Saturday, November 12th, 2016

Teresa wanted to go to Santafe de Antioquia this morning if it was sunny but it was very overcast.  I guess she really wanted to go because she asked me to check their weather on the internet but it showed thunderstorms this weekend (and a high of 88⁰) and rain the remainder of the week.

I made a quick trip to the copy center where I had a copy made of the receipt for the new electric skillet.  I noticed on Avenida Poblado, the main road linking Sabaneta & Envigado with Medellin that they are doing a lot of digging, probably in preparation for the new bus line.

The excitement this morning was when I saw a red squirrel climbing through the trees outside the apt.  I seldom see them here in Colombia.

The Colombian Peso closed at 3,116 to the Dollar.

I talked to Teresa about our gas problem.  Not only does it mean she doesn’t have gas burners to use but there are no more hot showers.  I told her I don’t know if I can last 6 more months taking 30-second cold showers every day.  I thought about putting one of those hot water heads over the water spout but it would need to be connected to electricity.  These Colombian cement walls are sure an inconvenience when you want to change something.

Teresa told me she wanted to see an apartment with her mother and I told her I wanted to go to Floresta/Estadio and get a haircut, check out upcoming chess tournaments, and have a breakfast/lunch at El Viejo y El Pancake so we decided to split up.

I left the apt at 10:15, waited 5 minutes for a bus, gave up and started walking to the metro.  On the way, the metro bus passed me so I would have caught it had I waited just 2 more minutes.

I bought a 20-ride metro ticket, took the metro to the San Antonio station, transferred to the west line and got off at the Floresta station.  I walked 2 blocks north, passing 3 casinos on the way, and 2 blocks east.  At the barber shop I gave my usual barber some new instructions to limit my usual “fleecing”.  I was there 30 minutes and it cost me 18mil (about $6).

I walked 2 long blocks east to the block that the stadium itself is on and stopped at the chess league office.  I saw an ad for an upcoming tournament but it appeared to be in a different city.  I see that what I should be looking for are the words “torneo aficionados” (amateur tournament) to avoid both speed chess and upper-level rated tournaments.

I walked through the block and across the street by the Estadio metro station to El Viejo y El Pancake restaurant but was disappointed to find it closed.  It was 12:15pm and it was supposed to be open Saturdays until 1pm.  (Later on Expat Exchange I learned that the owners had to make a short trip back to the States.  Supposedly they had posted a sign had I gotten closer to see it.)  Now where am I going to have lunch?

On the metro I noticed what looked like a go-kart track near the Suramericana station.  At San Antonio I transferred to the main line and got off at the Envigado station.  I took the metro bus to Parque Envigado and walked 3 blocks to Moriskos restaurant.  I ordered their pizza and a coconut lemonade.  This is when I missed not having my Nook with me but at least they had a TV turned on that I could watch.  My meal cost me 21,306 pesos or about $7. 

Walking through the park they have a tall artificial Christmas tree set up with doorways underneath like a tepee.  Unfortunately it takes up some of the area for the chess boards and I didn’t see anyone playing.  I guess I’ll have to bring my own board if I want to play in the park the rest of this year.

I read that the FARC and the Colombian government have a new agreement.  We’ll see if they put it to another referendum and risk losing again.

We watched The Uninvited (6.4) and The Sunchaser (6.2) on Netflix.  The latter had an unusually awful score (music).

T-shirt of the day: Talk nerdy to me.