Moving to La Ciudad

Yesterday we spent the morning at the apartment getting settled in, exploring Antigua, and getting ready to move to Guatemala City for the week long empathy study. In the moring we played at the playground that is about 20 feet from our door. Then we wandered in to Antigua and walked to the central park. There we ran into another adoptive family from Casa. We had a great time chatting with them and getting the information on the best local places. After that, we changed our money to Q and tested the recommendation for Ice Cream at Marco Polo. The Chocolate Mint Ice Cream was great. On the way back to the apartment, I (This is Victor writing) found the spot to feed my addiction to cold caffeine. There is a tienda only a block from the apartment with cold soda. In the afternoon, we rode in a car in a pouring rain storm from Antigua to the Westin in the city. We spent the evening finding food and getting acquainted with the neighborhood.

This morning we had a meeting scheduled for 8:30 at the CNA. We had breakfast at McDonalds. The kids we all interested in the cool train set they had on display and we got a little behind schedule. We hussled the 10 blocks to the CNA on foot and arrived at 8:30 on the dot. Of course the meeting did not actually start until almost 10am. Welcome to Guatemala time. We met with the CNA psychologist who gave us the run down on her evaluation of Luis: he is very smart and somewhat picky about food (just like his big brother). Then we meet with the CNA Legal group who asked us to be patient with the process. Not a lot of chance we will be patient, but we listened politely anyway.
After getting back to the hotel, Chris and Caroline were anxious to get down to the pool. When we took Luis to the pool at the animal park on our last trip, he would not get within 5 feet of the edge. After we figured out the route to the pool (you have to go through the basement), Chris and Care hopped right in, followed closely by their little brother. He showed very little fear and said it was this favorite part of the day. What a nice surprise to find that he enjoys the pool too.

After getting cleaned up we went to find the nearby mall. It is about 4 blocks away and we explored all four floors in about an hour. There are a lot of food options there and so we will likely be frequent visitors while staying here. We decided on Pollo Compero, well except Chris who wanted Pizza House. We stopped at the arcade and let the kids ride a couple of the little rides and then ventured to Cemaco where we got some items we needed for the apartment. By this point the kids were pretty tired and it looked like rain was coming, so we headed back to the hotel. We wrapped up the night by watching the Incredibles, having dinner and calling some family on Skype. Now the kids are all asleep and so I will be too.