A Gringo in Medellin, Colombia: Saturday, May 27, 2023

Last night I went to bed at 10pm, took a few minutes to fall asleep, finally waking/getting up at 5:30.

I left Jeannie’s apt by 6:45 and walked 2 blocks to Griddle 24 where I had 2 eggs over easy with hash browns, pancakes and the endless cup of coffee for $7. Delish! I returned to Jeannie’s building but continued 3 more blocks to the 7-11 where I bought a Chicago Sun-Times for $2 (yikes, last I remember 10 years ago it was like 50 or 75 cents.

Back at Jeannie’s apt I called Capital One and activated my debit card. 😊 No more foreign transaction fees! Yay! Once I’m confident this works for me I’ll move my money out of Charles Schwab and close that account.

Now I’m going to read the newspaper until 9am when I’ll call Matt and confirm the date/time/address for our lunch get-together at Johnny’s.

I just received the following text from my brother: “I will be out of commission for a few days. I tripped in a parking last night, I broke my elbow am in a hospital in Santa Rosa, California awaiting surgery later today. And it’s very hard to text with just one hand at the moment so if you need something you can, WhatsApp Juanita.” Getting old can be a B*#ch.

I just went up one floor to the “gym” and did 5-minutes of arm and shoulder exercises with a 10# dumbbell. Better than nothing since I missed all last week and I’ll be missing this coming Monday.

I left at 11:15 and arrived at Johnny’s on Arlington Heights Rd at 12:15. Bart was there waiting for me. He did look familiar when I saw him. The first item on the restaurant’s menu was Italian Beef so I got that and a medium root beer. Bart got the same but with fries. Very tasty! We talked a lot about Colombia and his previous travel experiences which included San Andres Island, Panama, and Ecuador.

At 3:15 I googled Cora Lee Candies and saw that they close at 4pm on Saturdays. I said goodbye to Bart and arrived at Cora Lee 10 minutes before closing. They moved across the street from their prior location, a year ago according to the cashier. I bought 4 boxes of English toffee: 1 for us (me), one for Jimmy, one for Jeannie and one for Jim. They no longer have the red anise candies that I always took 1 of when I was there. She said she hasn’t seen it for a while so I guess they have supply issues. They did have the Black Jack gum I haven’t seen in years to I took one of them and the lady didn’t charge me for it (It turned out it tasted stale.)

I drove a little further down the road to Walgreens where I got a large bag of Russell Stover sugar free chocolates for Teresa for 14.99.

I drove all the way out to Deerfield Bakery in Buffalo Grove but they didn’t have a bear claw either ☹ so I bought a donut (cake) with coconut frosting and a medium coffee. That coffee was HOT!

They close at 5pm so I left at 4:30 and took Palatine Rd. to the Edens expressway. I missed the turn to enter the express lanes ☹ and it was slow going down the Kennedy but I still arrived at Jeannie’s apt by 6:15.

I arranged to meet Jimmy tomorrow afternoon and he’ll park his car (the VW I have) on the street for me. Then we’ll both drive out to Jim Starr’s house and Jimmy will drive me to the airport.

I left about 8:15 and walked a block and a half to Green Door Tavern. Interesting place. The "quiet" room I was in:

The other room I walked through on my way to the front door.

Instead of a burger I ordered a bowl of chili.