Thursday, May 18, 2017

Well, I didn’t sleep well last night; up 6 times during the night.  I think it was because last night about 6pm Teresa gave me a large bowl of fresh papaya and I think all that liquid had me up so many times during the night.

An Excedrin Migraine and a cold shower helped.  It appears today is going to be hotter than usual for rainy May.  They’re predicting a high of 83 at 1pm.

I put on my shorts, t-shirt and gym shoes and left the apt at 9:20.  As soon as I crossed the street the Metro bus was coming down the street.  At the Envigado station there was a 5-10 minute wait for the metro.  At San Antonio as soon as I got upstairs I saw a train packed with people.  I casually walked down to one of the other cars and the train hadn’t left yet so I jumped on, hoping for last on, first off.

I arrived at Liga de Ajedrez at 10:05 and Jose was there waiting for me.  I asked if he had any additional news about my tournament that was postponed but he said no.  He did tell me about a big tournament coming in June.  Some of the details: the entry fee is $200 and the top 4 finishers qualify for the next championship cycle so there will be players from all over the world.  He said so far there are 21 players with ratings over 2500 that are enrolled and it’s going to be held at a hotel on Carrera 70.

We decided to again play 2 serious 1 hour games.  I had Black in our first game and in the middle game I sacrificed a rook for a pawn and an attack against his king knowing that with check I would get it back.  He didn’t take it and he ended up resigning a few moves later.  Had he taken it, it was a little unclear as to how to proceed.

We walked over to El Viejo y El Pancake, we finally caught a date and time when it was open, and we both had breakfast.  I had 2 eggs over easy on hash browns with a side of sausage patties.  I think the total came to something like 13,000 pesos.

We walked down a block to the Hotel Dorado at Carrera 70 #44B-66, the location of the forthcoming chess tournament.  Jose talked to a man working there and was told they don’t know if there will be an entrance fee for observers but he did say there would be closed circuit TV broadcast.

Back at the chess club, in the second game with White I thought I had an advantage going into the end game but I lost.

We said goodbye and I started my route in reverse.  At the Envigado station I bought a kilo of strawberries for 12,000 pesos, stopped at Herman’s stand for a cold fresh orange juice for 2,000 pesos and walked over to Exito where I bought a couple boxes of Dove soap and a package of 2 ice cube trays.

On my way up the hill to the apt I met Laura coming down.  I thanked her for coming to help me carry my things.  Lol.  She told me she’s going to meet her mother at Mayorca mall.  She helped me carry my stuff back to the apt and then we caught a taxi to the mall for 9,000 pesos.

We finally found Teresa and MT at a snack shop on the 4^th floor and we went into J&C Delicias for dinner.  After dinner we walked around a little and went into an interesting store called Club House.  The bad news is we bought a dog.  The good news is he only cost 89,950COP (about $32.50) and doesn’t need to be walked or cleaned up after.  Here’s a photo of him lying on our sofa.  Isn’t he cute?

Back at the apt (8,000 pesos) I watched a new episode of The Profit on History Channel.

T-shirt of the day: Never take advice from me.  You’ll only end up drunk.