Our Journey to Adoption: Monserrate, La Candalaria, and Museo de Oro

Monday we decided to have a low key day at the hotel to get caught up on homework and Jeff doing some work. Juanita wanted to make us a traditional Colombian lunch once again. Isaac is doing really well with reading and wanting to do some school work. I worried a bit about this as I was not sure if he would be able to focus and like me to be teaching him but he loves it and does really well. Jeff has also been helping with his math homework too. After lunch it was another trip to Mimo's for ice cream!! :-)

We are once again the only family here and we have been very spoiled. We don't have to grocery shop, cook, clean, make beds, or do laundry. It is really nice but I also kind of miss it sometimes. Juanita and Valeria laugh at me when I want to clear dishes or wash a dish or a bottle or whatever. I told Jeff one night we are going to make dinner for them. I think they will love it and it is the least we can do for them! When we go to the grocery store to buy snacks, fruit, diapers or whatever Jeff laughs at me as I love to just wonder up and down the aisles.

I will post a picture of the lunch we had today. It was so delicious and I am taking notes so that I can make some of these things at home.

Last week we met a man who lives in Bogota at our hotel named Diego who works as a soccer coach to kids. Soccer is huge here in Colombia. He brings Colombian kids every summer to MN to the sports complex in Blaine for the soccer tournament. He speaks very good English and is very friendly. Katya asked him if he would like to be a driver for us when we want to go places away from our hotel. He said he would love to! We have also been given names of a few others that live in Colombia that have helped some of our friends that we are going to be contacting also. So Tuesday we had Diego come and pick us up and decided to visit Monserrate, La Candalaria district and the gold museum.

Monserrate is a mountain top that rises to 10,341 above sea level. The air is very "thin" at the top. There is a beautiful church at the top that was built around 1900. Diego said that on Sundays there is a mass held every hour and people travel from all over to pray. It is absolutely amazing. The road leading to it winds up the mountain where you park and then you must take a tram or a cable car to the top. Literally it goes straight up the side of the mountain and is very steep. When we arrived only the gondola cable car was open so we said a quick prayer as none of us really like heights! :-) The view was simply amazing. You can see almost the entire city of Bogota at the top. The city has 8 million+ people so it literally takes your breath away how big the city is. There are beautiful gardens at the top also and it is a very peaceful place. It overwhelmed me at first to view my daughters beautiful birth city. I just closed my eyes and thanked God for this place, for her and for this experience that our entire family is having.

Once back we decided to go to La Candalaria district. This is the oldest part of Bogota and was settled by the Spanish. The streets were packed with people and we walked to see the presidential palace, the mayors house, Simon Bolivar Square, and many government buildings. The architecture and beautiful cathedrals were simply stunning. Diego told us that 80-90% of Colombians are Catholic so there are many beautiful cathedrals everywhere. There were armed guards everywhere and Isaac was so impressed that they told Diego we could get a picture with them. This district is also home to many museums. Being we were in the area we decided we would visit the museum de oro ( Gold museum). It has more than 36,000 pieces of gold. www.banrepcultural.org/gold-museum is the website. Isaac thought it was amazing. We will probably venture to this area again to go to the botero museum at some point.

It was a very full day and A and Isaac were troopers. It was so nice having Diego with us explaining where things are, history, and culture. He was so nice and we really appreciated him helping us!! Tomorrow we will have a more low key day and Thursday is our meeting with defender of the minors. Pray that all goes well.

Once again...more photos: