Getting back to Sandra, she called me the next day on Pablo's cell phone and gave me her cell phone number. I don't know why she didn't tell me initially that she had a cell phone. The following day she was going to work in the evening, and I was supposed to call her earlier in the day. I didn't get around to it, and was thinking of taking the Metro down and going by her work that night. She called about 9 p.m. from a pay phone to Pablo's land line and asked me sort of angrily why I hadn't called. I said I was going to come by her work shortly, and she said her schedule had been switched around so that she had worked the morning shift and was off at the moment. She asked me to call her back on her cell phone, and I said OK and we hung up. But when I tried to dial her cell phone, I got a busy signal time after time. I thought she was playing games with me, tit for tat or something. I came to find out the next day, though, that in Medellín (maybe in all of Colombia) you can't call a cell phone from a land line. Oops... I didn't try again, figuring she was probably pretty ticked at me and I didn't see a whole lot of long-term potential with her because of the single motherhood thing.
Meanwhile, Saturday I went to buy a pair of slacks at one of the malls. In Medellín, I trained myself to be bolder with eye contact to match the attention I was getting. This was not hard to do with the girl who attended me, given her beautiful black eyes that matched her black hair. She seemed a bit shy and reserved, and of course it's part of her job to be nice to customers, so I didn't want to impose. But as we were waiting for the tailor, we started chatting about Medellín, and I mentioned that my pastor in Spain was from there. It turns out that she goes to an evangelical church and sings as part of the worship team, so I invited myself to go hear her sing the next day.
The next day I took the Metro to the end of the line and about half an hour later managed to find the church in a warehouse district. There were about 400 people in attendance, being that it was the early service. When "Cristina" was done singing, she came and sat with me, and seemed genuinely delighted that I had shown up. She kept talking to me during the sermon, and then she had to leave before it was over in order to go to work. I told her I would stay until the end, but wanted her to go to dinner with me and some friends when she got off work, and she accepted. I figured lunch for two would be OK, but dinner for two might sound like I was coming on a little strong with someone I barely knew. I stayed around after the service to chat with her mom and let her know we were going out that evening. Her mom was VERY nice, and I wanted to reassure her that I wasn't an hombre verde or a tiburón. I then went home and told don Pablo that we had a double date that night. He made some phone calls, and found a nice young lady who leapt at the chance to spend some time with a catano sabroso.
Entretanto, I went to a second church service, this one at a huge church of about 6,000 members that has a gringo pastor. He speaks Spanish well, but let me tell you, he sure sounds like a gringo. I saw this in Spain as well, with people who had been there for several years. I would urge any of you who are learning Spanish to be careful from the beginning to get the accent right, or you may find yourself speaking two types of Spanish later: with correct pronunciation when you feel like it, and without when you don't. That's assuming you ever get around to learning the former. When you see the letter "R", to give an example, don't think of it as an English "R"; think of it as something completely different in Spanish that only looks the same on paper-- it is never pronounced like an English "R", and you should pronounce it their way from the beginning or you risk being stuck with a bad habit.
We went out that evening and had dinner at Crepes&Waffles. Paul and his date were watching Cristina and me, and were talking between themselves about the body language between us-- she was REALLY into me, leaning toward me, offering me a drink from her straw, flipping her hair, etc. At one point Pablo and his date laughed, and Pablo told me in English that it was looking dangerous. They left early, and Cristina and I walked around and wound up going to a movie together. On the following two days she was off work and classes at the university were suspended because of entrance exams, so we made plans to get together.
Pablo took off for Gringolandia. He has a gringo neighbor in the same apartment building named Mike who is a class act and a skilled conversationalist. Pablo had recommended an Italian restaurant called Fatto in Casa ("homemade") as being the best in Medellín, so Mike and I went there for dinner. It's a fine but unpretentious establishment with a professional and attentive staff, owned by an Italian immigrant. The building sits by itself and requires a car or taxi to get to; it's not a place you would just run into while wandering around, and it's not in a see-and-be-seen area like Parque Lleras. Pablo had recommended the antipasto plate, which was superb, and so was the dinner. Mike ordered a fried sea bass (called something --bello) with some pasta on the side, and offered me a bite...it was amazing, and I'm not really a fish eater. I wanted to come back just to order that. We ordered dessert, and we just laughed out loud at how delicious it was. Crepes&Waffles has a tiramisu that is not authentic but is a good imitation; this was the real thing, made by a real Italian. I said, "God bless Italy!"
In between dinner and dessert, the waiter brought the owner, Adolfo Podestá, out to meet us. He has lived in Medellín for fifty-one years now. Podestá is homologous with the Spanish word potestad, and comes from a political position, sort of like mayor or local honcho. He is from Piacenza (homologous with "Pleasanton" or "Placerville", I think), in Bologna province. He told us that the days of Pablo Escobar were difficult times. Escobar was a customer of his, and when he would come in surrounded by heavily-armed bodyguards, most of the other diners would suddenly call for the check and leave. And what could he do, say, "Hey Pablo, hit the bricks-- you're bad for business"? A recurring theme I found was that Pablo Escobar was news, but now that he is gone the otherwise wonderful city of Medellín is not news. Apparently National Geographic did a hit piece earlier this year, calling Medellín the most dangerous city in the world. If they were talking about the crazy drivers, that might be somewhat credible; but if they were talking about street crime their writers need to lay off the airplane glue.
I wanted to remember the name of his hometown, so I pulled out the slip of paper that someone had written the restaurant's address on, turned it over, and asked him to write it down for me. Once he had spelled out Piacenza, he continued to write as he said, "OK, my name...Adolfo Podestá...age, seventy-six...phone number..."
I thought to myself, "Why is he writing out all this personal information?". I then saw that the piece of paper was a raffle ticket or something like that, with lines labeled for all this information. I started laughing with embarrassment and told him, "You don't have to write all that down; I just wanted to see how to spell Piacenza".
He said, "It's OK," and kept writing. When he handed it back to me, I saw that on the line for "Profession", he had written, "Violinista".
I asked, "You're a violinist?" And his already fascinating life story took a new turn. When he graduated from a conservatory in Italy at age 25, he was offered a two-year contract to play for the Orquesta Sinfónica de Medellín, and two years turned into fifty-one. He started playing in a restaurant, whose manager was eventually called away to work in México, leaving Sr. Podestá in charge. One thing led to another, and he opened his own restaurant. He has four grown children now who are multilingual like himself and have studied abroad. Man, that was a fun evening; just great to meet interesting people like that.
