Sadie Abroad

Jordan - Days 8-11

2012-02-05T10:45:00.000-05:00

We were hoping to see camel racing in Wadi Rum before departing, but the Emirati prince who was presiding changed his schedule, so the races would be in the afternoon. Bummer.

We drove the short two hours to Aqaba, arriving so early that the hotel wasn't quite ready for us. When we finally got into our rooms, we quickly changed and headed out again for an afternoon of snorkeling and boating.

Aqaba is a fun seaside town. located on the very tip of the Red Sea and adjacent to Eilat, Israel. Which is adjacent to the Egyptian border. On Aqaba's other side is the Saudi border. Aqaba was the site of an important victory against the Ottomans by the T.E. Lawrence- and Sharif Hussein-led Arab forces in 1917, cementing itself in history as an important symbol for Arab statehood. A giant Arab Revolution flag flies high above the port today to commemorate this.

We boarded a very nice boat and staked our claims on the best views. We motored out of the port and were treated to grand views of all four countries in a short amount of time. The day was sunny and gorgeous and warm but not hot. The snorkeling was highly disappointing (poor equipment, heavy current, inoperable boat ladder, bleached coral), but the afternoon was not a total wash because the scenery was so compelling. I vow never to travel without my own mask and snorkel again. I imagine there are some snorkel/dive sites farther from shore that are better preserved; the conditions of the day were just not conducive to staying in the water for long. Returning to port we elected to walk back to our hotel, which gave us a nice taste of the city.

After long showers and a change of clothes, most of the group met up for dinner at a nice seafood restaurant across from the hotel. The prices were reasonable, the food decent, and we talked them into letting us use the otherwise-empty lounge area for our meal, which meant we had an open-air setting with great views of the streets below. At least a couple weddings were taking place, so we got to watch the wedding caravans as well as watch several firework displays. It was wonderful. We walked around a small market and several nearby shops, but nothing caught my fancy. I headed back to the hotel for a good night's sleep.

The next morning we packed up and headed north, this time via the Desert Highway. True to name, it boasts several hundred kilometer stretches of scenic desert. We arrived to Amman in the early evening and checked back into our starting point hotel. We went downtown for a final group meal at a trendy spot (Books@Cafe), which was bittersweet since most of us would scatter the next day. In fact, a few people left later that night. The rest of us stayed up in the lobby for last-minute conversations and then lots of hugs and promises to write and visit. Sad moments indeed.

The next morning I trekked back to the Intercontinental for one last night of luxury. I indulged in another massage and then readied myself to meet up with more friends. My good friend from orientation and Arabic and her husband are posted to Amman and are loving their time there. She picked me up and took me to Wild Jordan Cafe for soup and smoothies and lots of catching up - what a wonderful time! Then she took me to two of her favorite places - the Soap Palace and Silsal pottery. I fell in love with both. And bought entirely too much beautiful pottery that somehow needed to fit into my luggage.

We had a wonderful and delicious dinner at her home with her husband and cat and then went to a colleague's housewarming. What a perfect end to an awesome vacation! I headed to the airport the next day and flew back to Jeddah, my Jordanian odyssey having run its marvelous course.

Jordanian jets putting on a great show!

Aqaba Port

From the boat

Looking at Eilat, Israel

I think we're getting close to the Israel/Egypt border here...

Pretty water!

Jordanian coast

Jordan coast with beachgoers

The captain insisted I take his picture

Pretty!

C takes control of the helm...

The captain came back; C indicated he was steering us to Israel

Aqaba, complete with GIANT Arab Revolution flag


Sunset in Aqaba

These photos do not do justice to the beauty of these vases

The cat helps a little, but still not great photo of gorgeous vase

Jordan - Day 7

2012-02-04T17:56:00.000-05:00

All right. With just a couple days left in the U.S. (again), it's time to finish Jordan's posts!

The day after visiting Petra we woke up, packed out, and went for a scenic drive above Petra and then to Little Petra. Little Petra is more of the same of Petra in a much more accessible place. We were impressed but didn't have the desire to stay for a long period, so south we went. Today's destination - Wadi Rum!

I love the desert. Some of my favorite memories are from the Kalahari and Namib deserts in Southern Africa, looking at the stars and listening to the unique sounds of the desert at night. So I was thrilled to spend a couple days in the fabled Jordanian desert, experiencing Bedouin hospitality. This is the desert of Lawrence of Arabia fame (someone I knew very little about before this trip).

