I just finished what will probably be my last walk around downtown Nassau. I took a very similar route to my first exploratory walk two years ago. Not much has changed. The Starbucks is in a different place. But the guy outside the Bahamia store is still claiming that it “just opened” and the guy outside one of the jewelry stores is still claiming that they are having a going-out-of-business sale. And it was just as hot today as I remember it being on that first walk.
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Well, the end of our tour is rapidly approaching. We have the Embassy Independence Day reception this weekend, the following weekend we will be (hopefully) finding an apartment, and the weekend after that will consist of final pack-out preparation. As usual, I feel like there’s so much to do and so little time. But in some of the time I probably should have been using to do something productive, I put together a slideshow of some of my favorite pictures from our two years here. (For those of you that want to compare, you can find something similar from our Kyiv tour here.)
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!
I’m working on getting settled in to our new home in Nassau. First of all, our house is amazing! Way better than anywhere we’ve lived before. And much bigger in person that in the pictures we’d seen – a nice surprise. We’re currently struggling with some gas/hot water issues in the house, which is a little annoying, but at least we’re in a climate where lukewarm showers are doable. We have a big yard for Laika to run around in (for about 10 minutes at a time, then the humidity gets to her and she has to retreat to the air conditioning and her water dish), and with said humidity combined with the heat, our pool is a blessing. So far in the yard we’ve discovered a mango tree and a cherry tree. But what I’m most excited about is the fact that our neighbor’s avocado tree hangs quite a way over the fence into our yard, so I’m claiming anything that lands on our side…that’s fair, right?
One would think that moving to the Bahamas would be somewhat simpler than moving to Ukraine. No language barrier, a general similarity of cultures, etc. It turns out that this logic would be incorrect. It’s becoming clear that it is infinitely more difficult to move our little family to Nassau than we had anticipated.
We’re back in Washington, DC for the summer. We arrived Sunday afternoon and Shawn started training on Monday, while I began the process of getting the house in order and exploring the neighborhood. We’re in a great location – Foggy Bottom – with plenty of green space, restaurants, and a quick commute for Shawn. Our apartment is an old row house and is the perfect size for a single person without any pets. We, on the other hand, are two people with a large dog. We knew it was going to be small, but when we got all our stuff in the house and it filled the entire first floor (of two) of the place, I almost started crying. But now I’ve got the mess under control, and although I’m constantly tripping over Laika, I think it will be fine for a few months.
I spent over two hours this morning sorting through and organizing paperwork. You know all that random stuff that accumulates and you just put it to the side thinking that you’ll deal with it later? “Later” was today for me. I now have a three-inch stack of papers to shred. After that, I moved on to backing up computer files. The CD drive and I had a little argument, but I think I won. At least I hope I won, seeing as how we’re going to be without this computer for about 5 months.
In a moment of relative boredom today, I started flipping through my dayplanner. Okay, so this week’s almost done. Next week’s looking pretty wide open. Then – what? The following week we have our move-out inspection and going away party? The following week?! How has it become so soon that we leave? And when will I get everything done? And so the freak-out begins.
We’re one step closer to Kyiv – the movers came yesterday and removed most of our worldly belongings. I spent all day Sunday getting our things as organized as possible without actually packing anything. That’s what movers are for, right?