Saturday, August 11, 2018

I got up once about 2am, quickly fell back asleep, woke up at 5:30 and got up at 6:15.

I’ve got a feeling my step count isn’t going to be very high today if we go to Santafe de Antioquia.

It’s 8:20 and Teresa is all nervous because the traffic outside is really backed up.  I told her to calm down as it might clear up by the time we need to leave at 9am.

If we don’t go to Santafe de Antioquia today then I’ll go to Poblado to pick up my package and kill some time drinking coffee.

Teresa believes the traffic jam is because of the classic and antique car parade that I understand is today.  (That was confirmed later by newspapers and TV).

We decided not to go to Santafe de Antioquia today.

I left the apt about 9:45 and had to wait downtown 10-15 minutes for a bus.  Maybe there are fewer of them available today?  Traffic was pretty heavy and I got off the bus a block from Parque Poblado.

I picked up my new chess book The Woodpecker Method at Envios Market.  “The general idea of the Method is to develop intuitive/automatic pattern recognition through repetitive solving of the same (set of chess) exercises in a cyclical fashion.”

Outside I soon caught an Envigado bus and got off across from a little mall called La Strada.  (This morning I received an email from Medellin Guru reviewing a new food court called Mercado del Rio La Strada.)  Between the Burger King and Papa Johns I took an escalator up to the 2^nd and 3^rd levels where I found the “over 20 trendy restaurants and bars” that they mentioned.  It was only 10:30 so of course I didn’t see much of anything open yet.  The area did look pretty cool though.  (Later I checked online for their hours and it said 7am to 11pm.)

I walked up the road to McDonald’s where I had a Capuccino frappe for 4,800 pesos.  I sat outside, alone most of the time, and read a little from my new book.

I couldn’t get a decent wifi signal so I left about 11:45.

After waiting 10 minutes for a bus outside Oviedo, and not seeing any in sight, I grabbed the next taxi.  Traffic was horrible and even though my driver took side roads on 2 occasions it still took 35 minutes for what should be a 15 minute ride back to Envigado.

I stopped at the local copy center and had a couple things printed.

I texted John Joseph and asked when Laura gets paid and he said the 1^st and 15^th of the month.

After lunch I took a nap from 1:30 to 2:30.

The Colombian Peso closed for the week at 2,943 to the US Dollar.

We were going to go to Pricesmart for some things but luckily Teresa asked me to check the route.  According to my Waze app Avenida 80 is moving at only 27km/h which is 18miles/hour.  We decided to skip it for tonight.

About 7pm I noticed a very bright star (planet?) in the sky high overhead and a little to the south.

For dinner we ended up having food delivered from La Casita Parilla.

I went to get my bath towel in order to dry my face after washing it.  Where I thought I put it after my shower this morning was an identical looking towel that had obviously just been washed.  I asked Teresa where my towel is and she told me to take a new one from the pile in the bathroom.  Obviously she had washed the towel that I had just taken freshly this morning.  I reminded her that I usually take a new towel every Saturday morning and she said she forgot.

Today’s Step Count was 7,323.

Joke of the day

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN

Money

A man will pay $2 for a $1 item he needs.

A woman will pay $1 for a $2 item she doesn't need but it's on sale.