We mailed out a care package to Little Dragon and his friends. You really can't have too many "personal" toys in an orphanage, so we just sent a couple of special objects for him and the rest is for sharing.
For sharing, we sent a bunch of warm hats, some pants and mittens that I made, a couple of soft toys, and a couple bags of dark chocolate.
For Little Dragon, we sent a ribbon-tagged blanket with dragons on one side (Jim slept with this for a few days), a stuffed panda bear with my perfume on it, and a baby picture book of his new family and room.
We've now been waiting 39 days for our LOA. The average for people in our situation is 77 days, but it doesn't stop me hoping that we'll be fast!
Update: care package was delivered at 11 a.m. on Saturday. We've now been waiting 45 days for our LOA.
O'Donnell Olio
olio
\ˈō-lē-ˌō\
- Olla Podrida
- a miscellaneous mixture : hodgepodge
- a miscellaneous collection (as of literary or musical selections)
Monday, March 1, 2010
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Lotsa Shots
Yesterday we had an appointment at our (very) friendly neighborhood travel clinic. We got three shots each (typhoid, HepA, and Tdap), and a blood draw to check titers for HepB and MMR. You know you have a three-year-old when five minutes are happily spent counting the bandaids on your arm when you come home.
Next up, making an appointment at the children's travel clinic for Little Bear. I think he'll only need typhoid and H1N1.
Unfortunately, Little Dragon will also likely need shots before leaving China. It's a bad idea to require 8 or so shots into a small person only a few days before they get on a 12-hour flight (and I'm a pro-vaccine immunologist, so I'm not just being crazy here). It used to be that parents could promise to get their kids up-to-date on a reasonable immunization schedule, but then another rule changed and the kids (including those with medical needs) were swept up in the change too. A bill has been put forward to restore this exemption so that kids can be vaccinated on a more healthy schedule. http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-1376 If your Senator is on the Judiciary Committee, where this bill is bottled up, please email to ask for it to be moved forward. Thanks!
Update: Good thing we had that blood work done. Our HepB titers are fine (I've actually been wondering about that for a decade), but Jim's mumps (like the unfortunate 1500 people in NYC right now) needs boosting, so he gets to go back for yet another shot.
Update 2: Jim has been re-mumpsed. And Gus's appointment is scheduled for the beginning of April.
Next up, making an appointment at the children's travel clinic for Little Bear. I think he'll only need typhoid and H1N1.
Unfortunately, Little Dragon will also likely need shots before leaving China. It's a bad idea to require 8 or so shots into a small person only a few days before they get on a 12-hour flight (and I'm a pro-vaccine immunologist, so I'm not just being crazy here). It used to be that parents could promise to get their kids up-to-date on a reasonable immunization schedule, but then another rule changed and the kids (including those with medical needs) were swept up in the change too. A bill has been put forward to restore this exemption so that kids can be vaccinated on a more healthy schedule. http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-1376 If your Senator is on the Judiciary Committee, where this bill is bottled up, please email to ask for it to be moved forward. Thanks!
Update: Good thing we had that blood work done. Our HepB titers are fine (I've actually been wondering about that for a decade), but Jim's mumps (like the unfortunate 1500 people in NYC right now) needs boosting, so he gets to go back for yet another shot.
Update 2: Jim has been re-mumpsed. And Gus's appointment is scheduled for the beginning of April.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Our second son
Our homestudy hadn't been in our hands a week yet. We just got the money order to send to USCIS (to pay people's salaries to open a file, then fingerprint and cross-check us). I was going to post the I-800A when I discovered a typo on the first page (our address, kinda important), so we got that fixed and posted it the next day.
The other thing that happened that day was we got a referral!!!!!!!!!!!!! We weren't planning to look at files until around February when our completed and authenticated dossier would be sent to China. But our agency received a list of kiddos just for them, and since I think we're the only family they have who is open to a boy referral, they emailed us to see if we would be interested in looking.
