Last night I went to bed at 10pm, got up once at 1:30, again at 5:30, finally getting up for good at 6am.
Today is a holiday here, Battle of Boyaca.
Did I mention I don’t like duvets? If they force me to sleep
with 2 sheets and a blanket, then I’m forced to lower the temperature, here to
17C (63 Fahrenheit).
I went downstair at 7:30 and had calentao with a cup of
coffee followed by a Belgian waffle with a glass of water. I completed another
3 pages of chess puzzles, getting 1 wrong.
I checked the tournament schedule and there’s an
informational meeting at 3:30 (which I probably won’t understand a word of) and
the first round is scheduled to start at 4pm. With last minute registrations I
predict it won’t start until closer to 5pm.
I plugged the toilet so I went down to the lobby and asked
the English-speaking guy for a toilet plunger. When I returned to the 2nd
floor I saw a maid and asked her the same thing. Hopefully, one of them will
show up this morning with one.
Five minutes later a young (maintenance?) man showed up with
a cheap plunger. It took several attempts using the plunger but after 5 minutes
we had a strong flush again.
I balanced my Capital One checking account. First I had to
verify my identity for the bank because I’m logging in from a new location
(Egina Hotel). Thx bro!
Jimmy arrived at 12:30 and I showed him my room which is just a little larger than his hostel room. We walked south on Avenida Setenta to a restaurant I had eaten at previously, El Chaparral. We both had the chicken breast which came with potato (baked for me, fries for him) and a Coke for a total of 95,000 pesos ($23).
He told me yesterday he went on a coffee tour but he didn’t
know where they took him except somewhere in the mountains. We walked up and
down the street a little and ended up back at the hotel where he took an Uber
back to his hostel.
I left at 3:15 and arrived at the chess league by 3:30.
They posted the pairings at 4pm but after going through the
long list twice I didn’t see my name. I talked to a tournament director and
they checked their records and found I had paid. They put me on the last board
with someone else that was either overlooked or left over.
We took the last table, number 94, and I drew the Black
pieces. I played the Dutch defense against his 1.Nf3 but I lost a tempo playing
5…d6 then 6.d5. He played so quickly that at the end of the game, when I
resigned on the 56th move, I had 2 minutes remaining on my clock and
he still had 1 hour and 2 minutes. ☹
I walked back to Avenida Setenta and it was in full
nighttime action. I took a seat at a bakery that I had frequented before when
it was called El Bujo (The Owl) and had a pastel de arequipe and a Coke.
I got another Coke to go to put in the refrigerator but when I checked it it
doesn’t seem to be cold.
When I entered our game into my chess database I saw that
the last time I played in a tournament game was 8/7/2018, exactly 6 years ago
today.
I watched some Olympics downstairs, talked to Teresa (no art
class today because it’s a holiday), upstairs did my TENS exercise and read
some more in my book.
T-SHIRT OF THE DAY
TICE NITS
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