Last full day in Colombia

Well... this is it! We did it! Today was our last full day in Colombia and tomorrow we leave for Miami, where we will be visiting my cousin Laisa and her husband Eric. We tried to make the most of the day even though the girls were tired. The house we are staying is great but the main disadvantage is that our room does not have windows we can open, so we let the door ajar for air and the mosquitoes get in. Bogota is really very rainy and much cooler than Medellin, with temperatures in the 60s and 70s. It rains almost every night which means.. mosquitoes!
Here is what happened today.
We hired a driver who had driven us to the embassy to show us a couple of things in the city. We wanted to first go to the Divine Child Church. Here it is called "Iglesia del 20 de julio". I asked our driver why it was called that way, he said because '20 de julio' is the name of the area where the church is located. We thought it was an important date. We wanted to see this church, because my mom (Mercedes' mom) had asked me to go see it. It is a national Shrine for the Child Jesus. The area where the church is in is not that nice. It is a poor barrio, but the church brings in so many visitors a year that this is helping the economy there. The church has been renovated and the old church is only for daily mass while a church that is annexed to the old church is for Sunday mass. There is now a patio with Roses in the back as well as a brand new restaurant in the back of the church.
We got there, prayed, walked around and took pictures. The girls asked me "Are we going to mass?", I said no.. they seemed relieved.. they are not crazy about going to mass. The girls also got to put money in the church and were curious about the new 'candles' they have there. The way it works is that you put a certain amount of money there and a light goes on. That way there is no risk of fire. We then went to buy some souvenirs at the Church store. The girls chose a little statue for their room and a rosary. We bought some other little things, but could not buy more since our bags are pretty full. I also bought the girls saint bracelets from a lady. She said, 'ah.. little paisa girls, you are from Medellin'... she also said some other strange things, but they got beautiful well made bracelets for 3,000 pesos ($1.50).
We then went to the center of town, to the plaza outside of the presidential palace.
The girls had seen pigeons at the 20 de julio church. I had told Sucena we were going to see more pigeons. She was a lot more interested in feeding the pigeons than learning about the government. We got there and there were many people asking for money, coming up to us to sell us things. The girls are not used to this, and felt sorry for the people who were doing this. We bought some corn from an old man. The girls fed the pigeons and while we were there our driver told us some things that had and were going on there. There was a presidential candidate from a small party who was on hunger strike. He had been there for a while, we were not sure what they point of his hunger strike was.. He also showed us the congress building where he said that in 1985 there was a bombing there where a lot of diplomats where murdered,he said there are still investigations going on regarding who had been involved in this.
We had thought about going to the gold museum, but the girls had not slept well the night before and were tired so we went to lunch close to there. I was a little stressed as there were many people on the streets and trying to keep people together was challenging. When we got to the place to eat,(a food court inside a small mall where they buy and sell gold), there were people there haggling trying to get customers to buy from their restaurant. This was not something we expected and the girls were very annoyed by it. Our oldest, Milena asked our driver (Reinel) why they did this... He simply answered that they wanted customers, her response was "They never do this in Medellin" Very true, as Medellin is more laid back and the pace is totally different. I could see that the girls were not impressed by the big city. "So this is Bogota.." Milena said.. Medellin is 10 time prettier and better"..No offense to people from Bogota, but I agreed with her. Medellin felt a lot more comfortable and much more family friendly.
We decided the girls had had enough and asked our driver to drive to the embassy to meet our representative and pick up our visas. On the way there we got to a street where we had to turn around. There was a police, tanks etc. Reinel said" There is always a protest in this city, they are always protesting something. He went to explain that there had been demonstrations at one of the universities the night before because Uribe had signed an agreement with Europe to import dairy products.
(Maybe next time I can enjoy them if they come from Europe as for some reason I became lactose intolerant here and was not able to consume any... --MM)
Reinel stopped at a park close to the embassy so they girls could play in a park and pass the time before I had to pick up the Visas. They played for a little while there. The equipment looked in OK shape for the area looked like at some point it had a luxurious neighborhood and now it was low middle class. From there the driver dropped me off at the embassy where I met our representative and picked up our visas. There was a another lady there adopting a baby girl and she had just gotten her visa. I was not sure if the man she was with was her husband ( he looked older), or the representative.
When I (MM) got back to the house we met with our representative for about 30 minutes going over what to give immigration here in Bogota, in the US what the visas mean etc. The visas are to travel from Colombia to the US, but once the girls enter the US they are US citizens. We will then get US passports for them there. We started packing, and during dinner the girls said goodbye to all their friends they had made here. Three of the girls gave away the Barbies I had brought for them (which was fine). They wanted to leave something for them. It's amazing how sociable our girls are and how fast they make friends. We hope to they do the same in the US.
They struggled to sleep as they were very anxious but finally went to sleep at around 8:30 (It took them an hour or so to calm down before sleeping. This is longer than usual). I think this place will be very quiet tomorrow.
We are getting up tomorrow at 3 for a 4am taxi ride to the airport. It will be a long day...