Opening a vehicle hood can be more difficult than it seems, since it varies from vehicle to vehicle.
After you pull on the hood release lever, go to the front of your vehicle to find a second hood release lever just under the front end of the center of the hood. Slide the hood release lever to the right (toward the driver’s side).
Once you’ve properly replaced everything under the hood, you can close it again by pulling down on the hood until the strut system is no longer holding it up. Then you can let it fall and latch close, but be sure to verify that the hood did latch closed before you start driving. If it didn’t latch, just open the hood again and close it with a little more force.