We arrived shortly before lunchtime at our staging camp, a large area with goat-hair tents, several campfire areas with surrounding majlises, a dining tent, and pristine bathrooms. I could go on and on about the bathrooms. These were, by far, the best camp bathrooms I've ever seen.

After a pleasant light lunch of salads and hummus, we embarked on our 4x4s for a half day 'jeep' excursion into the desert. The 'jeeps', mostly a collection of Toyota pickup trucks with benches fitted into the beds, were atmospheric if not the most luxurious rides. We slathered ourselves with sunscreen, fitted hats and scarves on tightly, secured our sunglasses, and we were off! After a scenic drive through a nearby village, we were soon well away from civilization and surrounded by dunes and amazing rock formations. And camels! We did a bit of dune riding, which was exciting and heart-palpitating, but mostly we just drove and marveled. And as one of my companions so cleverly noted, we kept making turns through the sand instead of going straight. Why? There was no reason we could fathom.

One of our three jeeps got a flat tire, so those passengers doubled up on the other jeeps while we waited for a replacement to come. The extra people meant some were standing, which contributed to wonderful photo opportunities! We were joking about an hour into the ride that it was time for a tea and trinkets stop, both of which were readily available wherever and whenever we stopped somewhere. Sure enough, we rounded a large rock mountain and found a goat-hair tent, its occupants beckoning us in for mint tea. A table displaying trinkets stood nearby. We laughed. For me, though, the really neat thing about this stop was seeing the rock carvings on the mountain. Apparently Nabataean and put there to direct camel caravans, they were absolutely beautiful. Very similar to the carvings I've seen in South Africa, though the animals depicted were quite different!

Once the replacement jeep arrived, we loaded back up and headed out again. While the whole afternoon was wonderful, I was a bit disappointed that there were so many other jeep caravans in the same spots we stopped in. It detracted a bit from the 'being out in the middle of nowhere' feeling we were trying to cultivate. Not to worry, that was still to come.

We stopped a few more times at natural rock formations that were great for exploring and photographing, and then we set off to find a perfect spot for sunset. We did, and as our drivers built a fire for, what else, mint tea, we bundled up against the cooler temperatures and watched a spectacular sunset.

Our drive back to the staging camp was cooler and darker, but it just gave us time to watch the full moon rise over the horizon and the stars come out. As we pulled into the camp we were greeted by dozens of lights illuminating the rock mountain behind the camp. What an amazing sight! We watched our hosts unearth dinner - literally, it was cooked underground - and then settled in for a pleasant evening of good food and Bedouin music. And then, for some reason, a disco. They plugged in amps and speakers and started playing pop music. Loudly. We opted to head off to our night camp then.

We piled into two jeeps with our overnight bags and set off on the 30 minute journey to our rustic but comfortable tented camp, a semi-permanent private camp of goat-hair tents. With the full moon and a sky full of stars (and our group full of laughter), it was a wonderful ride. We settled in and then relaxed around the fire for a while. A nearby sand dune provided great fun as several people climbed it and proclaimed themselves kings and queens of the Wadi, with the full moon shining high above them. The beds - simple frames and thin mattresses - were well appointed with heavy blankets, so sleeping was a cozy affair.

I woke the next morning, hurriedly dressed in the chilly morning air, and then emerged from my tent to find that our camp was in a truly magical setting, nestled at the juncture of two rock mountains in a perfectly sheltered little cove. It was spectacularly beautiful. What had seemed neat the night before was absolutely breathtaking by day.

We headed back to the staging camp for breakfast and then headed out for points south. On our way we stopped to photograph Lawrence's famed Seven Pillars, for which he named his autobiography.

Next stop - Aqaba!

Lawrence impressions by friends.

Spectacular scenery

Camels!

Camel caravan rock carvings!

Tea and trinkets at the ready...

R goes in for a closer look.

Silly tourists in the way...

See what I mean about congestion? This is supposed to be the middle of a desert people!

It took quite a bit of pantomiming to get them to pose like this, but what a great shot!

Gathering wood for the fire.

Oh how I love me some sand dunes!

Dinner! Fresh from underground!

First daytime look at our camp.

I mean, it doesn't get much more perfect than that!

Seven Pillars

Seven Pillars up close

Jordan - Day 6

2012-02-02T17:29:00.000-05:00

Well. Now that things are a little less, um, exciting around here, let's continue with the travelogues!

