Well, we arrived in Colombia last night and things were pretty intense for a little bit. Everything went very smoothly as we departed the airport. We had no trouble getting through immigration and the customs officer took one look at the stroller we were holding and waved us through customs. Once through customs we were told to look for the currency exchange window to exchange a few dollars into Colombian Pesos. That was easily done and we headed out of the airport. It was an amazingly easy process.
Once outside the airport, things got a little more interesting. We thought that we were going to be met by an English speaking driver, but as it turns out, he didn’t speak any English at all. He was, however, a good driver (you have to be in order to drive in Colombia…it is amazing)!
After driving for what seemed like forever, we finally arrived at our apartment building which our lawyer in Bogota had arranged for us. Our lawyer, Mr. Torrado and his family met us in the lobby of a very nice apartment complex. Mr. Torrado’s son and daughter-in-law spoke very good English and got us settled in.
After a long night’s sleep we got up and got ready to meet Johanna, another lawyer from Mr. Torrado’s office. Johanna is a very sweet lady who is handling our case. She and an interrupter came to the apartment on Monday and went over the process covering the next several weeks. We exchanged some paperwork and they left us to spend the rest of our a day Bogota.
We ventured out of the apartment to a nearby grocery store to get some dinner. We were a little to scared to tackle a restaurant just yet. We wondered into a large store that, for the most part, looked like any store in Savannah. Just everything looked to be much more expensive. The Colombian peso exchanges for the US dollar at 1850 to 1. So looking at a loaf of bread that cost $5,500 makes you a little nervous!
So, $26,400 pesos later, we walked back to the apartment with some spaghetti, sauce, Cokes, water, and some Mister Chips. We enjoyed some spaghetti and flat steaks that had been left in the freezer that Mr. Torrado wanted us to have. Little bit of a strange meal, but it was very good. Mary Ann always cooks good suppers.
We finished the day trying to watch some American TV on the Internet, but that didn’t happen. For the record, all of the mainstream sites that allow you to stream video don’t work outside of the US! Not even a NetFlix account! Oh, well, probably for the best. We did a little reading and then headed to bed for a much needed night’s rest before the big presentation day.