Well, how could we not look? The little boy is 18 months old and has a congenital heart defect, which has already been successfully operated on. And Reb works in the best place--within minutes his blood work was being checked by our ER doctor, our visiting fellow from China (who is from his hometown!) was helping me pronounce his name, and another Chinese fellow was helping to translate some of the medical documents. He brought the rest home to his wife, who is also Chinese and also a cardiologist, so that she can explain them to us. And she got recommendations of two pediatric cardiologists with whom to discuss the diagnosis. The help was pretty amazing, and it would have been more fun if she hadn't been almost hyperventilating. She kept saying, "But we didn't expect this until February!" Wait shmait. Hah.
After the myriad consultations, we decided to accept the referral, and we're now full steam ahead again putting together acceptance documents and paying in-country fees. We're also still working on figuring out what his name's going to be (down to 9 candidates). We have 2 kids! Now we just have to get us all together.
The other thing that happened that day was we got a referral!!!!!!!!!!!!! We weren't planning to look at files until around February when our completed and authenticated dossier would be sent to China. But our agency received a list of kiddos just for them, and since I think we're the only family they have who is open to a boy referral, they emailed us to see if we would be interested in looking.
Well, how could we not look? The little boy is 18 months old and has a congenital heart defect, which has already been successfully operated on. And Reb works in the best place--within minutes his blood work was being checked by our ER doctor, our visiting fellow from China (who is from his hometown!) was helping me pronounce his name, and another Chinese fellow was helping to translate some of the medical documents. He brought the rest home to his wife, who is also Chinese and also a cardiologist, so that she can explain them to us. And she got recommendations of two pediatric cardiologists with whom to discuss the diagnosis. The help was pretty amazing, and it would have been more fun if she hadn't been almost hyperventilating. She kept saying, "But we didn't expect this until February!" Wait shmait. Hah.
After the myriad consultations, we decided to accept the referral, and we're now full steam ahead again putting together acceptance documents and paying in-country fees. We're also still working on figuring out what his name's going to be (down to 9 candidates). We have 2 kids! Now we just have to get us all together.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
It's that time again...
The blog is back, and that means the search is on for another future O'Donnell. Here's what we know so far.
Guatemala has closed its international adoption program while it reformats it to conform to the Hague regulations. With no idea how long that will take (it will probably take a lot of work to remake the program to fit into the new framework), we aren't holding our breath, and had to choose another country.
We have chosen China, and specifically the Waiting Child program which includes children with medical needs. That's the short answer. Here's the long one.
As recently as five years ago, abandonments of girls was high due to the combination of the one-child policy and the long-standing cultural preference for boys. Parents around the world responded in a big way, and tens of thousands of adoptive parents made homes for those little girls. However, in five years a lot has changed. Rights for women are advancing in China, abandonments are way down, and domestic adoption is up. These are all great things, but the result is that there are many fewer children available to be adopted by those tens of thousands of potential adoptive parents. Practically this situation has meant a very long wait for young children without medical needs, and because orphanages receive money from the international adoption process to help run their facility, it has also unfortunately resulted in some degree of child trafficking. We do not feel comfortable being part of the demand which creates this situation (it is still quite unclear how widespread it is).
However, the increasing pollution in China has resulted in an increased percentage of children born with congenital defects, and a combination of medical expenses and social discrimination against people with disabilities has left many children with medical needs in need of second homes. We are currently doing our homework researching some of these needs.
Boy or girl? Don't know yet. Won't know until we get the specific file for our child. However, because the children in need of adoption have been girls for so long, many families come into the adoption process with a "girl-only" mindset, meaning that there are many little boys waiting. We'll see!
We took our first official step today, attending an organizational meeting for a potential agency. We have chosen a new agency, not because the old one wasn't great to us and acting ethically in Guatemala, but because we learned post-adoption that they financially support an organization with which we vehemently disagree (maybe I'll rant more on this another time) called the National Council for Adoption (it sounds nice, but it's not). We just couldn't give money to an agency which would in some degree end up funding this organization which makes me so angry it gives me the shivers. We have already started the process somewhat, of course, researching this agency and starting homework on medical needs. Next step is to do more homework into those needs, talk with local families who have worked with this agency and handled some of the needs we are considering, and then file our formal application. We'll keep you posted!
