Saturday, July 5th, 2014

Last night I went to bed at 10:30, got up 3 times during the night, and woke/got up at 6:45am.

I took a Simon Bolivar bus to Nutibara and then only had to walk 1 block to the Laureles Panaderia & Restaurante where I had scrambled eggs, beans with rice, arepa with cheese and coffee for 8mil.  I was the only one there at that time.  After eating basically the same thing that I have at El Comedor de Chava I realized that it’s better there at LM.  And it’s less expensive – 6,500 pesos.

I walked to LM and started studying Spanish.  Harry joined me after a while and told me he’s in trouble because he spent the night with his girlfriend and now he’s afraid to go home to his wife.  He was asking me for advice.  He finally said he would give me 1,000,000 pesos if I would tell his wife, who doesn’t speak English, that he was with me all night.  I held out for 2,000,000 pesos.

I stopped at Exito and bought a liter of strawberries and another small can of lechera, which is kind of like a vanilla frosting, to pour over the strawberries.  I stopped at the corner store and added 10mil to my cell phone and the same for Teresa’s.

I got back to the apartment at noon, put the strawberries in the refrigerator, and caught the next bus.  On the way to Santafe CC Teresa called me.  She’s back at the finca.  I told her I’m on the bus to Santafe and I’m going to see the movie Oculus and the Netherlands vs Costa Rica match.  She said “que bueno” – “that’s good” and we confirmed that we would see each other tomorrow morning at 10am.

As time goes by I’m learning more and more of the shortcuts.  For example, now I take the elevator right up to the 5^th floor, instead of all the escelators, and I’m right next to the theatre.  At Santafe I bought my ticket for 5mil (and another 5mil for a ticket to the 3pm match) and was on time for some coming attractions and an animated short.  The short was divided into 12 segments numbered 1 – 12 in French and I was surprised that each number, except eight (ocho), sounded like a slightly different pronounciation of the same numbers in Spanish.

There was only one other couple there - sitting behind me and off to my side.  I happened to turn around to take a look just as she was putting her arms around him and started kissing him.  It looked like an older gringo with a younger Colombiana. The movie was pretty good – at least it had a semblance of a plot – and there were a few scary parts.  

It finished at 2:55, I made a trip to the restroom, bought a small popcorn and medium Pepsi for 11,700 and got to the next theatre just as the match was starting.  There were about 50 other people there and because Colombia was out of the running they appeared to be all rooting for Costa Rica.  Because I’m ¼ Dutch I was silently rooting for the other side.  At the end of the first half it was 0-0.  At the end of regulation it was 0-0.  At the end of the 30 minute extra period it was 0-0.  The Netherlands then won on a shootout 4-3.  By this time it was 5:45 and I was back in the apartment by 6:45.

T-shirt of the day: Don’t count the years count the goals.