My group woke early on November 8th, excited to visit one of the newly-christened New7Wonders of the World. The gates opened at 6:30 am; we were there at about that time, and we were among the first to enter the site, and definitely the first tour group.

Petra is only accessible by two or four legs: scores of horses and carriages wait near the main gate, eager to bring tourists the ~1km to the entrance of the Siq, or, for the elderly/disabled, all the way through the main sites. Once you hit the main sites, the menagerie expands to donkeys and camels, along with their eager handlers. In the past the poor treatment of these animals has been big news, but there's now an animal/clinic at the main gates that treats the working animals (for no or low cost), educates their owners about proper treatment, and warns tourists not to add to the animals' burdens.

We were warned ahead of time that Petra was not particularly developed and not to expect too many amenities, but I didn't find this to be true. Sure, there are no trolleys or McDonald's, but there were clean bathrooms, cheap water and other drinks for sale, trinkets, including lots of jewelry, almost no trash, and plenty of benches. There were a couple restaurants in Petra City and smaller food stalls throughout, and I think it's perfect for the site. I wouldn't want too much more commercialism.

Local Bedouins are the only people allowed to work inside Petra, and many of them live in villages not far removed from the sites themselves. Our guide told us that all the men look like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean, and he wasn't too far off. So much kohl! The few vehicles that you see in Petra are driven by the Bedouin and are not for tourism.

As the sun came up on a crisp fall morning, we set off from the main gates for the first kilometer of walking to the entrance of the Siq. The Siq, a 1.2 km narrow canyon wending its way through tall, sandstone walls. The first glimpses of Nabataean carvings appear in the Siq, but the natural rock formations are the real attention-grabbers. We were all quite hyped up with adrenaline at this point, anticipating the famed moment of coming around a corner and getting our first glimpses of the majestic Treasury. Our guide occasionally pointed out important features, but we mostly walked along in awed, excited silence. At one point, Zuhair pointed to a sight high on the top of one of the canyon walls. We all gathered round him and strained to see it, but he seemed the only one able to distinguish the monument from the rock. "Oh," he said, "perhaps I'm mistaken. Perhaps it's on the other side." As we turned to see where he was pointing now, we all gasped. There, straight ahead, was the Treasury, visible only as a slice through the canyon walls. Zuhair had tricked us perfectly, not allowing us to see where we were until we were already anticipating something, without raising anyone's suspicions. Absolutely perfect. As was the vision of the Treasury.

We all but ran the last hundred meters or so and emerged into the wide area surrounding the Treasury and marking the grand beginning of this ancient Nabataean city. It was early enough that there were few other tourists, so we managed some photos without millions of heads in the way. The two camels lying down in front of the Treasury, waiting for tourists to ride them, proved great props.

After about twenty minutes of gawking, exploring, and photographing, we set off again. We walked down the Street of Facades, home to dozens of beautiful tombs and watched as the first souvenir stalls set up for the day. It was incredibly peaceful and scenic and quiet - exactly what you'd want for visiting such a site. Things were a little busier by the Roman Theater, and it took a little longer to get a good photo. We stopped for tea and snacks at a small cafe, where the local cats joined us on the benches, sunning themselves and looking for handouts. Donkey handlers called to us constantly, imploring us to ride - why walk? The Royal Tombs were next, but the climb was a bit too precarious for my knees, so I hung out with the cats, relaxed in the gorgeous sunshine, and took countless photos.

The weather was as perfect as it could possibly be - sunny without too much intensity and cool enough to make walking and hiking tolerable without shedding too many layers. I don't think I even need to roll up the sleeves of my shirt all day.

Next up was the colonnaded Cardo Maximus, a Roman addition to the site. It was much less picturesque than the tombs but pretty nonetheless. We passed an ancient pistachio tree and herds of goats foraging on the rocky outcrops. And, then, as I was sitting down taking things in, I heard someone say, "Sadie?" I looked up to see familiar faces, but it took a minute to place them as colleagues from Jeddah! We didn't realize each other would be heading to Jordan for Eid break and so met completely by chance. What a fun surprise!

After visiting the Qasr al-Bint, the only free-standing structure at Petra, we reached Petra City, a small collection of restaurants, museums, and dozens of donkeys and camels. Most people set off for the Monastery, arguably the most impressive facade at Petra, but I couldn't fathom going up (and then down) 800 stairs. Oh to have functioning knees! And there was no way I was riding up on a donkey...

