45, and woke/got up at 6:45.

I’m happy to see my Social Security deposit has already been made.

Planet of the Apes (8.3) is playing at Premium Plaza at 2:10 & Santafé at 1pm & 3:50.

I had breakfast at Los Mejores, orange juice at Redd’s, and then paid my monthly medical insurance premium at BanColombia.  There was only one other person ahead of me in the preferred line.  

I bought another container of Centrum Silver 50+ vitamins.  The cashier’s printer printed out some advertising to go with my receipt.  It says that tomorrow, August 1^st, you get 4 things for every 2 you pay for on certain brands in the women’s department.  She wrote on the front that the sale starts at 7am with an extra 40% discount.  Also, that I should go to www.cuponmania.com and print out more coupons.  On the back she wrote “Lo debe imprimir por internet por que son muy buenos descuentos desde el 2 de agosto hasta el 18 de agosto.”  I understood everything but “debe” but Jhon told me it means “need to”.  (Actually “por que” means “why” and “porque” means “because” but this isn’t the first person I’ve seen write it incorrectly.  Maybe someday my Spanish will be better than the locals.  J Right!

I studied a bit at the Viva food court until my 10am Spanish lesson.

Afterwards, I left my vitamins and notebooks with Jhon, took a Circular Sur 302 bus and got off across from EAFIT University, walked up the hill and was at Santafé 10 minutes early for Planet of the Apes (8.3).  The ticket cost me 5mil and small popcorn and medium soda came to the usual 11,700.  

The movie was pretty good.  There were only 3 others in the theatre although I did hear someone on his cell phone for a little while.

I took a bus back to Viva.  Because it was only 3:30 in the afternoon the bus wasn’t crowded (although I had to listen to some young guy entertaining us with his rap music) and traffic was still light.

I stopped in Viva and bought a container of orange juice and another couple packages of Wrigley’s Extra gum.  

I stopped at Jhon’s office to pick up my vitamins and I met Adriana.  She’s a Colombiana working in Washington D.C. who is here visiting her mother and taking a few English classes with Jhon.

Just staying in again tonight.

T-shirt of the day: Fall in love with you.

Wednesday, July 30th, 2014

Last night I went to bed at 11pm, woke up at 5:45 and got up at 6:15.

I have 10 mosquito bites.

That Awkward Moment (6.2) is playing at Los Molinos at 2:10 & Carrefour at 3:50 and UniCentro at 4:10.  

This afternoon I took the Circular Sur 303 bus.  I first went to Home Center where I found the water heaters for the shower.  They aren't expensive at all - between 37 mil and 64 mil pesos. I took a quick walk through Makro for the first time; that’s where Teresa says she grocery shops.  It looks something like a Costco to me. I saw That Awkward Moment (6.2) at the Carrefour theatre and it only cost me 3,500 pesos (less than $2).  I also had a medium popcorn for 8mil and a large soda for 4,500.  Their sizes are different from the Cine Colombia theatres I usually frequent.  But the movie wasn’t very good and there was a man sitting in the aisle behind me and a couple seats over who talked on his cell phone throughout the movie.  I moved down a few rows and to the other side of the aisle but I could still hear him occasionally.  I stopped at the pharmacy there and bought some Caladryl Clear for 9,750 COP for my mosquito bites.  

I was home by 6pm.  I’ll probably stay in and have a bowl of cereal later.

T-shirt of the day: My name is Danger.

Tuesday, July 29th, 2014

Last night I went to bed at 10:30, had a little trouble getting to sleep, then about midnight I remembered I forgot to take my drops.  I took them and didn’t wake up until 5:45.  I had a slight headache so I took 2 Excedrin Migraine and went back to bed until 6:30.

I had my usual breakfast at Los Molinos, picked up my laundry from Beatriz, had an orange juice at Redd’s, and stopped at Likke’s and gave them my lunch order.  Olga was waiting for me as I arrived back at my apartment at 8:30.

At one point while she was cleaning she let out a little scream and showed me a 5” lizard on my kitchen wall.  I caught him quickly and placed him on the railing outside.

