Wednesday, November 13, 2024

Last night I went to bed at 10pm, got up once at 5:15, couldn’t fall back asleep so I got up at 5:45am.

Teresa made me breakfast before she goes to her 7:30am gym class in Viva Envigado.

I tried paying the Ministry of Foreign Affairs fee on their website but was told it works better with Chrome. I switched to chrome and got this error “Erro CSRF 2”; I guess I’m going to need to pay in person. ☹

Teresa changed her mind and instead of gym in Viva Envigado she’s going to her regular 9:15 gym class in Mayorca.

I left the apt at 7:45 and completed my workout in Smartfit. I had a latte in Ganso y Castor for about an hour. I replaced one of the missing peanuts.

I returned to the apt at 9:15 and Teresa soon left for her gym class.

I tried again to pay the Ministry of Foreign Affairs fee but this time received a different error.

I left at 10:15 and took a Didi to Banco Sudameris in Poblado. Within a hundred yards of each other are this bank, Parmessano and Davivienda (with Inter-Col upstairs). I walked up the staircase to the bank. I couldn’t see an entrance but a guard inside motioned me to this “pod”.

You push the bottom red button and it opens and you step inside. Talk about claustrophobic, you hope it opens on the other side, which it did. I assumed this is a security service to only allow one person in at a time. Maybe it also checks for weapons. I asked if anyone spoke English but they just motioned me to the cashier. I showed her my text message from Inter-Col and asked if I could pay with US my debit card. Nope. She handed me a note that said, “3 retiros de 700,000 x cajero” and directed me outside to an ATM so I had to go through the pod sequence (beam me up Scottie!) again. With only one mistake where I had to start over, I made two withdrawals of 1,000,000 pesos each. I got a CER of 4,251 pesos/$ and the ATM fee for each was 22,500 pesos. Back inside I gave her 1,600,000 pesos and she gave me a fancy receipt.

Back outside (survived the beaming process again) I walked 100 yards to Davivienda and took the elevator up to the “main floor”. I gave the receptionist my cedula and asked to go to Inter-Col. He made a call and told me to go on up. I went up and handed Angie the receipt and she said that’s all I need to do. After I few questions I learned that 1) I should receive my Resident Visa in the next couple days. 2) I should receive an invitation to pick up my new Cedula in about 2 months. (Gringos on FB are complaining it’s taking much longer.)

Across the street I quickly caught a bus back to Envigado. After I sat down, I checked my cellphone and there was my Residency Visa. Yay! And it’s good for 5 years. I got off across from Smartfit and bought 2 bags of milk in a small store and returned to the apt.

I left the apt at 11:45 and on my way to the mall I noticed Shell has reopened the natural gas area of the station.

I recycled a few plastic bottles, printed my Residency Visa in color and walked out the south exit of Exito. I found an escalator to take me up to IKEA where I ran into the same “gym” as last time

This time I inquired, “if you’re not a fucking gym, what are you”? Of course he didn’t speak English so I repeated it in Spanish without the swear word and he said “we’re a gym”. 😊

Upstairs in IKEA I asked a guard about the store’s hours and learned they open at 9am (store, café, and restaurant). Up another level I bought lasagna (mixta), a cinnamon roll and a cup of coffee for 28,480 pesos ($6.40). There is a machine where you make your own coffee but I don’t know if they allow seconds. I put the cinnamon roll in the microwave for 20 seconds to warm it up a little. Today the A/C was too cold to stick around.

This is what their lunchroom looks like from the back corner:

When I left, I noticed this sign in another store:

It’s for a shoe company named VANS but to me it suggests, “the square root of/is the Answer”. 😊

I had a latte in Urbania and solved a few more chess puzzles. At one point a man came by and tried to sell me an ink pen. Don’t usually see that in the mall. A few minutes later a guy came by selling lottery tickets.

I left at 3:30, bought a package of napkins in Exito and went outside to catch a taxi. The driver didn’t seem to know where Eduardo Madrid bakery was so I told him to go north on Ave Las Vegas and go up the hill from McDonald’s. As we entered heavy traffic he said, “manifestacion”. I thought that meant “demonstration” and google confirmed it. A traffic policeman was blocking the turnoff to Ave Las Vegas north. I handed the driver 5mil and got out. I went up to the policeman and asked if it would be dangerous for a gringo to walk to McDonalds. He assured me it was safe and as I approached the intersection, I saw 3 taxis-wide blocking some of the lanes. I had a latte in the bakery while waiting for Teresa to arrive.

She arrived at 5:30 and we shared a chicken sandwich while she had a latte.

We left just before 6pm and returned to the apt.

Gladiator II is playing in Cine Colombia so maybe I’ll see it tomorrow afternoon.

 

JUST FUNNY