I walked through a museum and jewelry shop, pondered the expensive buffet restaurant, and decided I wasn't hungry enough for a $30 meal. And then, with a free afternoon ahead of me, I set about returning to the parking lot much more slowly than the walk in. The changing light of the afternoon provided different canvases for photography, and I took about a million photos as I meandered. I stopped and bought a few tacky but oh-so-cool jars of colored sand paintings and had my name (and my niece's and nephew's) written inside.

As I was walking back, I noticed that the number of visitors had gone up significantly. It wasn't quite overwhelming, but it was pretty different than 6:30 am. I can't imagine a busy day - we were told this was a slow day!

The area in front of the Treasury was packed with tourists by the time I came back, and it was much less pleasant than the morning. I was amazed as I walked back through the Siq how many people were on their way in, even in the late afternoon. I was even more surprised at what some of the people were wearing. Maybe it's just me, but I am not sure high heels and tight skirts are the most comfortable for hiking and clambering about in the desert...

As I emerged from the Siq and headed back the interminably long main road to the gates, people were passing me in droves on their way in. They would only have time to rush to the Treasury, take a few photos, and rush back out before the site closed for the day! I know a lot of people do day trips from Aqaba or Jerusalem and so have less than a half day at Petra, but it seems a waste to rush to only one site, as seeing Petra is an experience to enjoy, at a leisurely pace.

The rest of the group slowly filtered in to the parking lot, each with stories to tell and legs to rest. A brave few had gone to the Monastery and to the High Place of Sacrifice (another 800 steps). We were all exhausted but exhilarated after a perfect day.

After a brief rest in the hotel, we met up for dinner and more story-telling before turning in for a well-deserved night's rest. Wadi Rum tomorrow!

Dawn on the road to Petra

Contemplating the entrance to the Siq

The Siq, that way.

Wide walls, getting narrower.

So, so incredibly cool!

Some perspective

First glimpse of the Treasury, courtesy of trickery!

Add caption

And there it is...

Detail

Not the friendliest camel

Street of Facades

Roman Theater

Royal Tombs

Goats. On rocks!

Qasr al-Bint

Sand painting.

And now with mega-tourists!

What a difference a week makes!

2012-02-02T15:46:00.000-05:00

One week ago I was walking into my mother's hospital room the day after a 20 hour journey from Jeddah, not sure what to expect as she waited to have her brain aneurysm clipped the next day. The next four days were some of the most harrowing and nerve-wracking I've ever experienced, but the outcome was phenomenal. And today, my mother is sitting in her recliner at home, still recovering from brain surgery, but well on the way to a full recovery. Amazing. Absolutely amazing.

Thank you to all of you from all of us. Mom posted this on her own FB page today (!): "To all my friends and family and friends of friends and family: Your outpouring of prayers, good wishes, and support humbles me. Those are the things I carried into surgery with me and those are the things that brought me out again. You will never know how much it means to me and to my family."

That pretty much sums it up :-).

FS Community Support Strikes Again

2012-01-30T16:50:00.000-05:00

I'll post more of an update on this later, but I just wanted to write a short note of gratitude to all of you.

As many of you know, my mother suffered a brain aneurysm this week, resulting in a major surgery to clip it. I was lucky to be able to fly home and be here for her and my family during the surgery. While there were complications, the surgery was successful, and, after a tough couple of days in ICU, Mom is waking up and walking and talking and slowly but steadily getting back to her healthy self. The prognosis is a full recovery. We've been blessed with an incredibly competent surgical and medical care team.

What has helped me out considerably this week is the support I've received from family and friends across the world, including many, many FS community members. Few people have ever met my mom, but that doesn't matter, especially in our lifestyle. Everyone has had to deal with family medical emergencies, and everyone knows how much more difficult being overseas can make things. And so everyone unquestioningly supports others going through ordeals, virtually and in real life. Countless others can attest to this too, and have done so on their own blogs.

Here's just one example. While I was sitting in the surgical waiting room on Friday, the hours ticking by, waiting to hear news from the surgeon, I happened to read a post by Alex at Travel Orders that hit a nerve. Alex and her family have been dealing with their own ordeal, which also appears to have a happy ending in sight. Her post, though, was saying everything I was thinking and feeling about family emergencies in the FS and whether and what to share. It was like magic. I wrote a comment on this post, which hinted at my mom's surgery, and within a couple minutes I had an email in my inbox from Alex, who I've never met in person, offering support and an outlet to talk. Which I didn't know I needed until that moment.