Oh, and please do not talk with Gus about the adoption. We are not planning to discuss it with him until the process is much closer to completion--it's just too long for a small person to wait for something to happen.
Guatemala has closed its international adoption program while it reformats it to conform to the Hague regulations. With no idea how long that will take (it will probably take a lot of work to remake the program to fit into the new framework), we aren't holding our breath, and had to choose another country.
We have chosen China, and specifically the Waiting Child program which includes children with medical needs. That's the short answer. Here's the long one.
As recently as five years ago, abandonments of girls was high due to the combination of the one-child policy and the long-standing cultural preference for boys. Parents around the world responded in a big way, and tens of thousands of adoptive parents made homes for those little girls. However, in five years a lot has changed. Rights for women are advancing in China, abandonments are way down, and domestic adoption is up. These are all great things, but the result is that there are many fewer children available to be adopted by those tens of thousands of potential adoptive parents. Practically this situation has meant a very long wait for young children without medical needs, and because orphanages receive money from the international adoption process to help run their facility, it has also unfortunately resulted in some degree of child trafficking. We do not feel comfortable being part of the demand which creates this situation (it is still quite unclear how widespread it is).
However, the increasing pollution in China has resulted in an increased percentage of children born with congenital defects, and a combination of medical expenses and social discrimination against people with disabilities has left many children with medical needs in need of second homes. We are currently doing our homework researching some of these needs.
Boy or girl? Don't know yet. Won't know until we get the specific file for our child. However, because the children in need of adoption have been girls for so long, many families come into the adoption process with a "girl-only" mindset, meaning that there are many little boys waiting. We'll see!
We took our first official step today, attending an organizational meeting for a potential agency. We have chosen a new agency, not because the old one wasn't great to us and acting ethically in Guatemala, but because we learned post-adoption that they financially support an organization with which we vehemently disagree (maybe I'll rant more on this another time) called the National Council for Adoption (it sounds nice, but it's not). We just couldn't give money to an agency which would in some degree end up funding this organization which makes me so angry it gives me the shivers. We have already started the process somewhat, of course, researching this agency and starting homework on medical needs. Next step is to do more homework into those needs, talk with local families who have worked with this agency and handled some of the needs we are considering, and then file our formal application. We'll keep you posted!
Oh, and please do not talk with Gus about the adoption. We are not planning to discuss it with him until the process is much closer to completion--it's just too long for a small person to wait for something to happen.
Friday, July 20, 2007
Antigua and back home
(The comma is back, and so are we!)
Antigua is a much friendlier place for American tourists than Guatemala City. When we got there, Jacobo drove us around the town (didn't take too long; it's only about 100 square blocks) and to our hotel, the Posada Lazos Fuertes. If you recall our previous post about organizations to which we contribute, you'll recall Safe Passage, the organization that helps kids who otherwise would be foraging through the Guatemala City dump. They own the hotel we stayed at. Most of the other occupants were Safe Passage volunteers, including a church youth group from Maine we met. Makes for a noisy hotel, but quite pretty. The town is quite attractive, too. We spent the next two and a half days roaming around the streets, looking at jade in shops, and playing with Gus in the Parque Central. Good food and a lot of fun. The worst part of the weekend was trying to get Gus to bed for naps.
Monday at noon Jacobo came back to pick us up for the drive back to Guatemala City. At this point we were still planning to fly home the next day. Oscar was going to pick up Gus's visa at the embassy for us and deliver it to our hotel at 4. He did so, but soon after he left Rebekah's sharp eyes noticed that the visa had Gus's name spelled wrong (Guastavo instead of Gustavo). We called Oscar immediately, and he met me at the embassy again a few minutes later. By now the place was closed for the night but Oscar managed to talk our way back in. Inside they informed us that there was no way we could get a revised visa on Gus's passport before our 6:30 flight the next morning. Still don't understand why not; clearly all they had to do was change a field on a record in some database and reprint the form, but that's bureaucracy for you. Chagrined, I walked back to the hotel and informed Reb that we had to change our flights and stay an extra day. We did so, and prepared for another 24 hours of confinement (remember, we couldn't leave the hotel with Gus in Guatemala City).
