U.S. Embassy, the Park and a Night Out

I slept in until about 8:00 this morning – mostly just because that is how long the kids slept. Maria and Luke had some crazy dreams last night. Maria was mumbling stuff in her sleep and tossed & turned quite a bit. Luke, on the other hand sat straight up and told me how sorry he was that he lost something off his wrist. I told him I would but a new one tomorrow (whatever it was) and that he should just lie back down. He was asleep this whole time but woke up a minute or two later kind of shaking. Consequently, neither Traci nor I got much sleep either.

Traci was up at 7:15 to begin working on the papers we needed to fill out for the U.S. Embassy and the ninos’ visas. As we probably should have guessed, Lucia called at about 8:05 to tell us that our ride would be here at 9:00 to take us to the embassy. We went into a flurry of activity getting everyone washed and dressed and fed. Traci still had several forms to complete and worked mostly on those. She said she had a feeling Lucia was going to call early in the morning and do that to us. That is why she couldn’t sleep and started working on the forms.

During breakfast, the three kids all ate French toast. They keep the syrup in these little jars on the shelf in the eating area and I usually just help myself as needed. My French friend, Cathy, asked me this morning what that brown stuff was in the bottles. It took me a minute to grasp what she was asking because syrup seems like such a household item to us in the U.S. I explained what it was and I kind of think she got it. I tried to ask what they put on their pancakes in France, but I am not sure she totally understood. She mentioned something about how all they had was jelly. So, if heading to France for an extended time and if you plan on eating pancakes, waffles or French toast, you might want to cart along some syrup.

David arrived right at about 9:00 to pick us up. When we got downstairs, we met our new neighbors from across the hall. They are a young American couple from Billings, MT. They arrived late last night and we heard them dragging their things up the stairs. However, we were kind of in bed-mode and didn’t pop out to introduce ourselves. They were going to get their three new kids that morning in Bogota and we shared a ride out of the compound.

We arrived at the embassy a little before 10:00 and Andres was there waiting for us. He shuttled us up through the lines to get in and we had our paperwork turned in by about 10:30. Then we waited for a considerable amount of time. Anyone with little kids knows that this can be hard anywhere. However, Luke and the ninos (sounds like the name of a good rock band) were, for the most part, pretty well behaved. We also met another couple from Washington D.C. at the embassy getting their visas prepared too. They were adopting three kids, approximate ages 2-6, and seemed to really have their hands full. Our kiddos (including Luke) looked pretty subdued compared to them. Anyway, they seemed like good people. Traci talked to them much more than I did. I was too busy standing with Andres (the “grande,” not our Andres the “pequeno”) listening for someone to announce the name “Jensen” (or “Hensen” in Spanish) over the intercom.

There was one Andres (the "pequeno") episode that deserves mentioning. While he was well-behaved for the most part, he liked playing this game where he would run between Traci and I as fast as he could. He only fell 3-4 times but there was no crying. Then he started doing this thing where he would walk between Traci’s legs and, later, mine. After a couple times of this, he ran into a total stanger and stood behind him for a minute. Then he lowered his head and pushed between the poor guy’s legs. I don’t think this guy had a clue what was going on, but he was a good sport about it. Everyone who saw shared a laugh.

A few things about the embassy . . . first, you could probably drive right by and never notice it was there. There are no big flags or anything really marking the place (there is lots of security outside, but there is security everywhere in Bogota). Secondly, if you ever wanted to know what a great country we live in, check out the line of people in a foreign land waiting for a visa to come visit the states. There must have been a couple hundred people in the waiting area. I know they do more than just process visas at the embassy, but many of them appeared to be there for that reason. Finally, while it is technically “U.S. soil” there are surprisingly few U.S. natives working at the embassy. It’s mostly people from Bogota and just about anyone you had to talk to spoke very good English.

The wait to get paper work completed took a while but not forever. When I finally got to the second window it was explained that their new computer program wasn’t working this morning and that was causing some delays. The only thing that threw us was that the lady behind the window (window #2) asked to see the verification of our fingerprints. Luckily, my beautiful and highly organized wife kept a copy of everything and brought it all to the embassy with us. They can’t stop this family from going home! In all, we spent about 2.5 hours at the embassy getting everything complete. It was much faster than I had planned on or heard about from other people. Once again, we consider ourselves lucky. We have to go back to the embassy at 3:30 tomorrow to pick up the visas. That will be the last step in our Colombian adoption process and we can go home. It almost doesn’t seem real that we are finally this close. And I am sorry we do not have any pictures of the embassy. They do not allow cameras inside so we didn’t even bother to bring it.

We got back to the compound just in time for lunch. Today’s soup: potato and maize. The “maize” was like a half-popped popcorn. Luke has been boycotting any soups for the last week but we all though it was pretty good. The main course was salchichas with onions and peppers along with mashed potatoes. I liked it, but not everyone thought it was that great. In fact, Luke boycotted the entire lunch. These last few days have been pretty hard on Luke. He is as anxious as anyone to get home and misses his friends. So, when I left during the ninos’ nap to make my daily stop at the ATM, I took him along and we stopped at McDonald’s for an All-American lunch (Yep, I am pretty sure I am not going there again once we get home).

