Friday, February 2, 2018

Well, today is Groundhog Day and I understand Puxatawney Phil saw his shadow and there will be another 6 weeks of winter (except here)!

Before the Today show there was a Bizarre Foods program where they showed men cooking chichirron in New Mexico.

Teresa left to show the finca to someone.

I watched the first 20 minutes of the Today show and left for the gym.  I talked briefly with a young man wearing a Michael Jordan 23 Chicago Bulls jersey.  He said he bought it in Ecuador 2 years ago for about $70.  I did all my exercises in an hour and 30 minutes.

I bought a Q’Hubo newspaper and picked up a free Gente newspaper on the way back to the apt.

Laura and I left the apt at 1:15 and walked down to La Bahia for lunch.  We both ordered cerdo (pork) but I’m pretty sure it was carne de res (beef) but luckily it wasn’t so chewy that you couldn’t eat it.

Laura went with me to Exito where I picked up slices of cheddar cheese, hamburgers, buns, tomatoes, onions, and lettuce.  At one point she commented because I was carrying all the stuff in the GFS bag over my shoulder that I was the woman of the house.  After that comment I made her carry everything.  That will teach her!

She headed over to MT’s apartment and I headed back to my apartment where I dropped off everything.

I stopped at Bancolombia where I made a 600,000 pesos withdrawal but for the ATM fee it just said “Not Available Cost” so I don’t know if I was charged 12,000 pesos or not.  (I think not based on the good currency exchange rate I got.)

I went to Colpatra (sp?) where I paid the eps bill but they wouldn’t let me pay the Direct TV bill.  I walked over to $efecty to pay the Direct TV bill and the young lady there told me that the amount I owed was 238,500 pesos instead of the 181,800 I had been paying.  I decided to wait and have Teresa or Laura call first to find out what’s going on.

I stopped at the bakery and bought a blueberry muffin.  There weren’t any seats available at Bartolos so I walked across the street and immediately saw a gringo and gringa with another person.  They were from Tennessee.  I asked them if I could help them with anything and they explained that the other woman was their guide.

Walking towards my usual bakery I found another gringo alone.  His name was Aaron (sp?) and he is an emergency room doctor from the Louisiana/Texas area.  If I understood correctly he said he works 12 hour shifts for 7 days straight and then he can take the rest of the month off to travel.  Cool!  He has an apartment in Poblado and has visited Medellin about 10 times before. 

While we were sitting there a woman came by and took our blood pressure for 2mil each.  Mine was 120/78 and his was 120/85 so I guess I won.

He said he lives on a plant-based diet and recommended www.NutritionFacts.org and a Dr. Gregor (sp?) for diet information. 

He recommended a pizza place called Jack & Roll in Buena Mesa.  He also told me its best if I follow the melatonin protocol for at least 90 minutes instead of the 60 minutes I have been doing.

At 5pm it started raining.  I said “drat, I should have left 15 minutes earlier”.  He decided to stick around and I left for the apt.  Without an umbrella I was pretty well soaked by the time I got back.

Teresa came back at 6:30.  It’s still up in the air as to whether the person is interested in renting the finca.

Among new US movie releases there isn’t anything I want to see.  Locally, I would like to see The Post playing at Vizcaya at 2:10pm.

For dinner Teresa made me a burger with the new dill pickle chips I bought at Pricesmart.

I talked to Alex for about an hour about his A/C problems and family problems.  I had about 12mil in minutes on my cell phone both before and after my call.  Go figure!

T-shirt of the day: Positive mind, positive life.