The Rhyme of Sim'

Simon Hampel

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You are here: Home / Adoption / Day 26 – Passport

Day 26 – Passport

Wednesday 2nd May, 2012 7 Comments

Index » Colombia 2012

Late start today – we try and get every last bit of sleep we can to deal with being woken up twice a night by a hungry girl.

Leanne feeds Nicol
Helping Andres with a puzzle game on the tablet computer (Cut the Rope)

After breakfast, Leanne had us put on some nice clothes and we took some family photos out on the balcony near our room.

Family photo
Andres and Nicol
Andres and Nicol

We hung around the room not doing much until lunchtime.

After lunch, Magnolia picked us up and took us to the passport office, where we met with our lawyer who had our copies of the sentencia and the new birth certificate for Nicol.

Our lawyer submitted the forms, we paid the various fees and then waited for them to be ready for the photos. Unlike previously where we brought passport sized photos with us, they now have digital cameras ready to take photos themselves. These are just for emergency passports – if you want a full 10 year passport, you need to send everything to Bogota where they can create the new electronic passports used elsewhere in the world.

It took a couple of tries to get a suitable photo – there was no shortage of ladies behind the counter offering to help get Nicol to look at the camera! Fortunately she was not in a smile-at-everyone mood, so that wasn’t a problem (no smiling allowed in passport photos!), but she was very interested in everything going on around her, so it was difficult to get her to look directly at the camera. Finally they got the photo they wanted and we then sat down to wait.

It didn’t take too long for them to prepare the passport for us, so after checking all the details were correct, we said goodbye to our lawyer and headed off with Magnolia to find a shop that sells luggage.

Some of the things we have bought this trip are a little bulky and a bit fragile, so we didn’t think we could fit them into our existing bags. We decided to try and find a cheap hard-shell case which would carry everything – we are allowed 2x 23kg bags each for the three of us (Nicol doesn’t get a full baggage allowance) and we only have 4 bags in total at the moment.

We looked at a few bags before they finally pulled out a Fila hard-shell case (or a copy of one!), which would have been nice – except for the price (over $250), so we looked at other options and eventually settled on something for around $75. Not hard-shell, but still has good structure to it, unlike a lot of bags being sold these days, where they seem to focus on weight at the cost of structural integrity.

We went next door to try and find some bubble-wrap, but it seems they needed to drive to another store to find some – so after about 20 minutes of waiting, we gave up and left.

Back at the hotel, Magnolia made some calls for us about our planned side trips. Seems like every option we consider will be quite expensive (flight change penalties, excess baggage costs, etc) – it’s more a matter of convenience versus cost we need to decide on.

Index » Colombia 2012
« Prev: Day 25 – Pocoyo
Next: Day 27 – AcuaParque »

Filed Under: Adoption, Colombia 2012

Comments

  1. gaële says

    Thursday 10th May, 2012 at 07:41 PM

    oh, thank you for the news!
    I had asked my husband to look (he is much better than me in the net) if he could find anything about you in the last week.
    Amazing what the ideas are when you do not know.

    .. and actually, it is wonderful if you do NOT have time for your daily report! (I already wonder how you manage to do it normally) it meens that you are fully taken, more than usual, by the discoveries.

    Congratulations to the 4 of you!

    Reply
  2. gaële says

    Thursday 10th May, 2012 at 05:00 AM

    Simon, Leanne, Andres and Nicol…
    I hope all goes well for the 4 of you. I see no news since may 2nd, and I have to say I am a bit worried: does it not seem strange to worry for people I have never met? but you have been so openly sharing your life moments with us that … it seems difficult to ignore this brutal stop.
    I would like to send some… good wishes.

    Reply
    • Sim' says

      Thursday 10th May, 2012 at 11:18 AM

      Thanks for the good wishes – we are fine, just busy!

      We have spent the past 5 days in the Coffee Region north of Cali (near Armenia). Long days of sightseeing and going to bed early, too exhausted to get caught up with the blogging!

      We fly to Bogota tomorrow, so hopefully I will have some time then to catch up with the blog.

      Reply
  3. Bill and Jill says

    Sunday 6th May, 2012 at 07:20 PM

    Lovely photos and blog. We so enjoy it all!

    Reply
  4. Bill and Jill says

    Sunday 6th May, 2012 at 07:16 PM

    Lovely photos and blog.

    Reply
  5. Therese Goshorn says

    Saturday 5th May, 2012 at 02:45 PM

    Our warmest congratulations to you Simon,Leanne and Andres on the arrival of your dear little daughter and sister. Thankyou for sharing your special journey with us. Our girls, Claudia and Kimberly, are especially enjoying the pictures and tales of travels with Magnolia, remebering our own trip back there last year for a visit. We wish you well for the remainer of your trip and will continue to enjoy your posts.
    Warmest regards,
    Therese, Brett, Claudia and Kimberly.

    Reply
  6. Trevor Hampel says

    Saturday 5th May, 2012 at 11:48 AM

    Delightful photos.

    Reply

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