Today is a Good Day I Think For Some Blogging

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...to paraphrase the immortal T-Rex.

In reality, today is just a good day in general, not only for blogging. For existing, I guess!

Why, you ask? Well, there are several reasons.

First, today I got a battery! No, I don't have an Energizer Bunny fetish. It wasn't just any battery; it was a battery for the pick-up in my new guitar! Now I can plug it in to the speakers that K graciously gave me, and I basically have an amp. In fact, I was so happy that I could amplify that I made up a song! Have a listen!

Sorry if you were expecting something different based on the photos.

The second thing that is great about today is very similar to the first! In the same shopping trip in which I bought the aforementioned battery, I also finally got around to buying a cord that can connect my computer/iPod to the speakers. Only, I got the wrong cord, and had to run back on a second trip, but it all worked out, and I am now the proud owner of a brand new headphone jack -> stereo converter, as well as a brand new completely superfluous other cord.

Check out all my new technology!

The next piece of good news is probably the one I'd been waiting the longest for. On the night I moved into my apartment, I had a terrible sleep, for 2 reasons: first, my pillow was very thick (I'm a thin pillow guy) - I've since fixed that problem by cutting open my pillow and ripping out about half the fluff. Second, my mattress was way too soft - unsleepably soft. Since that first night, I've been sleeping on a tiny mattress that was under the main mattress of my guest room bed, placed on the floor beside my actual bed frame.

Well, today I finally got a new mattress! Check it out, with my old sleeping arrangement beside:

Lastly, today I played baseball for the first time in like 2 months! It wasn't exactly what I'm used to when I go out for some ball - among the people I was playing with was a 5 year old, so I wasn't exactly dialing my fastball up to 65 or launching moonshots over the infield, but it was something. And it felt great.

Today wasn't all great, though. I went to the school nurse because my baby toe was in pain - about a week ago I stubbed it, and though it hurt a lot for a couple minutes, I didn't think much of it until I realized today that it still hurt despite being a week later. The nurse wrapped it and the toddler toe in a bandage and told me to shower with a bag on my foot (let's be honest, that's gonna be fun) while keeping it on for 3 days. Hopefully it heals - but while it's healing, it hurts a lot more than it did before. When she first wrapped it I had to walk with a noticeable limp for a couple hours, and though it's somewhat better now, it's still a lot more painful than it was before the treatment.

Also: the nurse did a great job of wrapping the toes in skin-coloured bandage, so it looks like I have some sort of weird, huge hybrid toe on my right foot. Look:

I was concerned about wearing my sandals when I went shopping for the cords, since I assumed people wouldn't be able to stop staring at my freak four-toed foot, and then would assume that all Canadians had this deformity, and I didn't want to give you guys that unfair reputation! But never fear, it turns out my baby toe doesn't come out at the top of the sandal.

Oh yeah, one other not as great thing that happened today: I picked up some food from the local corner store, and upon arriving in my kitchen, discovered the hard way that one bag of pasta was already open.

Yes, that's 3 different vertical layers of pasta spillage. Oh well. Pasta Mañana, blog readers! chuckle chuckle chuckle chuckle chuckle

Apartment - First Impressions

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I moved into my new bachelor pad here in Barranquilla last night, and it is pretty great. In fact, I would go so far as to call it ballin'. I'll leave most of the description until I have accompanying pictures, though.

This is the first time I've moved into a furnished apartment (in 4th year I moved into a place some friends already lived in, so I guess you could call that semi-furnished, but I had to BYO bed/dresser/etc), and it's definitely a sweet deal. However, I discovered today that "furnished" is not quite all it's cracked up to be.

Case in point: today, my shirt tripled as oven mitts, a tea (tee?) towel, and a shirt. Now, I bet you're wondering, "what did you need oven mitts for, Dave?". That's a lie, you're not wondering that. I needed oven mitts for food. Obviously. Shut up, Dave.

Specifically, I had made pasta for the first dinner in the new place (if you know me at all, you're not surprised by this), and required oven mitts in order to strain the pasta. So I used my "oven mitts" to pick up the pot, carry it over to the sink, and.... wait, where's the strainer? Oh that's right I DON'T HAVE A STRAINER BECAUSE I JUST MOVED IN AND I DON'T HAVE ANYTHING. So, my ingenious method to strain the pasta involved dumping it onto a plate (because the pot had no lid, which would have made things infinitely easier), after which the plate still had lots of water on it in addition to the pasta, and was really hot, so I had to pour cold water on it for a while, then try to hold the pasta at bay while tilting the plate slightly in order to let the water run off.

Then I saw another pot, which had a spout and a lid.

Oh well, it all worked out, and my pasta was ready, if lukewarm. Next, I poured on the "salsa de tomate" I had recently bought on my inaugural food run (which also included eggs, bananas, cereal and a mango). The sauce came in this weird bag with a twist cap (I think a lot of food here comes in bags), so I opened it up and squirted some out.

It smelled like ketchup.

Greeeeeaaaaaattt. I get to eat pasta with ketchup for dinner. I know some people like it with their macaroni and cheese, but ew. I resolved to taste some, just to make sure, and lo and behold, it didn't taste quite like ketchup; sweeter than I would have liked for tomato sauce, but doable. So I continued squirting it on the pasta, and set down to eat.

After a couple bites, I realized my first impression had, in fact, been the correct one. It was basically ketchup, and it was gross. I couldn't go on much longer, and eventually I had to rinse the sauce off the noodles and just eat them plain (and getting somewhat cold by this point, what with all the rinsing). After several rinses, the ketchup taste remained surprisingly strong, but I just grun and bore it.

Later, when putting the tomato sauce away, I turned it over and saw the word "ketchup". It was actually quite a relief to know that the standard tomato sauce here is not, in fact, ketchup (and that the standard ketchup is, in fact, ketchup), and I should be able to find the real stuff next time.

Other fun apartment facts:

• upon exploring the master bathroom (that's right, I have 2 bathrooms... actually, sort of 3. More details to come), I found one of those removable shower heads and a tap... not in the shower. Beside the toilet? And soon it dawned on me: I HAVE A BEDET! Rad. I haven't used it yet, but I think it's safe to say I'm already converted to the ways of the bedet.
• After eating a banana, I didn't know what to do with the remains, since I don't have any wastebaskets (this furnished thing isn't all it's cracked... you get the picture). My solution: I threw 'em in the freezer.
• Upon returning from my inaugural grocery run, I introduced myself to the man who I assume is the regular night shift guard. This is a translated transcript of the conversation: "What's your name?" "Luis" "Nice to meet you, Luis. (shake hands) I'm David (Da-veed) and I'm Canadian. My Spanish isn't good, but I learn." Then Luis offered up a high-five. What a cool guy. (P.S. I do know how to say "I am learning", I just forgot to say it that way. The way I said it probably made me more endearing, though)