ESTEBAN JOEL: AMAZING BOY BLOGGER: Mi Tierra Santa

Adopting a fully-grown set of parents can be a very taxing and all-consuming process.

What I mean is that as wonderful and fullfilling as the experience is... it's very easy to lose sight of some other things that are also very important.

For example... It's suddenly dawning on me that I will soon be moving away from my hometown of Cali. Moving away maybe forever.

Yikes.

I've been so caught up in all of the hoopla of the adoption that I didn't think about that. What if I never get to come back? What if I'm not allowed to come back? What if I forget everything about this place?

Mommy and Daddy say that will NEVER happen. They say I will know from day one exactly what the score is. I will know that I'm from Colombia just like I'll know that Mommy is from Puerto Rico and Daddy from Texas. But just to make sure, we took one last road trip into the mountains of Cali so we could all appreciate, up close, the true beauty of this country. Of my country.

We drove 45 minutes up a mountain until we reached a cloud just so we could come here. It's called Manolo's Restaurant. The story goes that 25 years ago Manolo, a man from Spain, fell in love with a Colombian lady from Cali and moved all the way over here just to be with her. He then opened this restaurant which is now famous for making the best paella in all of Colombia.

Mommy, Daddy, Carlos and Adriana all agreed that the sangria isn't too shabby either.

I invited Adriana to come along because I needed to talk to her. I couldn't afford to be tied down right now. I was starting a new life in America and everyone knows that long distance relationships just don't work. She's a good kid and I wanted to let her down easy. I wanted her to just forget about me and move on with her life... if she could.