Some Progress This Morning

Our interpreter showed up EARLIER THAN SCHEDULED this morning which was great. We headed over the passport office, then to the bank, then to another office, then back to the passport office. All necessary to get the passport going.

Government office lines are nothing in the States compared to here. We'd give anything to wait at the DMV in the US. No problemo. Other people in line were very, very rude too. The men just stepped over the women and there was lots of pushing and cutting. Believe it or not, people in the States are WAY nicer in these kinds of situations. No comparison.

As much as our interpreter begged, our passport could not be completed today. Apparently this government office building is again shutting down this afternoon to show solidarity with the judges strike. We're supposed to be there again (actually just one of us) at 8:20am to pick it up.

So with this news, we bought plane tickets to Bogotá! The plane leaves at 9:20am. Yes, 9:20 - an hour after the passport office opens.

In that hour, Tim will get the passport, then head back to the hotel to pick up Elkin and Stacy, and then head to the airport, all with our interpreter. That's a lot to do in an hour. We're hoping we don't miss the flight. If so, we believe there's another one in the afternoon though that will mess up our tentative plans in Bogotá for the day. Hey - we have plane tickets. We're ecstatic right now about that.

So if the morning flight works out, we're planning on doing the doctors visit at the US Embassy in the afternoon (he only does them in the afternoon). That's Wednesday. So that puts applying for his US visa on Thursday. Visas are picked up the day after application. Since no visa work is done on Friday and Monday is a holiday, we'll be stuck in Bogotá until next Tuesday when all we'll do is pick it up. Then we can come home.

If things would have been done on time here in Montería, we wouldn't be facing the 4 day weekend in Bogotá. I'd say bad luck but it was certainly preventable.

It's all relative I guess. We'll still be coming home early so that's great... we just got our hopes up for earlier.

This afternoon we're meeting with the lawyer to get all our paperwork in order and get her paid. Hopefully that'll be OK.