They brought lunch right at noon and this time a young man had our beans and juice on a tray which he brought up to the apartment.

Per Wikipedia the elevation of Medellin is 1,479 meters and Amaga 1,250 meters although I didn’t get to Amaga to see if the elevation was radically different from the finca and I don’t know where in Medellin they take their measurement.

Olga finished at 1pm, changed her clothes and left.

I walked over to the internet café and printed and laminated 2 Chicago Bears schedules and some conjugations of Spanish –AR, -ER, and –IR verbs.  Afterwards I realized I should have translated the dates and days of the week into Spanish for her.

For dinner I had a bowl of yogurt and later I’m going to make some popcorn.

T-shirt of the day: Believe in your dreams.

Monday, July 28th, 2014

Monday afternoon Teresa and I started playing dominoes again and I won about 5 games in a row.  Then she decided she wanted to play for money – 1mil (50 cents) a game.  Interestingly, she started winning right after that.  She started chanting “mi plata, mi plata” – “my money, my money” - but it wasn’t too long before I started winning again.  It’s interesting how you can get streaky in that game.  I’m not sure how much is luck and how much is skill.  In the end she gave me all her 500peso and 1 mil coins for our piggy bank.

She says she has another type of game whose name sounded something like Parcheesi.  I googled it and found that “Parqués is a Colombian variant”.

At 6:30 we walked back down to the main road.  On the way I realized I had left my cell phone in the finca but I wasn’t about to repeat that trip again.  We waited until 7pm when finally she got me in a private van.  They stopped at all the Medellin stations from La Estrella at the south end until they dropped me off at Aquacatala.  I easily caught a bus and was back at my apartment by 8:30.

T-shirt of the day: Good girls love bad boys.

Sunday, July 27th, 2014

Sunday morning I only had cold water to shower in.  Brrrr!  I understand there is a tank up the hill that catches rain water for them to use.  She told me it gets hot in the afternoon but I can’t wait until mid afternoon to take a shower.  She said in September we will stop at Home Center and buy a heater for the shower.  I’m sure it will be the suicide shower I’ve seen before.  There are already a couple electric wires above the open pipe that serves as their shower.

The dogs usually stay outside and that afternoon they alerted us to 2 young boys who arrived to visit with Laura (some local admirers I guess).  Teresa obviously didn’t want them to know I was there for some reason.

Teresa had told me she has 4 bedrooms but when I saw only 3 I thought maybe she had meant 4 beds.  Today she told me there is a large 4^th bedroom in the loft above the living room.  I don’t know where she keeps the ladder but I stood on the armrest of the couch and was able to peer inside and in the darkness I could see she uses that space mainly for storage.  She did say she keeps it clean however.

I asked her what the address is here and she said there isn’t one.  She uses the address of her mother’s apartment in Envigado.

Sunday night we walked down to the main road at 6:30 and waited until 7am for one of the buses that would take me back to Envigado.  We were standing in the middle of an S curve and none would stop for us so we took a bus into Caldas where she stopped at a store and bought some food for us and the dogs and I picked up a real bag of popcorn.  We then waited about 30 minutes for a specific Caldas bus with a Salinas sign in the window.  I could see the Alcoholics Anonymous sign across the street so I knew we were at the regular bus stop.  At one point she said “lights” and ran upstairs and came back with her electric bill for 46mil.  I’m guessing that’s for one month.

Back at the finca we watched The Lucky One and then The Back-Up Plan.  She made popcorn on her stove but there were a lot of unpopped seeds left over.  I was surprised she didn’t shake the pot to get the unpopped seeds down to the heat source; or maybe she just used too many seeds.  I told her I would make popcorn for her next time she visits my apartment; then she will see that I have almost no seeds left over.

T-shirt of the day: Swing for the fences.

Saturday, July 26th, 2014

Last night I got an email response from Teresa.  She has the movie The Fault in our Stars at her finca but she wants to go to a banzai exhibit at San Diego CC on Sunday. 