Tuesday turned out to be not so bad. We ate at the hotel restaurant; we played around with Gus; we packed, and we had internet access again, so we called people via Skype. The embassy had our corrected visa ready by 9:00 am. Nothing else to report there. One thing I will say about our hotels: you don't drink tap water in Guatemala or risk gastrointestinal unpleasantness, so you have to rely on the agua pura, or bottled water. The Lazos Fuertes in Antigua recognized this and had unlimited free water available in those water coolers you see in offices. At the San Carlos, you had to pay for it: Q10 per pint. Not expensive, I know, but it's definitely a point against them in my book.
Wednesday we flew home. We had a long layover in Houston, so after we spent an hour in the Homeland Security back office dealing with immigration, we got to introduce Gus to my family. That was a high point, but just about the only high point. The second leg of our flight was delayed two hours, the first hour due to weather in Boston, and the second due to electrical issues with our plane. It was really rough sitting there, Gus crying and hungry in his car seat and us unable to do anything about it because we needed to save his bottle for takeoff so that he wouldn't have ear troubles. Once we did take off, though, he slept through the entire 4 hours.
And so we're home. Hotel life definitely isn't the best way to start a parent-child relationship, but I think we made the best of it. We can get him on a proper schedule now, and we can start to wean him off the sugar-laden Guatemalan formula and cereal he's been eating (seriously, the stuff smells like hot chocolate mix). It's good to be back.
Antigua is a much friendlier place for American tourists than Guatemala City. When we got there, Jacobo drove us around the town (didn't take too long; it's only about 100 square blocks) and to our hotel, the Posada Lazos Fuertes. If you recall our previous post about organizations to which we contribute, you'll recall Safe Passage, the organization that helps kids who otherwise would be foraging through the Guatemala City dump. They own the hotel we stayed at. Most of the other occupants were Safe Passage volunteers, including a church youth group from Maine we met. Makes for a noisy hotel, but quite pretty. The town is quite attractive, too. We spent the next two and a half days roaming around the streets, looking at jade in shops, and playing with Gus in the Parque Central. Good food and a lot of fun. The worst part of the weekend was trying to get Gus to bed for naps.
Monday at noon Jacobo came back to pick us up for the drive back to Guatemala City. At this point we were still planning to fly home the next day. Oscar was going to pick up Gus's visa at the embassy for us and deliver it to our hotel at 4. He did so, but soon after he left Rebekah's sharp eyes noticed that the visa had Gus's name spelled wrong (Guastavo instead of Gustavo). We called Oscar immediately, and he met me at the embassy again a few minutes later. By now the place was closed for the night but Oscar managed to talk our way back in. Inside they informed us that there was no way we could get a revised visa on Gus's passport before our 6:30 flight the next morning. Still don't understand why not; clearly all they had to do was change a field on a record in some database and reprint the form, but that's bureaucracy for you. Chagrined, I walked back to the hotel and informed Reb that we had to change our flights and stay an extra day. We did so, and prepared for another 24 hours of confinement (remember, we couldn't leave the hotel with Gus in Guatemala City).
Tuesday turned out to be not so bad. We ate at the hotel restaurant; we played around with Gus; we packed, and we had internet access again, so we called people via Skype. The embassy had our corrected visa ready by 9:00 am. Nothing else to report there. One thing I will say about our hotels: you don't drink tap water in Guatemala or risk gastrointestinal unpleasantness, so you have to rely on the agua pura, or bottled water. The Lazos Fuertes in Antigua recognized this and had unlimited free water available in those water coolers you see in offices. At the San Carlos, you had to pay for it: Q10 per pint. Not expensive, I know, but it's definitely a point against them in my book.
