Exploring Bucaramanga

The past two days we've gotten out and explored a little more. Yesterday we took a taxi downtown and walked around a lot. We started at the Bolivar museum and ended at the Mega Mall, with brief stops at the Parque de los Ninos and the hospital where Marisol was born. (You can tell this is Liz and not Joe because I will not be bothering to put symbols or accent marks over the Spanish words. . .) Today we walked to a different shopping center--Carrefour--which we've found to be superior to Exito. We also ate steaks at the food court (!!!!). Mostly the food here has been fine, but we're starting to get tired of eating out and cooking with a smaller variety of foods at the grocery stores here. What I miss the most is raw vegetables, especially salad. The fruits here are really good, though, and available through little stands on most street corners (along with cell phone minutes and lottery scratch off tickets).

Yesterday we also finally found a Crepes & Waffles, which we'd heard about from other blogs. We're going back this weekend--it was SO GOOD! Marisol finished off a kid's crepe with jamon y queso all by herself, then ate most of a mini waffle with arequipe (YUM!). We accidentally bought a tub of arequipe our first trip to the grocery store because we thought it was peanut butter. It's basically dulce de leche or caramel. Very tasty. Here they spread it on thin crispy pancakes as a dessert.

As far as adoption stuff, our translator's update of "Monday or Tuesday" became "next week--don't worry", so we figure we aren't going anywhere for a while. Hopefully we can be in Bogota at least by next weekend, but it is starting to look like our five weeks here will turn into six weeks. Oh well.

Here are some pictures from the last couple of days:

Downtown Bucaramanga

Parque de los Ninos. Marisol was taking a nap.

Finally awake, but not ready to chew.

Happy to be out of her stroller.

Green jello soul patch.

Father-Daughter bonding.

Reggae Hair Style. Rock 'n' Roll!

Fraggle Rock

Watching Fraggle Rock with Dad.

Marisol hasn't really shown that much interest in television in general, but the Baby Einstein and the Fraggle Rock DVDs in particular have fascinated her. She was so excited with the Fraggles last night that we had a difficult time keeping her on the bed!

Marisol Playing

Marisol playing with her favorite toy.

Besitos.

La Mesa de Ruitoque

Looking out over Bucaramanga

More of the greater Bucaramanga metropolitan area

People paragliding

We took this shot, but doesn't it look like it should be from the cover of the paragliding brochure or something?

With the Colombian flag in the foreground (in case anyone forgot where we've been all this time)

More paragliding

Marisol's checking it out

A picture of dad (for once)

Marisol wants YOU to go paragliding

Every day for the past three weeks, we've stood out on the balcony and watched paragliders (parapente) off in the distance. Today we went to Mesa de Ruitoque to see them up close. While most of the gliders we saw were solo, they also offer tandem rides for beginners. I think Joe wants to go up later in the week. The view was amazing and it was so much cooler than in the city. And, while we didn't get the chance to talk to them, there were several Americans paragliding, too--the first Americans we've seen in person (besides each other) in three weeks!

Botanical Gardens

Marisol and Mom at the Jardín Botánico Eloy Valenzuela

Sharing graham crackers with the ducks

Checking out a sloth

The sloth (el perezoso)

Patitos

Una tortuga

Red squirrel with an empanada

At the wishing well (as if there's really anything that she wants that we don't get her)

Toucan

Making faces in the mirror

Entirely too cute in my new sandals

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So, we went to the botanical gardens today (the Jardín Botánico Eloy Valenzuela). It was a lot of fun. I mean, where else am I ever going to see a sloth in the wild? Pretty cool. The plants were really pretty, too, and we have some nice pics of the scenery, but mostly the ones of Marisol looked more interesting to post on the blog.

Not much going on...

Marisol has a new book that makes animal sounds.

A gecko on the wall of our apartment.

Hello, all. Just thought we'd check in and let you all know what was going on. We're mostly just still hanging out here. We had hoped that maybe we'd be done here in Bucaramanga next week, but now it sounds like it won't be until at least early the following week. After that, there we'll still have to spend a few days in Bogota getting things processed before we can leave, so we really still don't know when we'll get out of here.

I (Joe) went to a soccer game here the other night. Atlético Bucaramanga beat la Sabana 3-0 and are currently in first place in the Colombian second division, so hopefully they'll get promoted back to the first division next year. For those of you who don't watch soccer, that probably means nothing, so I'll leave it at that, but it was weird being in a stadium where the only concessions are just local people who sell homemade food in the stands.

