Well, this post is much overdue, but these past couple weeks have been quite crazy. As many of you have read, Steph arrived in DC a little more than a week ago. I was so happy to have her finally arrive here for good. More than 2 months had passed since we said goodbye and I headed out here for training. It is so nice having her around now to be able to share this experience with me. I know she worked extremely hard on getting our things ready for our packout from Minnesota. A nice little break is well deserved for her. It's definitely strange to think that it may be 8 months until we see our "stuff" again... I guess this is the life we've signed up for... a small price to pay for all we gain in my opinion.
I'm having a little trouble trying to figure out where to start for my post tonight. Since I last posted, a lot has happened, but I'm not totally sure what of it is blog worthy. The biggest thing that has happened in the past couple weeks was Steph's arrival in DC. Hopefully we'll be able to share some more fun adventures stateside while she is here before we head to Venezuela. I know that once we are abroad, we will have many adventures to share with you all through the blog, but I feel as though we're in this crazy little gray area where we have to decide carefully what to post and what is really not that interesting... what a challenge!
2 weeks ago, I celebrated my 27th birthday, without Steph and without my family. It was strange to not really have anyone THAT close to me to celebrate with. I actually have never really experienced that in my life. I did end up having a pretty good day. I went to class/work, had dinner with some classmates, and then went out for drinks with some of the guys from my A-100 class. In the middle of the evening, one of my friends asked me if I had a good birthday. My answer was this, "In the past I've had working birthdays, and they've never really been that bad. When I look back on today and realize that right now my job is to learn a language, I have nothing to complain about." That simple reflection really sums it up for me right now. I try to remember everyday how lucky I am to have this opportunity, and I'm even luckier to be able to share it with Steph.
Other than Steph's arrival and my birthday, not that much has happened. The summer softball season in DC and I am coaching/organizing one of the two teams from our A-100 class. I'm looking forward to enjoying another summer of softball in the District...one of my favorite past times. Spanish has been going well. I definitely feel as though I've progressed during my 4 weeks. I have my first mini-assessment next week to determine my progress. I've been taking every opportunity to speak as much as I can in class, and Steph and I spoke only in Spanish for a half hour last night. The Department tells us that we should see a significant difference by week 10. I'd be lying if I didn't say that I really wish week 10 came sooner. I know that learning is a process, but I'm really just ready to begin using my newfound language skills.
I hope that this post finds you all well. Please keep the notes and calls coming our way. We surely do appreciate all of your love, support, and friendship.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Thursday, May 14, 2009
She Said: Packed Out and In DC
Well, we passed a big milestone last week. Last Wednesday, the movers came and we officially "packed out" for the first time in our foreign service lives. We have done three cross country moves with the help of family and friends, and while they were wonderful, I'm here to say that professional movers are the way to go! It was so nice to have them come in and pack everything up and they were extremely efficient. A big shout out to my mom, Brian's mom, and Ellie for all your help on move day. Without you, we never would have been out of that place in one day!!
On Friday morning after the move, my dad and I headed for DC. It's about a 21 hour drive, so we decided to do about 15 of those hours on Friday and the remaining 6 on Saturday. It was actually a really fun trip and we had plenty of coffee stops, treat runs, and meals on the road together. It was a nice chance for us to spend some quality time together.
Saturday we arrived in DC. I was so glad to see Brian and am so glad to be out here with him. Living apart was no fun! Brian is making amazing progress in Spanish and it's fun to be able to talk with each other. Yesterday Brian and I went to do our passport applications. It took us nearly the whole morning to do our applications, get our pictures taken and wait in line to get them processed. But after all of that, we are well on our way to having our diplomatic passports. Exciting! We ended the evening with a dinner together at La Tasca. It's a tapas restaurant about 10 minutes from us and it was nice to finally take a deep breath and be able to spend some time together just catching up and not doing anything "administrative."
Now that I'm here, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about what it is that I want to do, both for the next six months, and for the two years we'll be in Venezuela. As we've begun to talk with the people out here who can really help me with that search, it seems I have a lot more to focus on and work on out here than I had anticipated. Suddenly my summer is filling up and it looks like the next six months will be spent "building a toolbox" for Venezuela. Brian and I call it building a toolbox because while I'm not doing any one specific thing, I am basically just growing my skill set and qualifications so that I will ahve options in Venezuela. It looks like this summer will be spent networking with old contacts, reaching out to new people, taking the Consular course at FSI, brushing up on my Spanish, taking the protocal course and taking a short vacation to Maine. I am excited about the opportunity to take the course at FSI to see what opportunities might be available for me within the embassy as well. Aside from that, I'm looking forward to having a few visitors :-)
We're hoping to be back to Minnesota at least once more before we leave in October. We'll keep you posted.
On Friday morning after the move, my dad and I headed for DC. It's about a 21 hour drive, so we decided to do about 15 of those hours on Friday and the remaining 6 on Saturday. It was actually a really fun trip and we had plenty of coffee stops, treat runs, and meals on the road together. It was a nice chance for us to spend some quality time together.
Saturday we arrived in DC. I was so glad to see Brian and am so glad to be out here with him. Living apart was no fun! Brian is making amazing progress in Spanish and it's fun to be able to talk with each other. Yesterday Brian and I went to do our passport applications. It took us nearly the whole morning to do our applications, get our pictures taken and wait in line to get them processed. But after all of that, we are well on our way to having our diplomatic passports. Exciting! We ended the evening with a dinner together at La Tasca. It's a tapas restaurant about 10 minutes from us and it was nice to finally take a deep breath and be able to spend some time together just catching up and not doing anything "administrative."
