Friday, August 5th, 2016

I slept through the night waking up at 7am.  I got up at 7:15, took my shower and wrote up some blog notes but didn’t have time to post them.

It was pretty overcast so I took my large umbrella (which I ended up not needing).  I left the apt at 8:05 and after a short wait was on a bus to the metro station.  On the metro it wasn’t crowded and I got a seat to San Antonio and again on the way to Estacion Estadio.

I arrived at El Viejo y El Pancake at 8:55, had pancakes, breakfast sausage (patties) and coffee for 8,000 pesos and left at 9:15.  I took a little shorter route to the chess park; I’m getting pretty good at finding shortcuts.

My opponent this time was a young woman with a rating of 1548.  I had the white pieces and played my usual P-qb4 (c4) and she threw a curve at me immediately by playing P-qb3 (c6) obviously planning on following up with P-q4 (d5).  Again it took me a long time to castle and as soon as I did she made the winning move.  I lost again.  

I left about 12:15 and took a short cut back to the station.  I bought a strawberry snow cone for 2,000 pesos – he really packed the ice into that cup!  I stopped back at the restaurant and saw the owner David with his wife Lexy and 3 year old son.  I asked him if I could take something like this on the metro and he said it wasn’t technically food so he asked his wife and she said “no”.  He told me one time he took an empanada on the train and people actually got out of their seats and moved to the other end of the car.  So that’s how I can get some space!  Lol.

I ate about half the snow cone until my head was freezing and tossed the rest in a garbage can.

My train car was full but not cattle car full so it was only warm; same thing from San Antonio to Envigado – no seats to be had.

I took the metro bus up to Parque Envigado and walked that last few blocks back to the apt.

I received another email from MBE that I have another package (documents) waiting in Medellin for pickup.  I see online its 1.43kg so it should be my new book.

I left the apt at 4:50 and waited in front of the apt for about 10 minutes for a taxi.  A number came by but either had someone it them already or they just didn’t want to stop.  I walked to a busier street but still had no luck.  I walked to Exito and a man told me to go to the other side of the block.  I did and only saw a taxi without a driver.  I asked a man selling fruit on the corner and a young lady passing by offered to help me.  It turns out I had the right taxi but the driver was across the street having a tinto.  She called out to him and he came over and I was on my way.  I had lost 25 minutes.

This driver took the expressway (they should have a different name during rush hour) and I haven’t seen so many motorcycles in one place since Sturgis, South Dakota.  Hundreds must have passed us driving between the 3 lanes and also what appeared to be a workers path or bike trail on the side of the road.

Still I arrived at the chess park by 6:05.  Plenty of time to have an empada and café con leche.  

My next opponent was a young man with a rating of only 1456 and we were playing up in the overflow section at table 96.  They gave us old clocks and I understood for the first time that we had 1:30 on each clock because it wasn’t digital and thus able to add 3 seconds with every move.  So, I probably didn’t win yesterday’s game by 20 seconds but 30 minutes and 20 seconds.

I was determined to castle this time and did early – castling on the queen side which I almost never do – and he threw all his pawns at me followed by his pieces and I was checkmated on the 27^th move.  I learned he is a software engineer although his handshake seems like he’s more of a bricklayer.  We exchanged business cards.

I left and on the other side of the stadium I saw a popcorn vendor.  I stood there while he finished an order for a young lady.  I understood she wanted it “to go” and he sealed it by holding the top of the plastic bag close to the flame.  Then he just walked away to another vendor without saying a word to me so I left.

The train rides back were filled but not cattle car filled.

I took a bus back to the apt.

T-shirt of the day: Never sarcastic.