Tuesday, March 29th, 2016

30 days and counting!

I understood today Teresa has a 3pm appointment to have her eyebrows done in Poblado near the location of the Pit Stop Hostel.  While she’s having that done I planned to go to an internet café near MBE to have my Absentee Voter application printed out, signed, and then scanned back to my flashdrive.  Then I planned to go to Monterrey CC to buy an Ethernet cable to connect my laptop to the router.

We left the finca at 1:10pm, I gave the black dog a large dog biscuit, and the other black dog a small dog biscuit.  While waiting for a bus Teresa realized she didn’t have her sunglasses with her.  (She forgot to put them back in the case that was in her purse.  I’ve noticed she often doesn’t put things back where she got them from.)  She wanted mine – ain’t going to happen - and she talked about going back to the finca to get hers.  I asked her if we had the 20 minutes necessary for her to do that.  She ended up not going.  After a 25 minute wait we finally caught a minivan.  On the van she tried on my sunglasses.  I think she expected them to cover her eyebrows for some reason but they didn’t.  Then she told me maybe we should go to Mayorca instead.  I said “whatever”.  

The bus was the slowest I’ve seen when traffic was good.  We got off at the Poblado station where we caught a taxi to a store called Stella Duran at Calle 7 #46-29.  She talked to someone there then we went outside and walked a block away to Rapidogs where she had a chicken wrap and Coke and I had a hamburger, fries and Coke for 20,400 (about $6.75).

Teresa went back to Stella Duran and I walked 3 blocks (1 was very long) to Monterrey CC.  The food court was packed with people and I heard the Colombian national anthem playing on the television sets.  I asked a guard who Colombia was playing and he said Ecuador.  I asked him where I could have something printed from my flashdrive and he led me to a kiosk nearby that also doubled as a juice stand.  I printed out my absentee ballot application and realized that my magicJack telephone number is wrong.  Sigh!  I went upstairs to Omega Store where I bought 3 meters of Cat5e Ethernet cable for 7,540 pesos (about $2.50).  As I came out of the store I heard a roar and checked a TV (with lots of people standing around watching) and found Colombia had scored and it was 1-0.

I walked back towards the spa and stopped across the street at a bakery, bought a Coke and joined about a dozen men watching the game.  Colombia scored again to go ahead 2-0.  I left at halftime and noticed a hostel across the street.  I walked over and picked up one of their business cards – it’s called Hostel Casa Blanca only instead of the letter “a” at the end it shows a drawing of a house.  Its address is Transversal 5A #45-256.  I found Teresa waiting for me and discovered that, for some reason, she didn’t have her eyebrows done.  She’d been waiting for me all that time.  :(

We walked a couple blocks to Exito where Teresa picked up hamburger buns, ground beef, lasagna noodles, milk, eggs and a few other things for 78,092.  I understand she’s going to make me lasagna for lunch tomorrow.  I looked for dill pickles but didn’t find them.  I heard a roar and went upstairs and found that Colombia scored again and it was 3-0.  

We took a taxi to the highway and in my broken Spanish I asked the driver, who had the game on the radio, if this game was important.  I learned that it is a qualifying game for the next world cup (2018) in Russia and that Colombia has a 2^nd team playing in this year’s Olympics.  I asked him which was more important – the World Cup or the Olympics and he wisely answered “both”.

We caught a Tratam bus right away but it was also very slow.  Just before we got off the bus we saw a red sun just above the horizon (actually mountains).  An internet explanation:

At sunset when the Sun is low on the horizon, light rays must pass through more of the atmosphere – and therefore bounce off more molecules – than at other times of day. This means that more blue light gets scattered away before the light reaches your eyes. Other colours – such as red, orange and yellow – can therefore continue to pass through the atmosphere unaffected, creating beautiful colours.

Teresa called Mario and learned that we’ll have to pay another 200mil (I understand some of the people living in the fincas are too poor to pay) and they won’t be able to fix the sideroad now until June.

I gave each of the black dogs a dog biscuit and we got back to the finca at 6:15.  Right away I put Peluche and Luna in the doghouse.

Today I wore shorts, t-shirt and sandals and felt very comfortable with the exception of a few more bites I received.  Next time I’ll try to remember to spray at least my arms and legs.

I logged into my iPad as usual but there are no longer any icons showing.  Maybe it died? L It shows a 40% charge but I plugged it in anyway and we’ll see if it’s working again tomorrow.

I received the following email from MBE: El envió amparado con la guía numero 48960011 no puede ser traído desde miami hacia Colombia ya que es considerado como mercancía peligrosa y es un liquido inflamable  que se puede estallar en el avión.

Roughly translated it says that my order (lamp oil) cannot be brought from Miami to Colombia because it is considered dangerous goods as it is a flammable liquid that could explode on the plane.  I think I can buy lamp oil at Home Center so I hope the rest of my order gets through.

Tonight was the final episode of Dancing with the Stars.  I understand tomorrow starts a new season of Master Chef.

T-shirt of the day: If it’s still on your mind it’s worth taking the risk.