Translation of actualizar

In the beginning it looked brutal but it worked. He brought my wallet back to me and asked me to count the bills in it. I was stunned and could not believe what just happened. He repeated his order.
Nevertheless I think that we need to communicate. All in all, we will learn a lot from each other, mostly by writing, but speaking exercises are also really good for your Spanish skills. Is this OK?
Although the travel guide book mentioned a three star hotel we did not even had to enter the lobby in order to see that we would not sleep there. So we picked another recommendation and drove on.