We're going to try to make it to the Bolívar museum and maybe the zoo and the botanical gardens this weekend, so that should be fun, and we'll post some pics of that.

I'll leave you with a few more random observations:

1. The word for whipped cream is "chantilly." Weird, since that's not Spanish, but it's fresh whipped cream at the ice cream places, so that's really good.

2. Not very many people smoke here, which is good. Again, my only point of reference in South America is Argentina, where everybody smokes, but it's nothing like that here.

3. We got soup the other day, not really knowing what kind it was, and it turned out to be caldito, just like you'd get in New Mexico (except the meat had bones in it).

4. Fashion observations: A lot more people wear jeans than we'd been led to expect, but the fashion here is to buy them too long and roll them up in big wide rolls--I have no idea why. The women wear really tight pants, show a lot of cleavage, and wear sandals that are too small for their feet so that their toes hang out the front (okay, Liz noticed the sandals, not me).

We'll post again soon.

Today's Pictures

Playing Peek-a-Boo on the balcony.

We're amused at how her eye color seems to change depending on the shirt color. Marisol has a lot of new shirts.

"pfffffft."

"I can smell breakfast, yet somehow I still don't have breakfast. My solution is to make as much noise as I can with this toy until someone feeds me."

Uncle Pete

Uncle Pete Limper

We found out this evening that my (Elizabeth) Uncle Pete had a heart attack and passed away this morning. He had been planting marigolds and had a heart attack in his garage. My heart is absolutely breaking for my cousins Chris and Jesse and my Auntie Christina, my mom's sister. We had just talked to him on Skype Sunday afternoon with their new web cam and I got to see him last month (after not seeing him for several years) when I was in NM for the baby shower. My parents and my grandmother are on their way to California to be with my aunt and cousins tonight. Please keep my aunt and my cousins in your prayers.

Mesa de los Santos

Mesa de los Santos

Stopping for drinks

Not sure what she's doing here exactly
Extreme closeup

Hello, it's Joe here. So, we went up to the mountains yesterday to an area called Mesa de los Santos. It was gorgeous, all very green with lots of coffee estates and great views out over the valleys. We also stopped at a market to try to buy hormigas culonas (fried ants, they're in season now), but they were all out. The picture above of Elizabeth and Mari having a drink is in a little tourist area called Mi Colombia Querida.

Also, there was a very small earthquake this morning. Apparently it was a 5.something, but was centered up in the north. It woke Elizabeth up, and she woke me up, but by then I hardly even felt it.

A few more random observations, in case anyone is interested:

1. The weather down here leads to a very different outlook on architecture. Since the temperature year-round stays between the upper 50s and the low 80s, a lot of the building are built partially enclosed and partially open-air. For example, the apartment building we're in and the ICBF office building where the adoption things took place both have regular front doors that make you think you're leaving the outside and entering a building, but then when you get in, long stretches of the hallways are open to the outside. Very different than back home.

2. They take their security issues extremely seriously here. Many of the buildings have private security at the door full-time, even small stores that would never have anything like that in the states. Every single car has a car alarm, and they're all very loud, and a lot of the buildings have parking garages with security instead of open lots. The two apartment complexes across from us have electic fences (although I've seen birds sitting on one, so I'm not sure how deadly it is), and all of the fences are heavy iron things, not just wood or chainlink. And when you use a credit card at a store, they always check ask for ID, and, unlike back home, they really examine it closely.

3. Like lots of other countries, there are tons of really small cars on the road. Unlike other places, though, a huge percentage of them are Renault 4s from the early 60s. For whatever reason, they were hugely popular here and they're still all over the place. They call them the "amigo fiel," which means "faithful friend."

Singing & Dancing

So, it seems that Marisol really enjoys the song "Cielito Lindo," although like most people the only part she can sing along with is the "ay, ay, ay, ay" part. She also drums and dances, so it's pretty entertaining.

Girón

So, we went to Girón today. It's a quaint little touristy town just outside of Bucaramanga. They have a really nice old cathedral and traditional colonial-era architecture and lots of little shops to buy souvenirs. It was pretty hot out, so Mari got tired before too long, but it was nice to do something different.

There are some new pics on flickr. We'll post more tomorrow.

