So I have to be honest, I started this post 4 months ago when I had reached my 1 year anniversary of being in the Foreign Service. It's funny to look back and realize that I was in such a different place back then than I am in now. To get things started, I'll include what I originally wrote:
"Well, it has been quite a while since I last posted. I could take up time and space to explain all the reasons why, but instead I'll try to be as concise and honest as possible. There are two reasons why I haven't blogged in a while. First, I've been busy. I know, I know, it's so cliche and isn't everyone in the world busy with something. To be honest I'm still just adjusting to all the things that are new in my life and that take extra time. Additionally, visa demand is so high here in Caracas, that by the end of the day I'm just exhausted from head to toe. The second reason is that lately I have felt like I haven't had many good things to blog about and I really didn't want to share my frustrations with all you readers. Venezuela can be a very frustrating place and people simply live in a bubble where they only worry about themselves.
The post ended there because I had to run and get something else done that evening with Steph. I never came back to it and I'm glad I didn't finish my own little rant/tantrum. It's interesting to look as see where I was only three months ago. Additionally, as hindsight is always 20/20, I find it fascinating and a little funny to reflect on my very own personal culture shock. I commented to Steph just yesterday on how I've been feeling life here in Caracas for us feels so normal. After coming back from our first of two R&Rs in Minnesota in May, it was a really hard adjustment to come back to our life here because it's just so different. Now, it feels as though we have our own life and the things that seemed to consume us are just a part of that life we share. Now, I still don't understand why it's okay to make a left turn on a red light, but not when there's only a green light (where in the US you can yield and turn), but at least now I can laugh about it (most of the time). There are definitely some things that I really don't like about the culture here, and some things I'll never get used to, but as I was explaining to Steph, I feel as though the things we have in our life simply overpower that now.
We really do have wonderful friends and a great community here. More than that, I feel as though Steph and I have found our niches in so many ways. I've already brewed three batches of beer here at home. The beer here is weak and not very tasty, so this is a great thing to share. The latest batch is called "Culture Shock Ale" as a tip of the hat to end my own little pity party. Also, Steph and I have had the chance to get out and see more of Venezuela. We recently returned from a 5 day trip to Canaima
National Park where Angel Falls (the worlds tallest waterfall) is located. I think she's planning to post about that soon. I know she's promised pictures to many people as well. Finally, Steph recently started working in the Consular section with me conducting visa interviews. It's been an adjustment for us to work together in the same office, but more so for her to return to work and have it be such a change from what she did in the past. It will take time, but I think we'll enjoy the extra income, and I think she likes having a little more routine in her day.
Another thing coming down the pipeline is the move we will be doing soon. I know, I know, another move... I think we've become famous for the number of moves we conducted. We'll still be here in Caracas, and still in the neighborhood, but we had been dealing with some major mold and maintenance issues in our current apartment for over 3 months, so we're being moved into a cleaner, healthier apartment down the street. We'll be losing our killer view of Caracas, but it's a small price to pay to have a healthy home. We're excited to get into our new place and are looking forward to getting settled in and making that "normal."
Well, that's about all I have for now. I'm going to try to put more posts up more frequently now that life is what it is. We'll be bidding on our next assignment in late August/early September, so I at least need to post something about that once we're assigned.
Until next time...
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
The Sweet Taste of Victory...Carmenere, Merlot and Sauvignon Blanc
Well, the first order of business is obviously a final report on the bugs. I seriously doubt this will be the "final" report on bugs, but it's final for now. Here it is:
Steph: 3 Bugs: 1
A solid win for me! I am happy to report that we have not had any moths in our kitchen for probably 3 weeks. The ants have been completely eliminated with my Terro traps (a plug for them) and I have only found 1 roach since my last report and he was dead, meaning the poison is working. Hooray!!! It's much better not to have to greet my little friends each morning.
To celebrate (and also because we have been dreaming about it for a long time), Brian and I took a trip to Chile. Many of you know that I studied there for about 6 months during my undergraduate studies and that Brian came to visit me during that time and saw part of Chile. We both loved it and have wanted to go back ever since, particularly to see my host family and to do wine country. This trip was about a 10 day trip and was centered on seeing the things we saw when I was there as a student but Brian didn't have a chance to experience, visiting my host family, checking out Santiago and seeing the vineyards. It was amazing!!! Here are the highlights:
Santiago-What a wonderful city.....we enjoyed a lot of time just metroing from neighborhood to neighborhood and walking around to enjoy the parks, get a feel for the city and enjoy a pisco sour or cafe here and there. We had some wonderful food and met up with a colleague of Brian's who works there. We had a great time and returned for a day on the back end of our trip before flying out. I think Fuente Alemana was Brian's favorite part (I'm hoping he might have time to write this week and share a bit with you).
