Friday, April 8th, 2016

20 days and counting!

I woke up at 5am and had difficulty getting back to sleep.  I finally fell back asleep for maybe another 30 minutes before waking/getting up at 8:30.

Thankfully there aren’t any more insects in the finca.

I received a reply from Chess Life magazine with a correction to one of their columns.  They said another reader had already reported the typo.

I’m 70 years old and I recall the life expectancy for men is 72 and 78 for women.  (Interestingly my father died of prostate cancer at 78 and my mother of ovarian cancer at 72.)  I googled “what is the life expectancy for a healthy man of age 70” and it returned an age of 82.  Whew, I guess I’ve got a fair chance of being around a little longer.

Among US movie releases I would like to see are Hardcore Henry (6.9), Demolition (7.7), and The Invitation (6.9).  Locally, there isn’t anything I want to see.

Teresa called a neighbor named Otonel who has the finca level with us on the other side of the valley.  He brought some fresh chicken pieces that Teresa gave him 28,000 pesos for.  I understand he has a problem with the owner of the new finca above us because he’s taking all the water from the tank that Otonel needs for his animals.

 I packed up my ipad, we left the finca at 12:45, I gave each of the G-dogs a dog biscuit, I noticed the “60” km sign is gone, and we were on a bus after a 10 minute wait.

Unfortunately we got on a Fredonia bus and it first made a stop in Caldas.  We got off at the Aguacatala station, took a taxi, picked up Laura across from Oviedo mall and I directed it to a bar/restaurant called Aguacate (avocado).  I read about this restaurant and had been wanting to try it for awhile.  The restaurant is next to Parque la Presidenta at the beginning (north side) of the gold mile (Calle 7D #39-262).  One side of the restaurant is open to the park with a pretty view of trees, flowers and birds.  There is a large tree growing through the middle of the restaurant and it has about 20 tables.  Their menu includes a large drink menu.  I ordered their small rib plate, which came with little sweet potatoes, and a cookies and cream milk shake.  Teresa ordered their fish which was a special for the day with a guanabana juice and her daughter Laura ordered a chicken plate with a coconut lemonade.  Everyone’s entrée included a small tomato and lettuce salad.  Everyone enjoyed their food and the total bill came to 81,180 including tip (about $27).

We walked to the other side of the park to the Dann Carlton hotel.  Security is tight.  We each had to show our Cedulas, they called upstaris to confirm our appointment and we each were given plastic key cards to get through the turnstile they had installed there.

The au pair organization is called Global Connection (www.estudieenelexterior.com) and we talked to Julian who spoke very good English.  What I learned about au pair: 1 year in the US (either the west or east coast, most likely the latter) 9 hours a day taking care of 1-3 children 2-9 years of age; 1 ½ days off a week; the sister company in the US is called Inter Exchange (www.InterExchange.org); the family would pay $500 towards her studying English there; she needs a drivers license; she needs to be at least at english level B1; she would make $198 a week besides her room and board; she will make a profile for families in the US to review her qualifications; she needs 250 hours here working with children; she needs a Colombian passport; she will fly to Bogota to get her J1 (exchange visitor visa); she would spend 5 days in NY for training; the total cost to us (me) would be about 4 million pesos (about $1,300) and Laura would pay me back by sending me $115 a month for the 12 months she’s there.  So, we’re still probably about 6 months away from her qualifying for the program.

On our walk to Santafe mall we came across the new Krispy Kreme donut shop.  I encouraged them to go inside where we saw them making the doughnuts. We would have each tried one but the line was too long.  On our way out I saw they have an express line if you buy a box of a dozen donuts.

We walked to Santafe mall and while Teresa and Laura went to Zara I went to their iShop.  The first man I saw I asked if someone there spoke English.  He did.  I showed him my iPad.  He fiddled with it; he seemed to turn it on and off and the icons showed up.  He turned it off again and this time all that came up was the Apple logo.  After a few minutes he said we should go to the service department.  When we got there he tried again and this time it worked.  

I thanked him and asked him when they would get the iPhone SE and he said in May.  I told him I would be back in May to check their prices and talk to him about their LTE service.

Teresa and Laura did some shopping.  It seemed warm in the mall, except for those stores with air conditioning.  We stopped at the small Crepes & Waffles store where we each ordered some ice cream.  After some more shopping we finally took a taxi to the Poblado station where after a 5 minute wait we caught a bus back to the finca.  Walking up the hill the sky was clear and the stars seemed unusually bright.  When we reached the top we could see dark clouds in the east with what looked like heat lightning behind them.  I gave the black dog a dog biscuit and quickly tossed another one to the mother dog but the black dog was too quick and got both.

We were back at the finca by 8:15.

Laura found The Forgotten on Netflix (5.8).  What was most interesting about the movie is that in 2 places I physically jumped – I don’t remember the last time that’s happened to me.

After the movie the TV channel it was set to was showing The Big C on 11pm on channel 509.  I remember watching that series in the US.

T-shirt of the day: Spread the good vibes.