She also told me that an Empanada does not make a good lunch.  I need fruits and salads and vegetables.

I went to bed at 10:30, woke up once at 3:45 due to a short rainstorm, woke up at 6am and got up at 6:30.

Today is the day I finally get to see Teresa’s finca.  I’ve got my camera and I hope to take a lot of pictures.

I left the apartment at 9am.  Here’s a picture of Jhon’s office I took as I was walking by.

This is the park I walk through almost every day to get to Viva CC or Mall Laureles.  Avenida 80 is behind the crossover bridge you see in the background.

This is where I get my glass of fresh orange juice most weekday mornings.  Notice the sign “Redd’s” above the bar entrance.  That isn’t the name of the place it’s just what I call it.

This is the bus stop I use when I want to take a Circular Sur 302 bus in the southerly direction and, yes, you can see I just missed my bus.  However, another will be along in less than 5 minutes.

This is the entrance to the Aguacatala metro station. 

This is where I purchase my ticket for 1,900 pesos (about $1) to ride the metro to anywhere in the city.

This is a metro train arriving in the opposite direction.  It shows the name of the station at the northern end of the line – Niquia.  La Estrella is the southern terminus.

I took a quick picture of the inside of the metro.  There is absolutely no graffiti anywhere on the train or in the stations.

After I got off the train in Envigado it’s only a 2 block walk to Exito which you can see on the other side of the parking lot.

I saw Teresa’s 17-year old daughter Laura right away.  I took this quick picture of her before we headed into Exito to buy something.

She’s a pretty girl and I understand very intelligent.  We bought popcorn and a large bottle of Coke and headed back to the Aquacatala metro station.  

At 10:10 we caught a bus that said Fredonia on it; I understand we could have also taken one identified as Tan Tar.  About 11am we arrived in the little town of Caldas.  We stopped next to a small store which apparently serves as the bus stop.  Across the street I saw a butcher shop with a Alcoholics Anonymous sign above it.  The streets are under a little construction; it’s obvious they are replacing the sidewalks with stone tiles.  We finally got off in what looks like the middle of nowhere.

This is a 2-lane paved road.  To the right you can see a little of the area blocked off where they are working on a new highway.  Across the street is the dirt road we walked up to get to the finca.  Notice how steep it is.  Laura had no problem walking while I was quickly, and often, out of breath which she found amusing.  (Later Teresa had no problems either.)  I’m guessing we are already at a higher elevation which would explain my problem although a change in elevation wasn’t that obvious.  We walked about 75% of the way up the hill you see in the background.

Now, through all the foliage, you can see the finca in the background.  It looks like a pretty nice building. 

As we were coming down the approach we were greeted by their 4 small dogs.  Teresa called them what sounded like “Foss Ters” and I looked them up and found they are probably “Fox Terriers”.  They were not in the least bit aggressive towards me, maybe because I was with Laura.  One is all white and the other 3 are white and brown.  The white one is Peter, another is Tony, I forget the 3^rd and the 4^th I couldn’t even pronounce.  This is the road we had just come down.

This is the front of the building. Teresa told me she designed it herself and it took 1 year to construct.

This is the view from the front porch.  This corner looks like a good place to hang a hammock.  Notice her garden.

This is her living room.  She has a large screen TV out of view in the upper right corner. You can see the dining room in the background.  Notice the “windows” on the left and right.  They don’t have glass but are protected by wrought iron with panels that can be closed for security and to keep out the nighttime cold.

This is the dining room with a very nice table and chairs in the Spanish style.

This is the kitchen.  She cooks mostly on a wood fire; the chimney is in the background.  In the center are 4 extra burners that run on liquid propane.

This is the master bedroom.  There is a large armoire out of view on the left.  We plan to build a closet for me with the extra space on the right.

This is the 2^nd bedroom.  Laura sleeps in one of these beds and this is also where she does her homework.

This is the 3^rd bedroom.  I guess this is the guest room and it does have a small shower off to the side.

This is some artwork at the entrance to the 3^rd bedroom.  I should have asked Teresa if she created these.