Vina del Mar/Valparaiso-Not even sure where to begin. Obviously in Vina we spent time with my host family. We had such a great time catching up and they were blown away by Brian's Spanish, so that was fun. Chilean hospitality always amazes me. Before we left lunch with my host family, they presented us with the hand crocheted table centerpiece that my host mom had made almost 6 years ago when Brian and I were married and she has been saving for us ever since. Along with that came 2 boxes of artisan alfajores and a bottle of pisco (Note: Alfajores are an incredibly indulgent and wonderful Chilean treat. They consist of two pastries sandwiched together with manjar and covered in chocolate. Pisco is the traditional Chilean liquor. They mix it with lemon juice and sugar to make a pisco sour or with coca cola to make Piscola. If you want to see a Chilean get angry, just mention that you heard the Peruvians actually invented Pisco.) So very Chilean and so much hospitality I don't even have words. In Valparaiso we spent time wandering the hills. We walked up to Pablo Neruda's house on the top of one of the highest Valpo. hills and took some pictures and enjoyed the huge murals that are part of the open air museum on our walk down. It was really fun and we got a great day for it.
Wine country-Here again, so many highlights...We tried to see a variety of vineyards and wineries while we were there and really feel like we did that and still had time to relax. We saw an organic, biodynamic winery owned by one of the largest wine producers in Chile (Emiliana), one of the most modern facilities for producing premium wine in the region (Lapostolle), a smaller boutique vineyard where we talked with an 86 year old man who was the owner and founder of the brand (Laura Hartwig), enjoyed a four course tasting lunch with wine pairings at House of Morande and stayed at a luxury hotel at one of the vineyards that was absolutely beautiful (Matetic). We are looking forward to hopefully being able to find some of our favorites from these wineries when we're home and sharing our enjoyment of them with you.
So, as you can tell, we had a wonderful trip. We're missing Chile a little bit, but more than anything it made us look forward to planning more adventures there. I think it is a country we will return to many times...so much to see.
I'm finally getting around to getting pictures organized and posted on a site accessible for everyone. Chile pictures and some Venezuela stuff's available at www.beckmannsabroad.myphotoalbum.com. For some things you will need a password and we're only making it available to people we know (such as our apartment). If that's you and you want to see the password protected stuff, just send me an email (steph_beckmann@yahoo.com) and I'll set you up. Looking forward to hearing from some of you soon!
Hugs,
Steph
Steph: 3 Bugs: 1
A solid win for me! I am happy to report that we have not had any moths in our kitchen for probably 3 weeks. The ants have been completely eliminated with my Terro traps (a plug for them) and I have only found 1 roach since my last report and he was dead, meaning the poison is working. Hooray!!! It's much better not to have to greet my little friends each morning.
To celebrate (and also because we have been dreaming about it for a long time), Brian and I took a trip to Chile. Many of you know that I studied there for about 6 months during my undergraduate studies and that Brian came to visit me during that time and saw part of Chile. We both loved it and have wanted to go back ever since, particularly to see my host family and to do wine country. This trip was about a 10 day trip and was centered on seeing the things we saw when I was there as a student but Brian didn't have a chance to experience, visiting my host family, checking out Santiago and seeing the vineyards. It was amazing!!! Here are the highlights:
Santiago-What a wonderful city.....we enjoyed a lot of time just metroing from neighborhood to neighborhood and walking around to enjoy the parks, get a feel for the city and enjoy a pisco sour or cafe here and there. We had some wonderful food and met up with a colleague of Brian's who works there. We had a great time and returned for a day on the back end of our trip before flying out. I think Fuente Alemana was Brian's favorite part (I'm hoping he might have time to write this week and share a bit with you).
Vina del Mar/Valparaiso-Not even sure where to begin. Obviously in Vina we spent time with my host family. We had such a great time catching up and they were blown away by Brian's Spanish, so that was fun. Chilean hospitality always amazes me. Before we left lunch with my host family, they presented us with the hand crocheted table centerpiece that my host mom had made almost 6 years ago when Brian and I were married and she has been saving for us ever since. Along with that came 2 boxes of artisan alfajores and a bottle of pisco (Note: Alfajores are an incredibly indulgent and wonderful Chilean treat. They consist of two pastries sandwiched together with manjar and covered in chocolate. Pisco is the traditional Chilean liquor. They mix it with lemon juice and sugar to make a pisco sour or with coca cola to make Piscola. If you want to see a Chilean get angry, just mention that you heard the Peruvians actually invented Pisco.) So very Chilean and so much hospitality I don't even have words. In Valparaiso we spent time wandering the hills. We walked up to Pablo Neruda's house on the top of one of the highest Valpo. hills and took some pictures and enjoyed the huge murals that are part of the open air museum on our walk down. It was really fun and we got a great day for it.
Wine country-Here again, so many highlights...We tried to see a variety of vineyards and wineries while we were there and really feel like we did that and still had time to relax. We saw an organic, biodynamic winery owned by one of the largest wine producers in Chile (Emiliana), one of the most modern facilities for producing premium wine in the region (Lapostolle), a smaller boutique vineyard where we talked with an 86 year old man who was the owner and founder of the brand (Laura Hartwig), enjoyed a four course tasting lunch with wine pairings at House of Morande and stayed at a luxury hotel at one of the vineyards that was absolutely beautiful (Matetic). We are looking forward to hopefully being able to find some of our favorites from these wineries when we're home and sharing our enjoyment of them with you.