Even More Pictures

View from the mall food court

View from the mall food court

Calle 31, which we walk every day

Marisol taking a nap

Marisol preparing for her flight to the US

Update

Yesterday we met with Luz Stella to discuss adoption progress and what excursions we can take while we wait for our court date. We have judge 2, who apparently is just a regular judge—not the fastest, but not the slowest. Since we won’t have any court-related activities in the next week, we can go out of town, at least for some day trips. Tomorrow we will go to Girón and Sunday we will go to Mesa de los Santos, up in the mountains. We’re getting tired of American sitcoms, so we’re looking forward to the diversion. It’ll be nice to see more of the surrounding area, too.

Marisol is taking a nap right now. She sleeps really well--we've only had to get up with her a few times in the middle of the night. It's so noisy here, I don't know how she stays asleep so solidly. The street in front of the apartment complex isn't all that busy, but the walls on the other side of the street are pretty high and all of the street noise echoes. I wake up off and on all night because of the noise, but it doesn't bother her at all.

More Pictures

I don't think Joe will like that his toes are in one of these pictures, but they're really cute (both the pictures and Joe's toes).

More Pictures

Practicing Standing

Patito

Combing My Own Hair

Integration meeting

For more pics click here to go to flickr.

Hello, this is Joe again. Mari's being very difficult about going to sleep tonight, and I don't know if Elizabeth will be up to posting anything, so I thought I would. The little one was in a very playful mood tonight, which is good, but now she doesn't want to stop.

We had our integration meeting today, where a social worker and our translator came to the apartment where we are staying to see how we're getting along and how we're bonding. Everything went fine (except for Marisol fussing for cookies while they were here). It was mostly a lot of semi-vague questions about how things are going and if we're having any difficulties, and we figured it would all go well, but it's still a little weird when you feel like you're being judged as parents after only a week. It was really good, though, and they can tell how incredibly happy we are to have her. Just look at those pictures of her; how could anyone not be happy with that? Now we wait for our lawyer to file papers for us and our court date to come up, so things are progressing slowly but surely.

So, a little more than a week into the trip, here are my random observations about life in Colombia:

1. Stop signs are treated strictly as yield signs, so crossing the street is a little crazy.

2. The food at fast food places is all very good, but not fast at all. It took 15 minutes to get a four-pack of chicken nuggets from a chicken place tonight. They tasted really good, though (they were Mari's, but I stole a bite). Weirdest fast food find: caramel quesadillas, not my favorite. Hard boiled quail eggs in a sandwich, however, were pretty good.

3. We've seen several people walking beagles, so that's cool. As you can see from the pictures to the right, we have a beagle named Manfred. My only other time in South America was in Argentina, so I was expecting to see lots of stray dogs like they have there, but there really aren't any here, just regular pet dogs like in the States.

4. The weather here in Bucaramanga after dark is absolutely gorgeous every single night.

5. People do not make room for a stroller on the sidewalk when they see you coming like I thought they would. But then, that may be because I'm a big gringo.

6. There are lots of pirated movies for sale. Fast & Furious is playing at the theater in the mall down the street and is also for sale out front.

7. The power of global marketing is obvious. I've tried shopping for a soccer jersey here at the mall, but it's completely impossible to find shirts for local teams. Barcelona and Chelsea stuff, however, is in every third store.

That's it for now, we'll post again soon.

Happy Easter

Marisol tired of having her picture taken.

Marisol brushing her hair.

Marisol playing with her toys.

Sorry we haven't written anything for a few days. We didn't do anything special for Easter. Marisol has kept us pretty busy. We spend hours watching her play every day. Tomorrow we have integracion, when a social worker and our attorney will come to our apartment and make sure everything is going well. After this, we should have a better idea of how long we'll wait for the adoption petition.

Finally, a Happy Baby!

Marisol playing games while talking to her grandparents on Skype.

Marisol clapping and laughing during lunch.

Today has been the best day of our adjustment so far. Marisol is finally warming up to us more and even laughing and smiling, which is something we hadn't seen much of these last few days. I cannot even begin to comprehend how difficult this transition is for her or for any other adopted child. To finally see her happy has meant everything to us. Hopefully she will continue to get comfortable with us and show us more of her personality.