Now that I'm here, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about what it is that I want to do, both for the next six months, and for the two years we'll be in Venezuela. As we've begun to talk with the people out here who can really help me with that search, it seems I have a lot more to focus on and work on out here than I had anticipated. Suddenly my summer is filling up and it looks like the next six months will be spent "building a toolbox" for Venezuela. Brian and I call it building a toolbox because while I'm not doing any one specific thing, I am basically just growing my skill set and qualifications so that I will ahve options in Venezuela. It looks like this summer will be spent networking with old contacts, reaching out to new people, taking the Consular course at FSI, brushing up on my Spanish, taking the protocal course and taking a short vacation to Maine. I am excited about the opportunity to take the course at FSI to see what opportunities might be available for me within the embassy as well. Aside from that, I'm looking forward to having a few visitors :-)
We're hoping to be back to Minnesota at least once more before we leave in October. We'll keep you posted.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
She Said: Last day at Target, Preparing for Packout
Today is Brian's birthday, another milestone apart :-( . I am ready for this part of the journey to be over!!! Happy birthday Bri!
Aside from the fact that I am missing another celebration with Brian, this has been an extremely challenging week. Last Friday was my last day at Target and I cried harder than I think I have ever cried when I left a job. I loved Target from the day that I first reached out to them to find out about what opportunities they had available (some would argue even before that), and I love it even more having worked for them. A shoutout to Target, they are outstanding from start to finish!! As I said goodbye to my coworkers, I started to get teary eyed, and by the time I got in my car, I was definitely crying. I miss the people there already!
On Friday night, Brian arrived and he and I spent the majority of the weekend sorting, labeling, donating and organizing. The leadup to packout has been quite the experience. While in other moves I have been overwhelmed by the thought of packing all of my possessions into boxes, in this move I am overwhelmed at the thought of not packing anything. Everything is literally sitting out in our apartment and I have the urge to just start boxing and sealing. No worries Brian, I will not do that. I know that everything must be seen and packed by the movers for insurance purposes. There always has to be some red tape. Beyond simply sorting and organizing, I think the worst part of packout has been the inventory. Granted, some of it is because of my own choices about inventory, but it has been painful nonetheless. Because we won't see a lot of our possessions for anywhere from 6 months to 2 years, I want to be as organized as possible, and know which possessions are in which boxes. I have put everything into an online system (which is great by the way, www.knowyourstuff.org) labeled with its location, description and the box number. Tomorrow the movers will be here to box everything up and take it away. My dad and I will leave for DC on Friday morning.
Aside from the logistics, there are exciting things going on, which is the fun part of this adventure. For the first time since we started dating, I have been able to share some of my favorite Spanish music with Brian and he can really understand the meaning. That has been fun. He is really progressing quickly and it's fun to watch him. I have also made several Venezuela contacts here in Minnesota just in talking with people. In about a half hour I will be talking with a woman whose husband is Venezuelan and has offered to share insights and answer questions for us. If there's one thing I've learned about Venezuelans so far, it's that they are warm, and welcoming and so open to sharing their country with you. I can't wait to experience that first hand when we get on the ground. Looking forward to sharing more stories with you soon!
Aside from the fact that I am missing another celebration with Brian, this has been an extremely challenging week. Last Friday was my last day at Target and I cried harder than I think I have ever cried when I left a job. I loved Target from the day that I first reached out to them to find out about what opportunities they had available (some would argue even before that), and I love it even more having worked for them. A shoutout to Target, they are outstanding from start to finish!! As I said goodbye to my coworkers, I started to get teary eyed, and by the time I got in my car, I was definitely crying. I miss the people there already!
On Friday night, Brian arrived and he and I spent the majority of the weekend sorting, labeling, donating and organizing. The leadup to packout has been quite the experience. While in other moves I have been overwhelmed by the thought of packing all of my possessions into boxes, in this move I am overwhelmed at the thought of not packing anything. Everything is literally sitting out in our apartment and I have the urge to just start boxing and sealing. No worries Brian, I will not do that. I know that everything must be seen and packed by the movers for insurance purposes. There always has to be some red tape. Beyond simply sorting and organizing, I think the worst part of packout has been the inventory. Granted, some of it is because of my own choices about inventory, but it has been painful nonetheless. Because we won't see a lot of our possessions for anywhere from 6 months to 2 years, I want to be as organized as possible, and know which possessions are in which boxes. I have put everything into an online system (which is great by the way, www.knowyourstuff.org) labeled with its location, description and the box number. Tomorrow the movers will be here to box everything up and take it away. My dad and I will leave for DC on Friday morning.
Aside from the logistics, there are exciting things going on, which is the fun part of this adventure. For the first time since we started dating, I have been able to share some of my favorite Spanish music with Brian and he can really understand the meaning. That has been fun. He is really progressing quickly and it's fun to watch him. I have also made several Venezuela contacts here in Minnesota just in talking with people. In about a half hour I will be talking with a woman whose husband is Venezuelan and has offered to share insights and answer questions for us. If there's one thing I've learned about Venezuelans so far, it's that they are warm, and welcoming and so open to sharing their country with you. I can't wait to experience that first hand when we get on the ground. Looking forward to sharing more stories with you soon!
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