Thursday, September 14, 2017

Last night I took 2 sleeping pills at went to bed at 10:15.  I fell asleep quickly, got up 3 times during the night, finally waking at 6am and getting up at 6:30.

At 7:30 I walked to Carbon de Leña where I had calentado and café con leche for 8,500 pesos ($3).  I stopped at Exito on the way back and bought a large box of Fitness cereal for 18,000 pesos ($6).

I left the apt at 10:30 and caught a bus downtown Envigado.  There was the usual guy that got on the bus selling pieces of candy from a larger bag.  Then an old man got on and took a thermos/carafe out of his bag.  I wasn’t paying a lot of attention until I saw him unfold 2 full pages of newspaper.  He showed both sides and then folded them like you would if you were going to carry them under your arm.  He poured water out of the carafe into a plastic cup.  He poured the water into the inside of the newspaper.  He opened the newspaper and showed that it was dry.  He folded the newspaper again and poured water out of it back into his cup.  I gave him 2,000 pesos for that.

I got off the bus at the new MBE office.  Inside they only gave me 2 envelopes and I told them I should have 2 more.  They told me I should go to the new Envios Market location and they wouldn’t even let me pay anything.  I didn’t realize there was still some type of relationship between the 2 offices.

At Envios Market Nobraska gave me 7 more envelopes.  I told her I received an email that I have a package to pick up and she admitted she made a mistake.  I told her “this is probably her first mistake” and she readily agreed.  She wouldn’t let me pay anything this month and reminded me of our agreement.  I told her I remembered but I wasn’t sure she remembered.

I walked a block and a half down Calle 9 to El Graspo de Uva at Calle 9 #43B-55.  It had been recommended as a good pizza place by some gringo from Expat Exchange.  I peeked inside the Italian restaurant and asked if they were open.  They were and I told them I would return a little later.

I walked up to Parque Lleras and Laura joined me about 30 minutes later.  I gave her the choice of Ay Caramba (mexican) or El Graspo de Uva (Italian).  She chose the latter so we walked down the hill and got a table in the back – I hadn’t even noticed there was a back area.

At one point 4 young ladies came in and sat at a table about 2 tables away.  One lady got up and turned her back to us and her friends and apparently was doing some type of clothing adjustment so I averted my eyes for a few minutes.

Laura and I each had different pastas with juice.  It was very good and while Laura was on her phone I ordered a strudel to share and hot chocolate for her and café con leche for me.  We got an order of salmon to go for Teresa and with the waiter’s tip the total came to 159,500 ($54.50).  Wow, very expensive by Colombian standards!

Laura headed back to school as there’s some type of conference from 6:30 to 7pm that she wants to see.

I carried the stinky salmon on my lap on the full bus back to the apt.

I picked up the Une bill from inside the building’s front door.  It itemized the regular fee of 71,891 for 5 Megabyte wifi, an extra 10,000 for 5 additional Meg and a 42,322.22 credit “damage compensation” which I’m guessing is for lost usage.

Of the letters 6 were identical from Metropolitan Life Insurance Company’s Annuity & Retirement Services (Sears), dated August 23, 2017, notifying me that they updated my address in their records.  (Seems like a waste of money to me when they could have just sent one.)   And the zipcode is off by one digit so I have to contact them again.

The other letters were from Citibank (again slightly incorrect zipcode), Zurich (“col 28131” instead of “COL28131” – not a big deal), and CSRA Pension Center (never heard of them) which must be from CSC.  There were also some before & after type letters.

Teresa came back at 5pm and reported that the finca roof would be finished tomorrow but she needed another 500,000 pesos so I made a quick trip to the ATM.  I’m glad I have some extra cash in my savings account.

Teresa’s having lots of problems with her old phone so I’ll probably buy her one similar to mine in the near future.

T-shirt of the day: Patience. What you have when there are too many witnesses.