Wednesday we flew home. We had a long layover in Houston, so after we spent an hour in the Homeland Security back office dealing with immigration, we got to introduce Gus to my family. That was a high point, but just about the only high point. The second leg of our flight was delayed two hours, the first hour due to weather in Boston, and the second due to electrical issues with our plane. It was really rough sitting there, Gus crying and hungry in his car seat and us unable to do anything about it because we needed to save his bottle for takeoff so that he wouldn't have ear troubles. Once we did take off, though, he slept through the entire 4 hours.
And so we're home. Hotel life definitely isn't the best way to start a parent-child relationship, but I think we made the best of it. We can get him on a proper schedule now, and we can start to wean him off the sugar-laden Guatemalan formula and cereal he's been eating (seriously, the stuff smells like hot chocolate mix). It's good to be back.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
And then they disappeared for a week
(Note to the reader: the comma key is still out of commission on this computer so continued apologies to any Lynne Truss fans out there.)
It turns out that once you have children you no longer have much free time left for blogging. Go figure. We're back in Guatemala City now and planning to come home tomorrow morning. The original plan was to come back today of course but more on that later.
Thursday morning Reb and I went to a couple of nearby museums (musea?) the first featuring old Mayan pots and whatnot and the second featuring new Mayan fabrics and textiles. Pictures are available on the internets. After that we walked back to the hotel and was surprised to find Gus and his foster parents there waiting for us. We were supposed to meet at 1 and it was 12:30 but they'd had a long drive out from Quetzeltenango (also known as Xela for some reason). It was rather awkward. Gus was asleep and the foster parents didn't speak any English so we recruited a nice hotel employee to translate for us for half an hour before Oscar our Bethany rep arrived. We discussed things like schedules and how long a drive it was from
Xela to Guatemala City. Oscar is all business. No small talk for that man. He showed up and said "Hello how are you let's talk about the baby's schedule." Around then we decided it would be a bad idea to let Gus sleep through the hand-off so we woke him up and passed him around. Naturally he was pretty wary of us. Finally Oscar and the foster parents left and that was when Gus started sobbing uncontrollably. He didn't stop for 4 hours except for a short interval when he cried himself to sleep. Finally though that evening he seemed to have worked through the initial grieving process and actually smiled at us before he went to bed.
Friday morning Gus woke up all smiles. We fed him cereal and gave him a bottle and took off for the embassy which happens to be next door to the hotel. We were feeling pretty smug about the amount of time it took to be out the door. Our alarm woke us up at 6 and we met Oscar at 7:05 dressed showered and fed. You're not allowed to take pictures of the embassy so I can't post one but imagine any government building built between 1960 and 1975 and you're pretty close. The waiting room resembled the DMV. They batch all the adoptions together at the same time so there were about 25 Guatemalan babies and American parents hanging out in there. Pretty crowded. We were in there about 2 hours. They asked us questions about making sure we fulfilled the requirements for adoption in our state (or commonwealth in our case) and had us swear an oath that we would re-adopt Gus when we got home. The whole thing took about two hours after which they told us his visa would be ready Monday at 3:30. Oscar told us that he would pick up the visa for us and deliver it to us at the hotel.
That was the last official business we had to do till then so we had arranged to spend the weekend in Antigua Guatemala. Guatemala City is smelly. There are a lot of old cars with diesel engines floating around including the GC public transportation system which consists of these red "chicken buses" which drive up and down the avenidas. They're crazy. Usually packed full of commuters and a couple guys hanging out the open doors as if it's a garbage truck. Also due to cultural misunderstandings about Americans adopting Guatemalan babies (ask us about them sometime) it would have been unwise to leave the hotel with Gus unaccompanied. It's different in Antigua. I was personally surprised at the sheer number of Americans there were there. Many American foster parents and young fresh out of college kids either volunteering or learning Spanish. Jacobo (our driver who picked us up at the airport) drove us over there that afternoon. Gorgeous drive through the mountains. I'll save the weekend in Antigua for another post.