This is the laundry room.  I believe the machine on the left is for washing and drying.

This is the main bathroom which is between the 1^st 2 bedrooms.  The shower area alone is larger than my bathroom.

This is the view from the side of the property.  It’s pretty steep.

This is the view from the back.  It is very steep, between 60% and 90%.

This is a view of the back of the house.

More views from the front of the house.

Teresa looked at our “popcorn” and told us that this is corn used to feed chickens.  Come to think of it the kernels do look a little big.

One thing I like here is that it is noticeably cooler than Medellin.

I helped Laura with some English she had written in a notebook.  It mainly consisted of words scrambled from a sentence that she had to reconstruct.  Teresa and I also used her computer to talk a little.  She still had a lot of questions to ask me.

We played a few games of dominoes and she quickly built a 4-0 lead but I came back and we ended with her winning 10-6.  She talked me into staying overnight and I agreed although I didn’t have any extra clothes or anything.

Breakfast consisted of a bowl of granola with milk and a little later eggs scrambled with tomato and onion, an arepa with cheese and hot chocolate.

Other meals were mainly salad, bean soup or beans with rice (calentao), chicken or beef (very chewy as usual) with your choice of drink (usually strawberry juice for Teresa and I and Coke for Laura).  

Teresa has some type of minor digestive problem so she’s supposed to eat small meals every few hours.

When Teresa feeds the dogs (once or twice a day) they follow her and she puts food down in one location and one of the dogs starts eating.  She moves a few yards away, puts down more food, and another one starts eating.  She repeats that 2 more times and then stands guard to make sure none of them try to take any others’ food until they have finished.

She took me down a path near the front of the house and showed me some exotic plants and trees.  She pointed out some medium sized pretty black and yellow birds.  Maybe I should have skipped that trip because the next day I had several mosquito bites.  She sprayed the spots with something.  I looked at the bottle and it was in English.  It was some type of product for the hair.  :)

Saturday night we watched Homefront which I saw back on May 9^th, and then Endless Love.  These were unlabeled CDs that I can only guess Laura copied off the internet but they were very good copies.

When it’s time to go to bed she closes and locks all the windows and I was surprised that it was so dark in the bedroom my eyes never got used to it.  It also gets cool there in the evening which is great for sleeping.

T-shirt of the day: Girls don’t cry.

Friday, July 25th, 2014

Last night I went to bed at 11pm, got up once at 4:15, and woke/got up at 6:30.

Among this week’s US movie releases is Hercules (6.9).  Someone described their opinion of the movie in 4 words: “Boring and utterly predictable.”  The following factual error was listed on Imdb.com “Zeus is the father of Heracles, not Hercules. Hercules is the Roman name and subsequently, Jupiter should be used. That said, the names of the men and gods, should also be changed to their Roman counterparts as the Roman story differs from the Greek.”.

Locally, That Awkward Moment (6.2) is playing at Los Molinos & Carrefour; The Fault in our Stars (8.3) is playing at Vizcaya at 6:20pm; Malefica (7.4) is playing at Vizcaya at 1:55pm; and Planet of the Apes (8.3) is playing at Premium Plaza & Santafe.

After Spanish class I had a small bowl of granola and at 12:40 caught a Circular 302 bus.  A Poblado bus let me off right in front of the MBE office where I paid 30mil ($15) for my August rental.  

I walked the remaining blocks to Vizcaya CC and panicked a little when I didn’t see Malefica listed on their marque but the ticket seller spoke English and he told me it’s playing there so I bought a ticket for 5mil.  Today I skipped the popcorn and only had a medium soda for 4,700.  There were only 3 other people in the theatre but it was a pretty good movie.  I still had some Pepsi left so I stopped on the street and bought an empanada for 1mil (50 cents) to finish it with.  

I was back in my apartment by 5pm where I had a small bowl of granola for dinner.  I’ll probably have a snack a little later on.

I finally remembered to turn my cell phone back on and found that Teresa had called me 30 minutes prior.  I called her and again she rattled something off in Spanish and I laughed and said “Español, Español!”  I told her to read my email and then I sent her one recommending that we see the movie The Fault in our Stars on Saturday night instead of Sunday night.

