CIAO Medellin

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Today was another full day…

We started out very early getting breakfast and on the road by 6:30am.  We headed to the government offices to get D and Y’s passports.  This process was actually very quick from a government process standpoint.  We had passports in hand by 8am.  While waiting for the passports Mike decided to take a few shots outside of the building and general area when an armed police officer told him he can’t take pictures.  Mike decided to argue a point about it is a public place and Colombia is a free country but then obliged and put his camera away – thought since we are this close to being completed with the adoption we don’t need an arrest to slow things down.  Once completed with the passports we were able to meet our lawyer and organize all of our final paperwork for Bogota and get our airplane tickets leaving tomorrow.  Then we went and had the final vaccinations for the bugs – they did very well.  All of this by 10:30am…

On the way home, we saw several Christmas displays!

We spent our last afternoon by the pool soaking in the warm sun and beautiful weather. Diego and Yerly ventured off swimming in the big pool with their rings along…as we stood close by.  They would jump in together and then kick together to get to the side…laughing all the way!!!  We will miss the pool – in fact we will miss this entire hotel… 

For lunch we ate the hotel bakery.  YUM…croissants filled with meat and another filled with pollo and a third filled with queso and the final sample was a huge Buenulo…which is a huge ball like doughnut filled with a cheese/dough filling.  These are traditional for Christmas!!! Y and D enjoyed a Mango drink with their lunch…M and T..cafe with leche!!!

We had one last bit of business at Casa de Maria and Diego and Yerly said some goodbyes.  It was family visitation day where some of the children have family can come and visit.  We also saw what we thought was a newborn being given to the orphanage.  Very sad.  As we drove off I think D&Y understood they were leaving and were shouting “adios””Ciao” out the window to the other kids.

Tonight we ate at the hotel restaurant with our two fav ladies – Gloria and Alba Lucia (“Albanano”). We had a great time laughing and exchanging cultural traditions about Christmas. We had a lot of laughs and one was cute where Mike was telling Yerly about taking the plane to Bogota and pronounced Bogota wrong and Yerly thought he said tomorrow going via a cookie(the words sound similar) and laughed till tears.  While there the Hotel Owner and a group of Colombian military personnel sat at the table next to ours.  I’m not an expert on military ranks but one guy had so many medals on his chest he must have been important.  Also the other guys had anywhere from 1 to 3 stars on their lapel so I’m guessing they were all generals.

We have packed the bags and are ready to begin the last leg of the journey to Bogota. Tomorrow we fly to Bogota and then go to the ICBF (Colombian Govt adoption agency) and then the doctor.  This will be the first time in an aiplane for D&Y – very excited!  We have to wait until Monday to go to the US embassy to apply for the visas and everything. It takes 1 day to receive all the necessary documents and clearances to travel back to the states so it looks like we will return next Wednesday.

We are hoping the place we are staying at has internet (it is supposed to) to keep in touch with everyone on our adoption journey.  It is a bed and breakfast style casita for adoption families.  It is called Betty’s place.  Betty who runs it is American.