#152 Colombia Again

Once again, I have not posted a blog entry for some time. I was in the United States for six weeks. And it was not only a busy time of getting medical things done, organizing logistical issues for some people out in Asia, but the last two weeks I had a recurrence of kidney stones. And that really just sucked all of the “get up and go” out of me. Fortunately, the episode had more or less passed by about two days before I ended up heading back to Medellin, Colombia.

For the first time in many years, I flew American Airlines. My feeling for geography is way off. For some reason I always thought that flying from the West Coast down to South America is shorter, but really it is much faster going from Miami. The flight from Miami to Medellin is only two hours and 45 minutes. Whereas flying down from LA just to Costa Rica is six hours, and another two hours to Medellin from Costa Rica.

And, American Airlines seems to use real aircraft, with real business class seats. I am comparing this to United and Delta Airlines which, quite frankly, come across to me as Third World airlines.

So, as I write this, I am sitting in my hotel room in Medellin, it is a cold gray day outside. Marvelous! 😊.

Hotel Restaurant

I packed heaver this time. 2 large Briggs & Riley bags. There is a small chance I might head to Ukraine sometime in late January or February. And it will be cold so I packed for that just in case. Yes. I am aware of the Russian build up but from what I hear, Kiev is still a safe place to go.

May I just say the world’s politicians, not to mention Putin, Biden, or Xi Jinping by name, are sad and pathetic examples of humanity.

While I was in the United States, I started my participation in a program by a company called Join Zoe. It was to monitor and measure my specific responses to various food types. I am still waiting for the results. With some anticipation I must admit. I fell off the wagon last night and had two beers and a pizza plus a grilled chicken breast. Now of course the grilled chicken breast was no big deal, and actually probably neither were the beers. But I could definitely feel the effects of eating the pizza. It was a small thin crust, but I finished almost all of it and I felt this morning very much like I did that time in Istanbul where my arms were tingling due to blood pressure. And sure enough, my blood pressure this morning is just a little bit high. Sigh. ☹

Falling off the wagon - Must admit I haven’t eaten a pizza for years

I know I have said this before, but I have never run across anything is difficult for me to do, i.e. modify my diet so as to cut out refined carbohydrates and sugar.

Well, other than that, all is relatively good, my Spanish is definitely vastly improved over the last 2 to 3 months. The teacher that I found that I have been doing lessons with on a regular basis has certainly helped. I am going to try, “try”, to experiment with studying my Spanish for three hours a day, for the next four weeks. I am hoping that that will basically get me to C1 fluency level.

I am finishing this very brief article after my first workout in almost 3 weeks. I think that was what I needed. The kidney stones really put a cramp into my workouts. I can’t believe how much better I feel after a 40 minute workout. 😊

OK. Bye for now. I’ll try to be better on updates.

Just a beautiful picture of sunset in Oslo, Norway from a friend of mine who is there