The million other emails, messages, FB likes and comments, shared stories, and phone calls have been similarly comforting and much appreciated, not just by me but our whole family. So a million thank yous to Alex and all of you. The FS community never fails to amaze me. And around here, things are looking very, very positive.

Wouldn't You Know...

2012-01-18T15:01:00.000-05:00

Well, clearly I failed. I only wrote two of the 5-6 travel posts I meant to while on R&R. But at least I got started. More to come.

A few days ago I was sitting in the living room at home watching football with my parents. I knocked on the stairs behind me (wood) and made the casual remark, "you know, I haven't been sick in a really long time." My mother looked at me horrified. But I knocked on wood!

And wouldn't you know, here I am, with a full-blown cold, about to fly back to Jeddah. UGH. What started as a sore throat has blossomed into ickiness. I'm well armed with a supply of zinc, ibuprofen, Nyquil, Dayquil, tissues, throat drops, and water. And while I don't often take cold pills (I've never actually taken one of the -quils before), two long plane rides seem the best place to start.

I really only have myself to blame for this, after all...

Anyway, I'm on my way back to Saudi, energized for some projects at work and settling back into a routine. Saying goodbye totally and completely sucked of course, but, for the first time in a long time, we actually know the next time we'll see each other. And having that date makes it a little bit easier.

I had a great last day in the U.S., spending the morning presenting travel photos to a group of fifth graders at the school where I used to work. They particularly loved the leopard photos from Yala. Me too! I spent the afternoon at my favorite day spa, my dad cooked beef stroganoff for dinner (yum!), and we all watched hours of MSNBC.

And then I got sick.

The good news is that my first flight appears on time, even with the horrific winds here in Boston. I wouldn't mind a delay - I'd rather kill time in Logan with free wi-fi than in Frankfurt, where they trick you into going to a boring terminal to wait without shopping distractions. Probably all the better; my bags are filled to the gills. I didn't have to fight to get the bags checked free, for once, even without a hard copy of my orders (loooong story). We had a harder time converting the expiration date of my residency card for KSA from Hijri to Gregorian calendar. 23.0kg and 23.8kg - way to go me! I think that .8kg on the second bag was the luggage scale I threw in after packing everything...

The airport is eerily quiet today; I wonder if my flight will have some empty seats. Oh, to sprawl!

All right. Time to do the last-minute necessities before boarding. Here's to a painless journey!

Jordan - Days 4-5

2012-01-15T21:52:00.000-05:00

We woke up at a reasonable time on November 6th excited for the day. Our destinations: Jerash and the Dead Sea!

Since it was Eid al-Adha, things were moving at a much slower pace, and many stores were closed. As we drove the 40 km from Amman to Jerash, we witnessed time and time again roadside abbatoirs where pens of fluffy sheep waited to be purchased and sacrificed and then dressed for dinner. Eid al-Adha is the festival of sacrifice after all. We were whizzing by quickly enough that we didn't see too much gore, though a couple of my photos show the setup reasonably well. Our guide told us that the price of a sheep is quite high - running several hundred dollars per animal.

Jerash is one of the best-preserved Roman cities in existence, and I'd had several people tell me it was a great place to visit. Ruins are only so-so on my list of top sightseeing draws, so I had no expectations really. And I was completely and totally blown out of the water. Dating to about 63 BC, Jerash was an important city in the Roman province of Arabia. It had its heyday of building in the early years of CE, particularly during Hadrian's visit in about 129 CE.

Over the next several hundred years, as the Roman Empire declined, a large Christian population moved in, converting some of the buildings into churches and even a cathedral. Then the Persians took over in bout 614 CE, followed by the Umayyads, who added mosques. A 749 CE earthquake destroyed much of the city, and some buildings were converted to fortresses during the Crusades. Excavation and preservation really only dates to the 1920s, amazingly. And even with all this turmoil and use of the city by many different populations, many of the buildings and monuments are recognizable and in decent shape.

All right, thank you Wikipedia for that history lesson.

Anyway, as we walked from the parking lot up the slight hill to the site's entrance, we were greeted by the majestic Hadrian's Arch, lit magnificently by the sun in the morning light. Unbelievably picturesque and imposing. And it got better from there.