T-shirt of the day: Never stop dreaming.

Thursday, July 24th, 2014

Last night I went to bed at 10:45, slept through the night, woke up at 5:45 and got up at 6:30.  Yah!

I received an email from Teresa; she didn’t reply to my email until 11:20 last night.  She can’t meet me for a movie today because she has a meeting at Laura’s school.  

She reminded me about meeting Laura at the Envigado Exito Saturday morning but she said something else about Saturday and Sunday I didn’t understand so I’m going to need Jhon’s help to make sure our plans haven’t changed.

I had a bowl of granola at home in order to do a little more studying.  (I admit to having difficulties conjugating the regular -AR, -ER, and -IR Spanish verbs in the past tense.  In fact sometimes I forget the present tense.)  At my Spanish lesson Jhon told me that Teresa wants to see “The Fault in our Stars” – maybe on Sunday.  The problem is that the movie has been out for a long time and I’m not sure it will be around for another week – in one of my easy to get to theatres and with Spanish subtitles.  (I probably should have been able to figure the title out myself from her Spanish Bajo la Misma Estrella, but I didn’t know which of her words represented the title.)

After Spanish class I had the chicken teriyaki at Sarku’s in Viva mall followed by a churro and Coke at Los Mejores for 2,400.  I left there about 1:35 at what was obviously their shift change.

I was back at the apartment by 1:45 as I thought Dario might show up for a game, but no.

My iPad allows me to look ahead a day (or sometimes more) for the 5 Cine Colombia theatres: Los Molinos, Oviedo, Santafé, Unicentro, and Vizcaya.  I see tomorrow Maléfica (7.4) is playing at Vizcaya at 1:55pm with Spanish subtitles.  And The Fault in our Stars is playing at Vizcaya at 6:20pm.  That means we wouldn’t get out of the theatre until about 8:30.  I’ll have to check with Teresa to see if that’s too late for her to get home.  It’s also possible they might have different start times on Sunday.

One other thing I have to be careful of is that some movies like Ida, with Spanish subtitles, is originally in Polish.

I took a short nap from 2:45 to 3:30.

I have a lot of little pieces of paper (notes) with Spanish words on them and I started going through them and adding them to my iPad, notebook or adding them as followup questions for Jhon.

Dinner was bowl of granola with banana slices; yes, I saved a couple slices for the hormigas (ants).

T-shirt of the day: Music is my heroin.

Wednesday, July 23rd, 2014

Last night I went to bed at 10:30, got up once during the night, woke up at 6am and got up at 6:30.

I had breakfast at Los Mejores followed by a little studying at the corner store.  I bought a banana for 10 cents after I left.

After Spanish class I had a whopper and small milkshake at Burger King.  I took a bus to Home Center where I found a pretty cylindrical flower vase for 29,900.  As I was coming down the escalator I noticed on the DirectTV advertisement they were showing the White Sox game vs KC.  James Shields was pitching for KC, the score was 1-1 so I waited long enough to see Adam Dunn and Alexie Ramirez end the inning.  The guy working there was nice enough that he turned on the 2^nd set and invited me to sit down to watch the game but I told him I didn’t have enough time.  He asked me which I liked more – baseball or football and I answered the latter – the Chicago Bears.  He had a calendar and he asked me when they play and I told him September thru December.  He turned to September and it showed an NFL symbol on Monday, September 1^st so that might be the official opening of the season.

I managed to get the vase home without breaking it, no thanks to the bus driver who stepped on the gas as soon as I was on the first step of the bus.

I took a little nap from 3:05 to 4:20, with the fan on, to get through the heat of the day.

I received a magicJack email call on my iPad from an Andrew at Apartment Depot in Chicago trying to reach a Tris about an apartment.  I tried to call him back but magicJack isn’t letting me use switch to my headset. 

At 4:37 Teresa called me from Envigado.  We exchanged pleasantries and then I asked her to read my email.  She said she would when she got back to the finca later today.

