Tuesday, October 19, 2021

Recovery Day #117!

Last night I went to bed at 10pm, got up once during the night (2:30?) woke up at 6:30am, put in my eyedrops, did my Kegel exercises, then got up at 6:45.

My Walgreens order has already shipped.

It’s been 4 years since I last renewed my pensionado visa, today I go for my first (and only?) resident visa.

Troyclough has already blundered a piece and the exchange so this game shouldn’t last long. He soon resigned increasing my rating to 1562.

I left the apt at 9am (with my US passport and last 6 months of bank statements showing my SS deposits) and took a taxi to Inter-Col at Calle 32C #66C-8 in Laureles. Daniela, who spoke very good English, assisted me with my resident visa request. First, she with another young lady went through my records and created the following schedule of my visa renewal/expiration dates

Four years ago, I couldn’t get a resident visa because I was once 4 days late renewing, so I needed to start over again to obtain four more years. When you renew a visa you don’t wait until the last day, you renew days or weeks before the expiration date. My problem now is I am a month short of 5 years, so I need another pensionado visa. She explained the government might give me one for only one year (which is all I need) or up to four years (the normal duration for a pensionado visa).

Bottom line is I need to pay $592 (cash or Paypal) for another pensionado visa and she said something about some form the government may or may not require that will cost another 63mil. I also need to get a DIGITAL (she stressed this multiple times) photo and return with my annual SS Benefits Letter (which I forgot to bring).

(Later I will have to pay 206mil to immigration for a new cedula.)

While there, I met Gary, a gringo who lived on a boat off Florida for the past 15 years and when it sunk, he lost all his records. He’s been calling social security trying to get his benefits letter but of course he can’t prove his identity.

I was back at the apt by 11:30 and I tried to explain this all to Teresa.

I left again about 2:30 and walked to the mall. I still have a little discomfort inside when I walk so I guess things are still healing.

I paid the Tigo/Une (wifi) bill of 100mil at the Baloto kiosk outside Exito. Inside the mall I recycled a few plastic bottles then stopped at Cine Colombia to check out the showtimes.

Outside the theater I saw this dog carrying a balloon like a child would. He dropped it several times and picked it up exactly where you needed to in order not to pop it. Incredible!

It took about an hour but I had my photo taken for my pensionado visa for 22mil and they put the results on my USB memory stick.

I had coffee at Todo Fresa. One of the waitresses practices her English with me and asked me how to translate various things. I coached her from saying, “sit down” to “have a seat”, for example. At Teresa’s request I bought 2 pastels de carne for her and Esmeralda (did I mention she’s coming over tonight) and a slice of carrot cake for me.

I bought a bottle of expectorant in the CaFam pharmacy and 3 bags of milk in Exito. While waiting for a taxi I noticed one of my knuckles was bleeding. You know how guys are, we bump into things and don’t even notice it. Luckily, I had a napkin in my back pocket.

 

When I returned to the apt I found out that Esmeralda isn’t coming over after all. In the evening we ended up sharing the pastels de carne and I ate the slice of carrot cake with a little help from Teresa.

I tried making the Paypal payment to Inter-Col but received the message, “We aren’t able to process your payment using your Paypal account at this time. Please go back to merchant and try using a different payment method.” Sigh! Nothing is easy here.

 

The New York Times’ 7-day average of new daily infections and deaths has the US with 83,576 ð 83,341 ð 79,348 new cases and 1,527  ð 1,631 ð 1,557 new deaths.

Per Medellin Guru, as of yesterday, Colombia has a total of 1,299 ð 1,043 ð 952 new cases with 36 ð 21 ð 24 new deaths. Medellin has 213 ð 203 ð 205 new cases from October 18^th to 19^th. Envigado has 7 ð 10 ð 14 new cases from October 18^th to 19^th.

T-shirt of the day

Flows like water.