Monteria

When Jeff and I got up we had the pleasure to meet two families that were also adopting.  One family is adopting a brother and sister and the other had a girl that was 10 (same age as Amelia).  She was so happy and friendly, the mother said they were told she was quiet and shy, she may have been at her orphanage but now that she has a forever family you could just see the joy in her eyes!  She kept talking to us and enjoyed speaking Spanish with my brother.  My brother and I had breakfast while Jeff caught up on some work.  Andres took us and my brother to the airport.  My brother is going to Caracas, Venezuela to visit and help at an orphanage for a week and on Monday he is flying to Monteria to spend time with us and meet his new nephew!   Guess what the name of the orphanage is?....Casa de Samuel.  I am excited to hear how his trip goes!

Today when we got to Monteria our translator met us and drove us to the hotel.  It was a little scary when we passed the university because some students were blocking the streets rioting, the police came and threw tier gas to scare them off while the students through big rocks.  Our translator Maribel just kept saying they are so mean and drove on through.  Needless to say our first impression of Monteria was not a good one.
I think she was a little disappointed that we saw what we did, right after she went on how she has lived here all her life and said how beautiful it was.  She is very nice and it's nice to have one person here that knows English, because we do feel out of place here much more so than we did in Bogota.  I'm sure our waiter had a few laughs tonight while we ordered and payed for our meal.  I think the hardest part so far is figuring out the pesos, 50,000 pesos is approx. $25.  As you can see from the pictures the view from our hotel is not that great, but this makes us realize how fortunate we are.  The hotel we are staying at is very nice and our room is actually spacious, which will be good for Samuel.

Monteria is a lot different than Bogota, but hopefully once we see the nice parks and river we were told about we will like it more, plus once Samuel is here it will be all about making him comfortable with us and playing with him.   Tomorrow we leave at 9am and take a 1 hour drive to Lurica, Cordoba where finally meet Samuel.