We walked through the arch and explored the Hippodrome, which usually plays host to a gladiator show. The Eid holiday meant no shows, which was a shame, since the idea, which had seemed tacky when I read about, of the shows was really growing on me. Oh well. Plenty to see. We walked on towards the lesser arch, the real entrance to the city, and found ourselves in a large oval forum surrounded by a colonnade (Corinthian, as was the norm in Jerash). We looked up the hill towards Zeus' temple, under renovation (though that didn't stop a herd of tourists from traipsing all over it). Then we walked up to the south theater, the larger of the two in Jerash. In amazing condition, this theater still has phenomenal acoustics and is used for performances. We were treated to a show of pop song renditions a la bagpipe and drum by two entrepreneurial locals in full Jordanian-Scottish regalia. Who knew?! We explored the acoustics a bit ourselves, singing from the center and from slightly off center to catch the full effect before proceeding along. We visited churches, what was probably a residential area, the smaller north theater, and then Artemis' temple, an impressive structure. There we sipped mint tea, convened with the resident cat, and played who-can-move-the-column-with-a-spoon. Quite fun, really. We proceeded back down the hill to the colonnaded cardo maximus, the former main drag of Jerash. We could see market stalls, the Nymphaeum, some small temples and gathering areas, and even the cart ruts in the stone from carriages of long ago. The cardo brought us back to the Forum, and we made our way back to the parking lot for the next leg of our journey.

One of the reasons I chose this trip is that we would be driving everywhere, so I'd get plenty of road trip exposure. We left Jerash, drove south through Amman, and then began the long to descent to the lowest place on earth - the Dead Sea. I'd been to the Dead Sea on the Israeli side earlier in the year, but it had been too chilly to swim that day, so this was going to be my chance. The air was a bit chilly, but as we descended from several hundred meters above sea level to 390 meters below sea level, the weather turned perfect for a dip. The air and the water were both about 80 degrees, which I consider entirely tolerable.

After a so-so lunch, we all changed into our swim costumes and made the trek down to the sea, renting towels along the way. As we walked to a quiet strip of beach we got our first glimpses of the mud treatments that so many of us had planned on doing. I quickly changed my mind. Somehow, I didn't expect the mud to be so... muddy. And to pay $10 to coat myself in mud only to wash it off right away? Yeah, no thanks.

We all waded in, carefully avoiding the rock-like salt deposits that made the entry slightly treacherous. The water was a bit chilly but bearable. I waded out far enough to try weightlessness and flopped onto my back. Wow. You hear the stories, you see the pictures, but it's not quite the same until you experience it yourself. And I wasn't a huge fan of the sensation, though the experience was pretty amazing. In the struggle to right myself, I, of course, managed to splash a bit of water in my eye. OUCH. I had no idea how much that would hurt. It would take a full 12 hours for me to regain full use of the eye, even after countless fresh water eye showers. Anyway, once I managed to orient myself vertically in the water, it was great fun, and I had a blissful time watching others don their mud costumes and then struggle to get it all off. Several attempts at washing the salt off myself with freezing cold fresh water and a trek back uphill to the pool area later, I concluded my Dead Sea adventure. Definitely a lot of fun! And a mere 12 hours of eye pain was worth it in the long run :-).

We drove back to Amman after sunset, arriving to a very quiet city celebrating for Eid. Our guide rightfully went to spend the holiday with his family, and most of our group trekked to a nearby kebab-ish restaurant for a noisy and yummy dinner.

The next day, we packed up our bus and headed out of the city. We stopped at Mt. Nebo, of Moses fame. The views were amazing - you could make out Jericho and the very edge of Jerusalem from this vantage point. Then we headed to Madaba, a city with a long tradition of mosaic-making and home to several famous Byzantine and Umayyad mosaics, including the Madaba Map, which depicts the biblical cities of the region. We visited the map, which was quite interesting to see, as well as a mosaic factory.

From there we headed south along the famed King's Highway towards Wadi Musa and Petra. For lunch we ate the spoils of our grocery store adventure from that morning in a Bedouin tent overlooking the beautiful Wadi Mujib. We stopped at the famous Crusader castle at Kerak, which was amazingly well-positioned and well-preserved, the former accounting for its success as a fortress for many years - right up until it was finally invaded by Saladin in 1189.

We arrived at sunset at our hotel in Wadi Musa, too late for a visit to Little Petra but in time for a few intrepid members of our group to experience Petra by night. As scenic as it sounded, I just wasn't up for a candlelit hike the night before a long day of walking and hiking. Those who went enjoyed it; those who didn't felt good about their decisions.