So, as you can tell, we had a wonderful trip. We're missing Chile a little bit, but more than anything it made us look forward to planning more adventures there. I think it is a country we will return to many times...so much to see.
I'm finally getting around to getting pictures organized and posted on a site accessible for everyone. Chile pictures and some Venezuela stuff's available at www.beckmannsabroad.myphotoalbum.com. For some things you will need a password and we're only making it available to people we know (such as our apartment). If that's you and you want to see the password protected stuff, just send me an email (steph_beckmann@yahoo.com) and I'll set you up. Looking forward to hearing from some of you soon!
Hugs,
Steph
Thursday, March 4, 2010
She Said: Bugs, Bugs, Bugs
Well, you can probably guess what this post is going to be about....that's right folks, we've got bugs. Now I'm happy to report, unlike some other parts of the world, that ours are relatively small and harmless and I have waged an all out war on them.
Ants: Ants are a pretty common thing here. I think the ones that we have came in on a bag of sugar and quickly made themselves at home. They are little sugar ants and they do little more than drive me crazy building their highway across the kitchen. Unfortunately for them, when the first HHE shipment arrived (last Friday), my Terro ant traps also arrived. Within a day I had them under control.
Bugs: 0 Steph: 1
Cockroaches: Yes, it's disgusting, but cockroaches pretty much come with the territory here. I did have to laugh when our housekeeper asked if they were big ones or small ones that we had. I said big ones and she was relieved. She said those are the kind you just kill and throw out. The little ones get into everything according to her. So, GSO helped me out by putting some goo down on the drains and I put down some traps with a lovely snack that they can take to their nest so that if we find them at all, they will be dead.
Bugs: 0 Steph: 2
Indian Meal Moths: Well, I saved the best for last. These, quite frankly, are making me absolutely crazy. They are a kind of moth that comes in on flour or grains (probably some beans or flour from the grocery store) and they feed and breed in those things and in your cupboards. We have thrown away so much food it makes me sick and I have cleaned the cupboards inside and out at least three times. Every morning we come into the kitchen to find at least one of these little guys perched on the ceiling. I curse them, kill them and wait for the next day to see how many I will find. At this point we have no idea where they're coming from. There's nothing left for them to live on. We have cleaned everything and have not found anything that looks like the webbing they makes, etc. All of my rice, pasta, flour, sugar, anything they might like is now in the freezer. The cupboards are bare with only tin cans remaining. I did talk to a friend who had these in Guyana and she said it takes a while to get rid of them, so I'm hoping we're still winning. In the meantime, I ordered traps for these little guys on Amazon. The good news is...every day there are less of them. The last two days we have only found 1 or 2. The bad news is...I'm still finding 1 or 2 a day.
Bugs:1 Steph: 2
As you can see from the scoreboard, I'm still winning. I hope to be reporting the final score along with victory in my next blog post
Single handedly keeping the do it yourself pest control industry in business from Venezuela!
S
Ants: Ants are a pretty common thing here. I think the ones that we have came in on a bag of sugar and quickly made themselves at home. They are little sugar ants and they do little more than drive me crazy building their highway across the kitchen. Unfortunately for them, when the first HHE shipment arrived (last Friday), my Terro ant traps also arrived. Within a day I had them under control.
Bugs: 0 Steph: 1
Cockroaches: Yes, it's disgusting, but cockroaches pretty much come with the territory here. I did have to laugh when our housekeeper asked if they were big ones or small ones that we had. I said big ones and she was relieved. She said those are the kind you just kill and throw out. The little ones get into everything according to her. So, GSO helped me out by putting some goo down on the drains and I put down some traps with a lovely snack that they can take to their nest so that if we find them at all, they will be dead.
Bugs: 0 Steph: 2
Indian Meal Moths: Well, I saved the best for last. These, quite frankly, are making me absolutely crazy. They are a kind of moth that comes in on flour or grains (probably some beans or flour from the grocery store) and they feed and breed in those things and in your cupboards. We have thrown away so much food it makes me sick and I have cleaned the cupboards inside and out at least three times. Every morning we come into the kitchen to find at least one of these little guys perched on the ceiling. I curse them, kill them and wait for the next day to see how many I will find. At this point we have no idea where they're coming from. There's nothing left for them to live on. We have cleaned everything and have not found anything that looks like the webbing they makes, etc. All of my rice, pasta, flour, sugar, anything they might like is now in the freezer. The cupboards are bare with only tin cans remaining. I did talk to a friend who had these in Guyana and she said it takes a while to get rid of them, so I'm hoping we're still winning. In the meantime, I ordered traps for these little guys on Amazon. The good news is...every day there are less of them. The last two days we have only found 1 or 2. The bad news is...I'm still finding 1 or 2 a day.
Bugs:1 Steph: 2
As you can see from the scoreboard, I'm still winning. I hope to be reporting the final score along with victory in my next blog post
Single handedly keeping the do it yourself pest control industry in business from Venezuela!
S
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