Regroup

OK...so I was a little bit stressed out and grumpy when I last posted...sorry about that, and things are much better now.  We were indeed able to cancel our airline tickets with only a minimal penalty, thank goodness. 

A funny side-note about the travel agent we have been using..."T" was recommended to us by our adoption agency, and many other families adopting from Colombia have worked with him.  T has been really helpful and is super knowledgeable about adoption travel, especially to Central and South American countries.  BUT...he can be tough to get a hold of, and isn't the best at returning calls.  I am not sure if he is just a little bit forgetful??  Anyways, when I was trying to get our travel itinerary cancelled last week, I emailed once and called him 5 times before I caught him in the office and got confirmation that the cancellation had been processed.  Jason was afraid that T would start blocking my calls, but I was kind of freaking out, and T was very gracious about the whole thing.  Once that was taken care of, I could relax a little.

We also had to re-schedule our appointments at the Colombian Consulate.  After I got the news last week about our change in travel plans, I tried to cancel our appointment at the Consulate using their web page...didn't work.  I then called and left a voice message on their automated system, but have no idea if the message got passed to the proper party. 

So I went back on the Consulate's internet site to book new appointments.  Their web page cracks me up...it is in Spanish, but there is an option to view an English translation version.  If you push the English button, it refreshes the page, but only about 10 words on the page change from Spanish to English.  What??  Really??  Anyways, my Spanish may be a little bit rusty, but I was able to clearly make out the statement that "if you cancel an appointment with less than 24 hours notice, we will block you from re-scheduling a new appointment for one month".  Oh great.  I wanted to yell at the computer "But...it wasn't my fault!!!!  I tried to cancel my appointment, but your system wouldn't let me!!!!!  Why is this happening to me?!?!"  I tried to test the system and re-book our appointments anyways, and...no-go, it blocked me.  Shoot!  BUT, Jason stepped in, mid-meltdown, and came to the rescue with a great idea, and we were able to successfully get new appointments.  Whew! 

Once we had the travel itinerary cancelled, and the Consulate appointments re-scheduled, the rest of the weekend was spent doing the very important task of S..L..O..W..I..N..G  down.  Ever since we got our referral, it seems that we have been living at this crazy pace trying to get ready to travel in January.  Now that we have an extra month on our hands, and everything is pretty much ready, we can kind of chill out and have some time for reflection, relaxation, and fun before we go.  It is amazing how recharging it can be to spend a weekend lounging around in your favorite fuzzy-footed slippers and drinking hot cocoa.  It was great!