For dinner I had a bowl of granola with banana slices.  I left a couple of small pieces out for the ants.

T-shirt of the day: Open your mind before your mouth.

Tuesday, July 22nd, 2014

Last night I went to bed at 10pm, got up several times during the night, finally woke/got up at 7am.

Luckily I found Beatriz right away sweeping the sidewalk of her building next to the corner store and gave her my dirty laundry.

I was at El Comedor de Chava just before 8am and I gave Lucas my usual order and he helped me set up a table and chairs.  

After breakfast and a little Spanish study I had a glass of orange juice at Redd’s before my Spanish class.

Back at the apartment I remade my bed with clean sheets then washed a few t-shirts and hung them up to dry.

Another reason I believe Tom Clancy didn’t write The Teeth of the Tiger is due to the lack of continuity.  Since the last book, according to this new book: Jack Ryan has retired as president, his vice-president was assassinated, and Jack Ryan Jr. is grown up and has graduated from college.  Another reason, according to Wikipedia, “Like Red Rabbit,^[1][2] Clancy's The Teeth of the Tiger was poorly received by critics.^[3] Reviews for The Teeth of the Tiger have been "tepid at best."^[3] The Washington Post described it as a "bloated, boring, silly novel"^[4] with "inane dialogue, gossamer characterizations, endless repetition and bumper-sticker politics."^[4] The St. Louis Post-Dispatch panned it as well, saying that the most positive thing about the book was that it was "mercifully briefer than its chronological predecessor in the Jack Ryan series.".^[5][6]“

The 4 remaining books after this are all Jack Ryan Jr. novels that I believe were authored by others so I guess I’m done reading “Tom Clancy”.  I even sent an email to Barnes & Noble asking if I could have a refund and then I removed it from my Nook.

My next book is one that Tom Clancy recommended in one of his earlier books – the 260 page Double-Edged Secrets by W.J. Holmes.  It’s the story of the breaking of the Japanese naval codes during World War II.

About 3pm I stopped at Angus House in LM and had one of their Angus burger combos for 16,100 which included a few fries and a soda.  It usually comes with bacon but since they said it isn’t crispy I decided to skip it.  It was pretty good although it seemed like I ate half of it before I found any cooked onions so they could have been spread them around better.  Eventually I’ll probably try everything on their menu.

Back at the apartment for a little more study, a little more reading and probably another episode of House of Cards, and later another bowl of cereal for dinner.

I got an email from Teresa.  It wasn’t real clear but I think she wants to join me for a movie so I suggested Hotel Budapest this Thursday at 12:50 at Santafe or 2:30 at El Tesoro.

T-shirt of the day: No room for losers.

Monday, July 21st, 2014

Last night I watched another episode of House of Cards on Netflix.  I went to bed at 11:30, got up once during the night, woke up at 6am, fell back asleep and woke/got up at 6:30.

I had a bowl of granola for breakfast, a glass of orange juice at Redd’s, and was at LM just before 9am.  I noticed the restaurant Ajiaco, which served traditional Colombian food, is now Angus House and the little I can see of it’s menu (it was still closed) is expensive burgers – about 19mil; I assume they come with fries.

After my Spanish class I had another bowl of Granola for lunch.

3Days to Kill is playing at 2:30 at Los Molinos so I left the apartment at 1:45.  Traffic was pretty heavy but I still had my ticket 20 minutes before showtime.  Ten minutes later I bought my small popcorn and medium soda and was in my seat with 5 minutes to spare.  There were only 4 other people in the theatre.  The movie was okay, nothing special and some of the lines and situations were a little ridiculous.

Walking down the street from the theatre a woman asked me something from her car.  I told her I didn’t speak much Spanish and she asked me in English if her car was hanging out in the street.  I told her it’s only out about 6 inches and in my opinion it was fine.

I was back in my apartment by 5pm.  I plan to just stay in, study my Spanish, read a little, watch another episode of House of Cards, and have another bowl of cereal for dinner.

T-shirt of the day: Bang Bang He shot me down.