By the time we returned from the embassy the new American couple was back with their new ninos. For first time parents, I think they got a very good fit. Their kids all seem very calm and subdued. Traci and I gave them the low-down on the compound and all of the surrounding places of interest – just like the compound veterans did for us when we arrived (thanks again Mark and Debi).

We had thought about trying to fit in the Botero museum after the kids got up for a nap, but decided that the park might be a better idea. There are a lot of things we would still like to do, but we don’t want to make these last few days miserable by trying to cram it all in. The way we figure it, we traded all of that for a week i Cartagena and it was worth it. When we arrived at the park, we found the two French families from the compound there with their kids – plus the French family that used to live her but is now at a local hotel. It was kind of like an El Refugio day at the park.

Luke has been dying to play a little wiffle ball (be brought a bat and couple balls) and the weather was perfect for it. I pitched, Luke hit and the ninos played outfield shagging balls. I think everyone had a pretty good time. I can also see that several lessons are going to be needed to teach Andres and Maria how to throw.

Here is the park with some of our freinds from France in the background.


Here is Maria and Andres playing outfield. You can kind of see me in the background pitching and Luke would be behind me. I'm kind of bummed we didn't get ant action shots of Luke hitting because he did really well.

Throwing practice. We need a lot of work here. the ninos would basically chace down the ball, run it back to me and throw when they were about 3-4 feet from me.



Luke showing that he is "muy fuerte" on the pull up bar.

One of the great things about staying with all of the adoptive families at El Refugio is that there is always several extra hands to help out when you have kids running all over the place. Here is my good friend, Cathy, riding on the see-saw with Andres. I think I will miss her most of all of the people at the compound.

Now, Cathy i taking Maria for a spin.

Andres crawling out of a tube with Maris not too far behind.

Cathy's son and Luke’s friend, David, took a real interest in what we were doing with the wiffle ball and bat. When we had kind of wrapped up and decided to play on the park equipment, David asked if he couldn’t hit a few balls. I obliged and tossed him a few pitches. He didn’t do too bad and I will have to ask Tony tomorrow if he has ever played baseball before. David later tried to put on my glove and wanted to try catching the ball with it. Unfortunately, he’s a left and my glove was oversized AND backwards on him. He also didn’t quite grasp that you catch with the glove hand and throw with the non-glove hand. He wanted to do everything with the glove.

After the park, we decided to head back up/down to the area where the Hard Rock Café was located. It looked liked a very nice area with lots of restaurants to choose from. The previous time we were down there, we though we saw a Crayola Café (like the one in KC) which might be a fun place to take the kids. Turns out it was a Crayola store – not a restaurant as we previously thought. So, we doubled back, walked around some more and settled on a Mexican place called La Taqueria. By the time we arrived, all of the kids were tired and hungry. Traci and I had had it with all of the griping, complaining and pouting. We were settling in for what looked to be a horrible dinner out. However, something clicked after a little while and, in the end, we all had a pretty good time (a margarita and a beer may have helped the older folks deal with things). And the food was by far the best meal we have had outside of El Refugio. Traci and I each got a plat with a variety of tacos and each one was fantastic. The kids stuck with the quesadillas and their plates were cleaned by the time we left. Anyway, I don’t know what this part of Bogota is called, but anyone coming here should check it out if looking for a place to eat. There were also a lot of very nice upscale bars for those in Colombia without kids. It is all right by the Atlantis Plaza and the Hard Rock Café.

We still can't get over the small amount of chips and salsa given out at these Mexican restaurants. By the time this picture was taken, each of us had had a chip and the bowl was 1/3 gone. i guess these people have a better handle on the term "appetizer" than we do. it would also halp explain which there doesn't seem to be many overweight people in Bogota.

A happy family (after adult beverages were finally served).

Maria feeding papi some quesadilla.

Another Maria pout from today (stage 1). Do I look a litle burned out from it all?

I don’t mean to make this the “Andres blog” but he was in a pretty good mood again at dinner. When he is in a good mood and likes his food, he does this little “Andres dance” in his chair which is hysterical. I tried to capture it on video but it is a little dark. I will post it in a separate post so I don’t screw this one up if something goes wrong.


Maria and papi getting into the act.

After dinner, we stopped off at the Crepes & Waffles joint located in that part of town. Crepes & Waffles is another must do while in Colombia (I saw one in Cartagena too). This is some of the best ice cream we have ever had. And the kids love the sundaes.





After I got our cab driver lost trying to give him instructions in Spanish, we made it home. The kids went down to bed without too much of a fight. Traci began packing for the trip home and I started the blog. We said good-bye to Wilma who is working tonight and will not be here when we leave on Wednesday by the time we leave.

Tomorrow morning we hope to get up and out at a good time. If this weather holds, it will be a perfect morning to visit Monseratte. After that, at least one of us has to visit the embassy to pick up the visas. There are a few more odds and ends that we have to finalize, but we think we are just going to hang out at the compound tomorrow night and relax before the long trip home.

We’ve enjoyed the comments and emails from everyone reading the blog. We are extremely happy that everyone is having fun following along as we travel through Colombia trying to get home. I’m almost certain we will have one more post tomorrow night and then we might need to take a break for a couple days after we get home. I will also say, that once we get home the blogging duties will probably be passed back on to Traci.

Traci here: I just wanted to wish my brother a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY (Tuesday, June 10)! Todd--we’re a day short of getting back for it and I hate that, but know that I love you and can’t wait to see you!