It turns out that once you have children you no longer have much free time left for blogging. Go figure. We're back in Guatemala City now and planning to come home tomorrow morning. The original plan was to come back today of course but more on that later.
Thursday morning Reb and I went to a couple of nearby museums (musea?) the first featuring old Mayan pots and whatnot and the second featuring new Mayan fabrics and textiles. Pictures are available on the internets. After that we walked back to the hotel and was surprised to find Gus and his foster parents there waiting for us. We were supposed to meet at 1 and it was 12:30 but they'd had a long drive out from Quetzeltenango (also known as Xela for some reason). It was rather awkward. Gus was asleep and the foster parents didn't speak any English so we recruited a nice hotel employee to translate for us for half an hour before Oscar our Bethany rep arrived. We discussed things like schedules and how long a drive it was from
Xela to Guatemala City. Oscar is all business. No small talk for that man. He showed up and said "Hello how are you let's talk about the baby's schedule." Around then we decided it would be a bad idea to let Gus sleep through the hand-off so we woke him up and passed him around. Naturally he was pretty wary of us. Finally Oscar and the foster parents left and that was when Gus started sobbing uncontrollably. He didn't stop for 4 hours except for a short interval when he cried himself to sleep. Finally though that evening he seemed to have worked through the initial grieving process and actually smiled at us before he went to bed.
Friday morning Gus woke up all smiles. We fed him cereal and gave him a bottle and took off for the embassy which happens to be next door to the hotel. We were feeling pretty smug about the amount of time it took to be out the door. Our alarm woke us up at 6 and we met Oscar at 7:05 dressed showered and fed. You're not allowed to take pictures of the embassy so I can't post one but imagine any government building built between 1960 and 1975 and you're pretty close. The waiting room resembled the DMV. They batch all the adoptions together at the same time so there were about 25 Guatemalan babies and American parents hanging out in there. Pretty crowded. We were in there about 2 hours. They asked us questions about making sure we fulfilled the requirements for adoption in our state (or commonwealth in our case) and had us swear an oath that we would re-adopt Gus when we got home. The whole thing took about two hours after which they told us his visa would be ready Monday at 3:30. Oscar told us that he would pick up the visa for us and deliver it to us at the hotel.
That was the last official business we had to do till then so we had arranged to spend the weekend in Antigua Guatemala. Guatemala City is smelly. There are a lot of old cars with diesel engines floating around including the GC public transportation system which consists of these red "chicken buses" which drive up and down the avenidas. They're crazy. Usually packed full of commuters and a couple guys hanging out the open doors as if it's a garbage truck. Also due to cultural misunderstandings about Americans adopting Guatemalan babies (ask us about them sometime) it would have been unwise to leave the hotel with Gus unaccompanied. It's different in Antigua. I was personally surprised at the sheer number of Americans there were there. Many American foster parents and young fresh out of college kids either volunteering or learning Spanish. Jacobo (our driver who picked us up at the airport) drove us over there that afternoon. Gorgeous drive through the mountains. I'll save the weekend in Antigua for another post.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Innocents Abroad
Please forgive my punctuation in this post; we borrowed a lightweight laptop to bring down with us and the comma key doesn't work. It is 19:30 local time here in Guatemala City. Guatemala runs on Central Time but they don't honor Daylight Savings Time. So Guatemala runs on the same time as most of Indiana.
After two rather long flights we arrived this morning at the GC airport. Customs and immigration were a breeze; they barely glanced at the forms. After passing through customs we encountered a large mob of Guatemalans congregating outside the exit all of whom either appeared to be waiting for someone or offering us a ride. We quickly found the gentleman we'd actually arranged a ride from. His name is Jacobo and he served as our tour guide for the next two hours. He showed us quite a bit of Guatemala City and not just the nice parts either. Most of the tour was driving but at one point he parked the car and gave us a look-see at the Catedral Metropolitana (we learned something new: a church cannot be called a cathedral unless it has a special chair for the bishop) and the National Palace. I've posted pictures I took during the tour on our Flickr page. Reb was falling asleep at this point so we had Jacobo drive us to our hotel where we checked in and took a nap.
