I spent this week becoming familiarized with Afghanistan via State’s “Afghanistan Familiarization” course. I learned a little bit about a whole lot of topics, but mostly learned that I knew pretty much nothing about Afghanistan before this week. For all the bad news the media covers, they sure don’t tell us a lot about what it’s really like.
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As if the holiday time isn’t busy enough, Shawn and I took a quick getaway to New Orleans (NOLA to those of you in the know) over the weekend. It was a great time! Thanks to a surprise cold snap, we were a little unprepared for the weather and didn’t get to do as many things as I was hoping to squeeze in, but we made it work.
So…November has been a busy month. It’s already Thanksgiving day and I’m exhausted. But I’ve had some fun adventures.
Apart from the surprise October snow from two weeks ago, I’ve been doing my best to enjoy the fall. It’s been a while since I’ve experienced one, and it will be a while before I see one again. (Ah…the Foreign Service…) Last week we headed out to Shenandoah National Park for a few days to enjoy the changing leaves. Of course, the aforementioned snowfall meant that we were past peak leaf-viewing time, but we still managed to have a good time.
One of the fun things about living in the Washington, DC area is that there are always new things to see. For Columbus Day, we decided to play tourist and check out some of the sights. The weather was perfect, so it was a little crowded on the National Mall, but not as bad as I’ve seen it during the summer. And today was the first day I really noticed that the trees are starting to change colors, which was quite exciting after missing that for the past two years.
Well, we safely made it out of Nassau and moved into our new apartment a week ago. As for most of our things…they were not as quick to leave Nassau as we were (even though we packed out two weeks early), so the apartment is a little empty and we’re still eating out a lot. Next time, I’ll pack more cooking utensils, pots, and pans in the air shipment.
The past month has felt a little hectic. Besides the impending sense of doom at the thought of our upcoming packout, here’s what else has been going on:
I’ve got a photo from our recent Disney World trip to share today, but first a little background information: I don’t like roller coasters. As a kid, I never went to an amusement park. My brother and I weren’t even allowed to ride the dinky rides at the county fair. You know how some college freshmen get completely out of control with that first taste of freedom? That was me at my first May Day Fair on campus — I must have ridden every ride at least 4 or 5 times. Keep in mind that these were just the silly spin you around until you feel sick sort of rides, nothing near roller coaster level. But I thought it was awesome.
So I guess it’s a new year. At least that’s what somebody told me that those fireworks were a couple of weeks ago that caused the dog to pee all over the bedroom floor in the middle of the night. Welcome to 2011!
Two weeks of vacation is my excuse for not blogging this time. We got back from the US a few days ago, but the official vacation time off from work lasts until Monday. Most of our time off was spent quietly with family, but we did spend a few days in Chicago, just the two of us. Highlights were finally seeing Wicked and daily brunch (my very favorite part of any vacation!).