Monday, October 5th, 2015

Teresa turned 58 years old today.  Happy Birthday Teresa!

I slept well only getting up once at 7am, finally waking/getting up at 8:15am.

We had lunch and shortly after left the finca at 2pm.

The killer dogs came out just as we reached their house.  Guillermo stuck his head out the door and yelled at them and they backed off a little.

We waited 10 minutes for a bus to El Poblado in Medellin.

We walked under Calle 10 and into Monterrey CC.  The only Bancolombia I was aware of is just outside their doors but a security guard directed us to one inside.  This more secure location is good to know.

Did I mention that Laura “broke” the power outlet for her laptop by pulling on the cord instead of the plug?  By going upstairs the same way as before we found the store we bought it from – TP-Link Tecdata.  I didn’t have much hope that the 50mil I paid for it would result in them just giving us a new one.  Luckily, the part of the plug that was broken didn’t include the transformer and it only cost 5mil to replace.  After I paid for it Teresa started to put it in the bag but luckily I checked and found it didn’t fit the other half of the plug.  They replaced it with the correct one right away. 

We walked to another store – Quantica - where I inquired how much it would cost for a 32GB USB memory stick and was told 38mil.  I asked how much for a 1 terabyte external hard drive and was told 185mil for a Toshiba or 220mil for an Adata antishock.  I went with the Toshiba; when I got back to the finca I googled Adata antishock and I understand the hard drive is “designed to absorb the hardest knocks”.  Since it’s just going to sit on my desk I hope it won’t have many shocks.  One problem it it’s black just like the other one so I have to find some way to mark it differently.  I wanted to charge it to my debit card but I understood they only accept Bancolombia cards so I paid cash.

We took a taxi up to MBE where I paid 46,500 for October and picked up my Chess Life magazine for September and the 3 pension award letters I requested 3 ½ weeks ago.  The magazine has an article about the Tobey Maguire movie Pawn Sacrifice that I saw in the States a couple weeks ago.

We stopped a couple stores away where I had 3 pages from my August Citibank account printed and then had 7 pages scanned to my flash drive for 8,600 pesos (about $3).

We took a taxi for 8mil to Home Center in Envigado.  Did I mention that 2 of the 3 lights I put up above my shelf have already fallen down?  Instead of relying on the tape I found some screws to use to hold them up more permanently.  Teresa picked out another ceramic pot for the garden – I thought it was heavy.  She also picked out a “container” to hold a candle – and I thought it was heavy.  She also found some shelf brackets, screws, and plastic anchors that I thought were for the kitchen but she told me is for the garden (patio).  Everything was 164,900 and I paid cash.  We stopped at Popsy again where we each had an ice cream cone for 9mil.

We took a taxi to the highway where we waited 20 minutes for a bus.  Finally, for the first time, we got on a La Pintada bus where we got seats in the back.  This is a bus that goes off in a direction opposite from Caldas at the intersection.  We got off when they made the turn and then waited 10 minutes for another bus that took us to the finca.

I carried the shelf supports and Teresa carried the two heavy objects and she still could climb the hill faster than I.

The killer dogs heard us coming but weren’t too aggressive on the trail.

We got back at 6:55pm.

The Colombian peso has dropped below 3,000 to the dollar.

I watched Robin Williams Remembered on Netflix.

I took my sleeping pills at 11:15 and went to bed.