We've gotten into a comfortable routine these last couple of days. As many adoptive families before, we spend time at the malls, just walking around. Today we bought groceries at Exito, which is like a Super Walmart. I think we like this grocery store better than the one we'd been going to. Most businesses will be closed the entire weekend for Easter, so we were warned to stock up. Having an apartment means we can cook so we've been buying a lot of food. We brought a couple of those giant reusable shopping bags from Target to make hauling groceries a lot easier. After the first shopping trip, we've found it easier to let the bag boys bag the groceries like normal and then outside the store we re-bag everything ourselves because they think we are crazy Americans asking to use our own bags when their bags are perfectly fine.

The two big malls are a really nice way to kill some time! The stores are nice and there are a lot of baby stuff available. We also found a Colombian version of Build-a-Bear, which we may have to go back to some time in the coming weeks. It was closed for Easter today.

Most of our days are spent watching Mari play and repeating everything she's doing in Spanish and in English (I do the English and then just repeat whatever Joe says in Spanish). Mari says a few words in Spanish and even one in English (bye). She keeps babbling something like "zhazha" but we have no idea what she's saying (Ever the jokester, Joe tells her Eva is the cooler Gabor sister, but she doesn't get it. . .). She's also starting to crawl around the apartment, something she hadn't felt comfortable doing before. Maybe we can get her walking before we come home.

Just a quick word

Nothing major to post, but we did go out with Mari in the stroller today and did some shopping. Everything went great, and there are a few more pics on flickr. We'll blog more tomorrow.

Parenthood

So, today was our first full day as parents, and it's all still a little crazy. Mari slept great all through the night, so that's good. She likes having us hold her hands and walk her around, and she likes watching the cars go by from out on the balcony (we're staying on the third floor). She still wants Mommy to do everything instead of Dad, but she's giving in a little at meal times.

We went and signed more legal documents today, and now we have until next Monday before we need to do anything specific. That means we can take it a little easier, do some shopping, maybe some swimming, and get in a routine. Oh, and there are a few more pictures up on flickr now, so feel free to check those out.

Gotcha Day

Buenos días, todos,

This is Joe, finally posting something here instead of making my wife do it all. Right now she's staring at our beautiful daughter, who's finally sound asleep.

It was a very big day, so I'm not even sure how to describe it. We got Marisol this afternoon, and we met with the social workers, doctor, nutritionist, attorney, etc. at ICBF (basically, the Colombia DCFS). The whole meeting is still kind of a blur, because we had our new baby there on our laps, so it was hard to really listen to information. We did get a scrapbook from her foster family, though, and that was great, because now we have pictures of her every month from 2 months up to a year.

After the meeting, we came back to the apartment, and we got her to take a short nap. Then we ate empanadas and arepa con huevo. An arepa is a kind of corn cake that you can get with egg in it, and so far the only word she's said to us (other than just babbling) is the word "arepa."

We called home on Skype, gave her a bath, played a little, and eventually she got to sleep. She's definitely way more attached to Elizabeth than to me at this point, but that's okay. We were told before we came down here that that happens.

So, to see pics of our gorgeous hijita, go to flickr.com/photos/chamberscolombia, and we'll post again very soon.

Settled In

We finally made it out of Bogota and to Bucaramanga. The view from the airport was breathtaking. We were so zonked out from exhaustion, neither of us thought to take a picture. Luz Stell, our translator, met us at the airport. She and the driver had already made two trips out the airport to get us because of the crazy delay. The apartment we're staying in is beautiful: it's huge and fully furnished and really makes us wonder if the price we were quoted is not accurate. . .

Funny thing: We ran into one of the other traveling families, the Crowleys, at the airport in Bogota. They were white, carrying a stroller, and didn't have a baby. Since we knew they were flying in around the same time we were, we asked them if they were the Crowleys. Our flight was finally boarding as we noticed them come in, so we didn't really have much time to talk. They're off to Pasto, where they'll meet their daughter tomorrow, too. Maybe we'll run into each other on the other end, too!

Anyway, Luz Stella is picking us up at 3:00 tomorrow to meet our daughter! Even though we haven't slept much these last couple of nights, I seriously don't know how we're going to sleep tonight either!

Still in Bogota

We are currently stuck in the Bogota airport. I guess a plane fell apart on the one run way in Bucaramanga (???), and according to the one guy who speaks English, no one has clearance to clean it up, so it's just sitting there (seriously). Hopefully we'll still get there today! Otherwise we're good--just super-tired.