Thursday, January 4, 2018

Last night I slept pretty well despite getting up every 2-3 hours.

I watched the first 45 minutes of the Today show and then left the apt.  I stopped at the bakery and bought a blueberry muffin.  I quickly caught a bus to El Poblado.  I got off at Calle 7 and walked up the hill to the medical building where I withdrew 780,000 pesos - all in 20s.  They charged me an additional 600 pesos – now a total ATM fee of 12,600.  Maybe a lot of the ATM fees will go up a little this new year.

I walked over to Envios Market where I paid an additional 14,400 pesos for my Nook cover.  Nobraskja was there with her maybe 18-20 year old daughter.  I told her I also wanted to pay for February’s rental.  I did and she said something about “different procedure” and she would email me the receipt.

I stopped a block away at Blue House restaurant where I had 2 café con leches with my blueberry muffin.

Back on the street I could see an Envigado bus headed my way.  I wasn’t paying much attention when I saw a Sabaneta bus go by.  How did I not see that?  But right behind it was another that I managed to flag down.  There was only one other person on the bus so no problem getting a seat – on the shady side – near an open window.

In Envigado I decided to take a walk by Bartolos to see if anyone I knew was there. 

I thought I saw a gringo couple as I went inside for a quick visit to the restroom.

When I came out I started with “You don’t look Colombian”.  They were a middle-age couple - Bob & Becky Christensen from California.  They invited me to sit and I ordered a limonada de coco.  They had some lunch while we talked about Medellin.  They had some good things to say about Cuenca, Ecuador so that might be my backup plan if things go sour here for some reason.  I gave them some tips on things to see and do.  They left to buy a souvenir calendar at the paper store and I headed back to the apt.

All morning and afternoon I was waiting to go with Teresa to the gym – she to attend a class and I to check out the place.  She kept telling me “later” and then she tells me she’s waiting for Laura to come home.  When Laura came back she had the Caldas tax bill and today is the last day to make a payment.  It was 5:15 and Teresa told me I’d better leave right away.

At Bancolombia I withdrew 600mil and I was charged 12,000 pesos.  What, I only get one free withdrawal a month?  Maybe, every week?  I might try again next week and maybe I can figure this thing out.

I managed to figure out what buttons to push on the machine in order to get a number in line.  I sat down with my paperback book (the guards here don’t seem to like my Nook) and I had about a 22 number wait.  A few minutes later Laura joined me having just paid the utility bill for the finca at Exito.  I paid the Caldas tax bill and the apartment utility bill and we headed back to the apartment.

Laura showed me 2 other letters she’s gotten re: her au pair ad but both of them were in Germany.  She’s not going to improve her English there.  I told her to wait for something in the States but she seems to think that getting offers from there are rare.

Teresa told me of an offer to trade fincas but the other one is in Sopetran – hot!  She said it has a pool but, if I was living there, I would probably never get out of the pool.

I didn’t receive a receipt from Nobraskja so I emailed her a reminder.

I went to bed at 11pm while Teresa was still engrossed in some TV program.

T-shirt of the day: Sassy.