After waking up I turned on the computer to see what kinds of wireless internet options were available. Turns out the wireless works just fine here although Google and Blogger noticed the change of locale and helpfully translated all its web pages into Spanish for me. I'm quickly coming to terms with the vast amount of Spanish that I don't know. Thank God for Rebekah.
At this point we were getting hungry; we'd just had a couple granola bars for lunch. We went to the concierge desk and changed about $200US into quetzales and asked for a restaurant recommendation. He pointed us to an authentic Guatemalan restaurant called Kacao. We walked over there and discovered that the place didn't open until 6 so we wandered around for half an hour until then. We discovered a book store and passed most of the time in there. All kinds of stuff in there including Nathanial Hawthorne's classic La Letra Roja and Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope sadly not translated into Spanish. We bought a couple board books for Gus.
Finally we went back to Kacao. It was excellent. I get the impression it's a bit of a tourist trap; all the wait staff were wearing traditional Mayan outfits and the restaurant had a domed thatched roof (think Disney World's Polynesian resort and you'll get the idea). The food was great. We had tamales as an appetizer and then we ordered two different Guatemalan dishes both of which arrived in the form of a soup. We stuffed ourselves. Of the five couples in the restaurant with us I think three were adoptive parents or about to become adoptive parents. However the waiters didn't use English with us at all. Reb did great. I was able to contribute a "una cerveza por favor" and several graciases but that was about it.
That wraps up our day. Bed time. Tomorrow we meet our son!
After two rather long flights we arrived this morning at the GC airport. Customs and immigration were a breeze; they barely glanced at the forms. After passing through customs we encountered a large mob of Guatemalans congregating outside the exit all of whom either appeared to be waiting for someone or offering us a ride. We quickly found the gentleman we'd actually arranged a ride from. His name is Jacobo and he served as our tour guide for the next two hours. He showed us quite a bit of Guatemala City and not just the nice parts either. Most of the tour was driving but at one point he parked the car and gave us a look-see at the Catedral Metropolitana (we learned something new: a church cannot be called a cathedral unless it has a special chair for the bishop) and the National Palace. I've posted pictures I took during the tour on our Flickr page. Reb was falling asleep at this point so we had Jacobo drive us to our hotel where we checked in and took a nap.
After waking up I turned on the computer to see what kinds of wireless internet options were available. Turns out the wireless works just fine here although Google and Blogger noticed the change of locale and helpfully translated all its web pages into Spanish for me. I'm quickly coming to terms with the vast amount of Spanish that I don't know. Thank God for Rebekah.
At this point we were getting hungry; we'd just had a couple granola bars for lunch. We went to the concierge desk and changed about $200US into quetzales and asked for a restaurant recommendation. He pointed us to an authentic Guatemalan restaurant called Kacao. We walked over there and discovered that the place didn't open until 6 so we wandered around for half an hour until then. We discovered a book store and passed most of the time in there. All kinds of stuff in there including Nathanial Hawthorne's classic La Letra Roja and Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope sadly not translated into Spanish. We bought a couple board books for Gus.
Finally we went back to Kacao. It was excellent. I get the impression it's a bit of a tourist trap; all the wait staff were wearing traditional Mayan outfits and the restaurant had a domed thatched roof (think Disney World's Polynesian resort and you'll get the idea). The food was great. We had tamales as an appetizer and then we ordered two different Guatemalan dishes both of which arrived in the form of a soup. We stuffed ourselves. Of the five couples in the restaurant with us I think three were adoptive parents or about to become adoptive parents. However the waiters didn't use English with us at all. Reb did great. I was able to contribute a "una cerveza por favor" and several graciases but that was about it.
That wraps up our day. Bed time. Tomorrow we meet our son!
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