Saturday, June 6th, 2015

Today's the 70th anniversary of D-Day.

Last night I fell asleep quickly but got up at 3:15.  After that I had difficulty getting back to sleep.  I finally woke/got up at 9:30.

Today turned out to be one of those days where reality did not meet expectations.

What I knew: the 3 of us were invited to Vicky & Albero’s son Samuel’s first communion.

What I understood from talking to Teresa: we’re going to leave the finca at 11:30.  First we’re going to stop somewhere for me to get a haircut.   Because of this I assumed the church and restaurant are close to their apartment in Santa Monica.  So I thought the three of us were taking a bus to Aguacatala followed by a bus to Laureles and who knows what from there.  She told me we would leave the party at 4:30.

Guillermo, the neighbor with the killer dogs, talked to Teresa outside the finca for awhile.

Laura left the finca at 10:15 so that meant we weren’t taking a bus together from the finca.  I heard La Estrella mentioned so I assumed we would meet there.

I put on my new clothes we had recently purchased in El Tesoro.  Teresa didn’t want me to bring my Nook and its tech bag or my fanny pack so I took out my cedula and package of toilet paper for Teresa to keep in her purse.

We left the finca at 11:45 and got past the killer dogs undetected.  After a short wait we got a ride from a private car owner.  In the car I asked Teresa if he is taking us to La Estrella.  I understood from their short conversation that he wasn’t going there.  He dropped us off in Caldas across the street from 4 taxis.  Teresa talked to a taxi driver and then he took us to La Estrella station where Laura got in.  He took us to Niqua station and I checked on the map and it’s the northern end of the metro line.

Teresa seemed like she was lost so I asked to see the invitation again.  No address, just the name of the restaurant.  Figuring the restaurant must be close by I suggested we give the name of the restaurant to a taxi driver and have him take us there.  After a 15 minute wait I understood we was waiting for someone.  She made multiple phone calls to Vicky, Monica and the person we were waiting for.  Several times I heard her ask “where are you”?  We walked out of the station and took the bridge over the expressway to a park.  After a total of 1 hour and 15 minutes waiting, her nephew Mateo and his 4 year old son Manuel finally showed up.  Teresa said he was “enferma” so I didn’t know if there might be some learning problem with him.  

We all got into a taxi and he took us about 15 minutes further north to the restaurant in the town of Copacabana.  (So we went from south of Medellin to north of Medellin.)  We finally arrived at 2:25 so I figured we were too late for the church service.  (After questioning Teresa later I found out the communion was at 8am that morning.)

It was a large open air restaurant with a thatch roof covering half the building and vines covering the other half.  There were about 15 children and about 60 adults.  Food was good (chicken kiev, potatoes and a small salad) although there was an occasional rotten smell coming from behind the restaurant, like stagnant water.  They had someone there entertaining the children at a separate table so they were kept busy for hours.  They also had what looked like a professional photographer.

With Laura’s encouragement, Mateo started talking to me in English.  He told me his father works as a waiter in New York.  He said he learned English on the internet.  When I pressed him for the exact website he said PerfectEnglishGrammar.com.

I watched the end of a soccer game between JUV and BAR.  I thought the latter team abbreviation referred to Barranquilla until I recognized Messi (arguably the best soccer player in the world) and then I realized it was Barcelona.  I still don’t know who JUV is; I’m not that much up on soccer; I still find it a little boring with games often ending 0-0.

Sometime after lunch they brought everyone a glass of Sangria, later a dish of cookies & cream ice cream and a little later a slice of communion cake.

We finally left at 5:45.  

In our taxi, on the way to Envigado, at Calle 44 (San Juan) we had to take a bridge to temporary lanes on the other side of the river.  You can see a lot of work going on at ground level for the new river park so there must also be a lot of work going on underground for the new highway tunnel.  We finally crossed back to the other side of the river at Calle 30 so it’s going to be a large park area.

After a 15 minute wait we caught a Fredonia bus.  (Teresa told me some young people at the station had been waiting 90 minutes for their bus.)  There was only a seat for me until we got to Caldas and then I had to give up my seat.  We finally got back to the finca at 7:45.

I watched D Day: The Lost Files on The History Channel.

I took my prostate pill at 10pm, my sleeping pills at 11pm and went to bed.