I slept pretty well despite getting up 3 times during the night.
My brother and I have started planning their visit here in
January & February.
I’m trading emails with the secretary of the Chess League in
order to get more details of the upcoming tournament.
I’m also investigating where we would stay those 4 nights of
the chess tournament. As of now it
appears we can stay in a private room with bath in an apartment in Laureles for
$40 a night or in a hostel in El Poblado for about $20 a night.
We left the finca at 11am and were surprised to see a truck
on the sideroad next to Guillermo’s house unloading large bricks like the ones
used to build the wall in Teresa’s kitchen.
I thought their noise might disguise our passage but no the dogs found
us. They weren’t aggressive at all and I
gave each of them a dog biscuit.
We waited 15 minutes for a bus to Envigado. As I was walking down the aisle to my seat a
middle aged woman chose exactly that moment to pull out her “t-shirt” and check
out her rather large boobs. Lol. It was a nice cool day and I was very
comfortable with the temperature – but then I didn’t have to really walk a lot. On our way up the hill at 11:55 I called
Eddie and left a message on his voicemail.
It’s amazed me in the past how someone can open a
“restaurant” by simply opening their garage door and setting up a grill. Walking down a block to Carbón de Leña I saw an open door to a stairway that looked like it
led to a 2nd level for an apartment.
At the entrance a man had set up a folding shelf and he had a large pot
of tinto (strong coffee) that he was selling.
After a side trip to an ATM we got to the restaurant by
12:10. We waited for Eddie to show up
and as agreed I called him, about every 10 minutes, always getting his
voicemail. Teresa was hungry so at 12:30
she ordered her lunch while I waited for Eddie.
A woman walked by with large buns and Teresa informed me that they were
pillows. I asked if she meant foam and
she said yes. At 1pm I was just about to
order when I saw Eddie coming across the street. I questioned him about his cell phone and
discovered that not only was it in his backpack but since he has the same phone
I do I found he had it set to mute. I
changed it to an outdoor setting.
Eddie was born in Bogota but
moved to the US (New York and San
Diego were mentioned) when he was about 20. He has both Colombian and US citizenship
and plans on staying about 6 months, has friends living near the Envigado metro
station and is starting guitar lessons today.
Teresa invited him to come visit us at the finca to play chess with me. The problem is that not only does he not play
chess but he has no interest in learning.
After finishing her lunch and joining in the discussion for
awhile (Eddie speaks English and Spanish fluently) Teresa left to go pay bills
and buy our medications for the month.
Eddie gave me 11mil for lunch (we all had the special of the
day for 10,500), we said goodbye, I paid for lunch and went to the
restroom. I went into the stall and
found toilet paper but no toilet seat but I managed.
I walked across the street to the park and observed a few
chess games. (I saw 3 Hare Krishnas walk
through the park with their hand cymbals, drums and very distinctive (lack of)
clothing.) I noticed one player seemed
to be pretty strong and he was having an easy time defeating his opponent (who
finally got mad and stormed off). I
asked to play and I grabbed the white pieces.
I was able to play my opening for the first few moves but then he
surprised me with a move and had me cramped without having castled. (The problem is now I can’t remember exactly
what the move was; sigh.) I managed to
push back, in the middle game we exchanged rooks and queens but I had a passed
pawn. In the endgame, we each had both
bishops, 4 pawns but I had a pawn on the 6th rank. He got a passed pawn on the 5th
rank and then he made a move and I missed something and he took my passed
pawn. I’ve noticed I’ve been making a
similar mistake when playing against the computer. I managed to check his king and take his
extra rook pawn and I could have eventually taken his knight pawn but then
again he might have mated me with his pawn and 2 bishops. I offered him a draw and he accepted. Teresa had already come back from her errands
and was waiting nearby for a few minutes or I probably would have played on.
We walked over to Bancolombia and I got in line to pay my
health insurance for the month. While I
was there Teresa stopped across the street at Exito where she bought some fab laundry detergent and returned my C
batteries. There was a fairly long line at
the bank and it was moving slowly. At
the 40 minute mark the cashier put up a sign saying that she was temporarily
closing. One woman waiting behind me in
line had a snit fit. A woman came out of
an office and had words with her. They
finally reopened the window 15 minutes later.
I paid my health insurance for December with no further trouble.
Teresa told me that Kokoriko
has a sale on chicken on Tuesdays and Fridays so we headed that way. In the middle of the park she changed her
mind and said it was Frisby so we
headed off in a slightly different direction.
In Frisby she talked to
someone and started heading out so I guess it was “no sale”. She asked me if I wanted to stop for juice or
ice cream but by then I just wanted to get back to the finca before dark so I
said no.
We took a taxi to the highway and after a 5 minute wait were
on an express bus to the finca. I sat
next to a woman who, with her legs and arms, was taking up more than her share
of the seat. Halfway through the trip
she finally settled down and took up just her fair space.
Back at the sideroad we saw Don Carlos waiting for a bus.
We got past the killer dogs undetected; a good thing too
because I only have 2 dog biscuits remaining.
We got back to the finca by 5:30.
From my external hard drive I skipped American Beauty, having seen it recently, and watched American Flyers (6.3) instead.
I took 2 sleeping pills at 10:40 and went to bed at 11pm.
T-shirt of the day: Need new haters, the old ones are
starting to like me.
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