Friday, January 27, 2017

Last night at 10:30 Teresa told me she was tired and wanted to go to bed so I took my 2mg sleeping pill and waited my usual 10 additional minutes before going to bed but by then she was involved in some TV show with Laura.

I don’t like going to bed before her because if I’m fortunate enough to actually fall asleep quickly I’m afraid she’ll wake me and I’ll have to fall asleep again.  I think she came to bed a few minutes later – about 11pm.  I was asleep maybe 30 minutes later.

I woke up just before 5am and made a trip to the bathroom.  I realized I wasn’t tired anymore but I tried to fall back asleep anyway.  I finally got up at 6:30 and wrote some in this blog.  Now I’m just waiting for her to get up so we can go to Nueva eps.  I had told her we can stop at Carbon de Leña for breakfast afterwards.

I forgot to mention something that happened yesterday.  When we arrived at the apt from the stadium the fare was something like 16,000 pesos.  I gave the driver a 20mil bill but he wouldn’t accept it because a corner was cut off.  I gave him another bill and it too had a torn corner.  I tried a 10 and 5 and had the same problem.  Finally, I just handed over all my small cash to Teresa for her to solve.  I must have gotten the “bad” bills either from El Viejo y El Pancake or the store in El Diamonte.  Lesson to be learned – inspect all the bills you receive (other than from the ATM) for faults because taxi drivers, and probably others, may not accept them.

Among new US movie releases there isn’t anything I want to see.  Locally, there isn’t anything I want to see.

We left the apt at 8am and Teresa talked to someone in Nueva eps.  We were sent across and down the street to another location where we got our paperwork stamped.  On the way back to the clinic I saw the new SmartFit health club.  It’s on the same side of the street as Nueva eps and almost next door.  Back inside Nueva eps I understand we were told to go to the Nueva eps clinic in Itagui.

After we left the clinic Teresa stopped at the first pharmacy (they’re pretty near everywhere) and got a quote on my medicine for 123,000 ($42).  (Right now I’m paying 39,000 pesos ($14) a month for my Tamsulosin so that’s quite an increase.)  I see that it’s a different medication; it includes the same 0.4mg Tamsulosin but in addition there’s 0.5mg of Dutasterida (Dutasteride in English).

We had breakfast in Carbon de Leña.  I had Calentao (beans, rice, and scrambled eggs) with coffee while Teresa had hot chocolate and fish.  What, fish for breakfast?  I guess she really missed it.  The total bill came to 31,100 ($11).

Teresa says we will have to go to the Itagui clinic and then return to the Envigado Nueva eps.  And we will have to do that every month so she would rather I pay the 123mil.  I’m not so sure that they won’t give me a 6 month supply so I want to go that route first and then if I have to do that every month I’ll probably just pay the 123mil.  I stopped briefly at Todo Drogas where I got a quote for 116,500.

Back at the apt Teresa left to go somewhere with her mother and I left for the gym.  Jose told me that the new SmartFit gym is 4 times larger than the Comfama one.

Back at the apt I waited about 30 minutes for Teresa and her mother to return.  She told me she saw an apartment in a nearby gated community that she really liked.

We all had lunch in the garage restaurant.  Fridays are bandeja paisa day so we had chichirron (except me), beef (again chewy), beans, rice, avocado, plantain and unlimited salad and juice for 10,000 each.

Teresa went to her mother’s apt to make calls for an appointment for me and I headed right to the bakery where I met Chuck.  He’s going to go with me next Monday to check out a couple hotels for my brother and then we’re going to have lunch at Flip Flop Sandwich Shop.  Uh-oh, I just remembered that the FFSS is closed on Mondays.  I sent Chuck an email asking to change it to Tuesday.

We stopped at the MetroPlus tent where we learned that all the overhead wires are going to be placed under the street and the Metro should be finished by the end of the year.

We stopped across the street from the park where we each had a rum raisin ice cream cone for 1,400 pesos (about 50 cents).

Chuck then took me on a tour of City Hall.

We said goodbye and we’ll meet again on Monday.  Make that hopefully on Tuesday.

I finished watching The Thin Red Line.

Chuck confirmed that we’ll meet on Tuesday instead of Monday.

T-shirt of the day: Discondon.  Disco Miami.