After dinner and a shower, I went to bed as early as possible, preparing for an early wakeup call and a day at Petra.

Eid Mubarak!

Wadi Mujib (photo out of order - argh)

Hadrian's Arch, Jerash

Corinthian Columns - Jerash

Cardo Maximus - Jerash

Woohoo!

Temple of Zeus & South Theater

Bagpipes and drums at Jerash

Temple of Artemis

Floating in the Dead Sea!

Salt!

Looking from the beach up to the pool/resort area

Sunset over the Dead Sea

View from Mt. Nebo

Pope John Paul II's olive tree

Making mosaics in Madaba

Madaba Map

Wadi Mujib - spectacular scenery!

Kerak Castle

Google Reader Silence

2012-01-15T20:52:00.000-05:00

It took me almost all of R&R, but I finally caught up with all of my blog reading. Yesterday. And then, today, there's only two new posts in all the blogs I read!? Joke's on me, I guess. It's the Sunday of a long weekend. Perhaps that accounts for the lack of posting. Cuz it's definitely not karma for not catching up on my own writings... Right?

Jordan - Days 1-3

2012-01-10T21:43:00.000-05:00

All right. Since this is, ostensibly, a travel blog, it's time to write about some travel!

One of the best perks of being posted in KSA is taking advantage of the Eid holidays for extended vacations without using precious leave time. I have been incredibly lucky to be able to take advantage of three of the four while I've been in country.

I flew from Jeddah to Amman, Jordan on November 3rd, a short two hour flight over some gorgeous scenery. Immigration, baggage claim, and customs were easy enough, if not efficient or smoke-free. I grabbed an airport taxi and headed into downtown Amman to my hotel for the next few days - the Intercontinental. While not cheap, the Amman Intercon was a solid investment. Sizable room, comfortable bed, quality bathroom furnishings and amenities. I had lunch at one of the on-site restaurants, a Mexican place. Decent food and exactly what I wanted. I took a late-afternoon stroll to several craft shops in the neighborhood, though I didn't fall in love with anything, amazingly. Dinner was my favorite - room service! - and watching movies completed the restful evening.

On Friday, I breakfasted and started to head out for a visit to the Citadel and Roman Theater. I made it outside just in time to experience the first rain of the season. And promptly headed back inside. I love rain. But I don't love clambering about on ruins in the rain.

Luckily, I was able to touch base with fellow FS blogger Connie from Whale Ears & Other Wonderings. She very generously offered to pick me up at the hotel, and we went to The Blue Fig Cafe for lunch. What a wonderful time! Over great food, we had an absolutely lovely time 'meeting' each other. The FS blogger community is pretty neat in its ability to link people across the globe who may never have met in person but who have a lifestyle in common. Connie took me on a driving tour of Amman, which helped immensely for getting my bearings. We stopped at her house where I got to meet her famous family and kitties (well, two of them at least!). I felt as if I already knew them through her blog - pretty cool :-). Our last stop for the afternoon was to Sugar Daddy's bakery! I first heard about this place when I was in Arabic training in 2009, and I'd wanted to go ever since. And, just a word of caution, be prepared when you google Sugar Daddy's Amman. It's a few results down... We enjoyed blissful cupcakes and took a few each home. Connie dropped me off, and I finished off a perfect day with a perfect massage at the spa.

I woke up to a sunny day on Saturday but decided to be lazy until I had to check out, since the rest of my trip would be super active. After finally checking out mid-afternoon, I checked out and grabbed a taxi to the hotel where I'd meet up with my tour group. Now I've taken many, many group tours over the years on several continents, and while they've all been great, it's always a toss up. Sometimes your group is a little off, sometimes the guide is overly quirky, and sometimes you end up paying extra for activities that really should have been included. I've been meaning to try a trip with G Adventures (formerly Gap Adventures) for several years, but timing never quite worked out. This time, luckily, it did, and I signed up for the Highlights of Jordan tour. It hit all the major sites and a few of the minor ones and was the perfect length of time, affordable, and with a smallish group.

The taxi driver had a difficult time finding the hotel, even with the address. We got to the general area in only about 15 minutes but spent a good 20 minutes driving up and down streets, asking other drivers, and calling the hotel for directions. Finally, we found it. I tipped the driver about 30% over the meter price, and he looked at me like I was crazy. "But we drove so long!" he exclaimed. "But the meter never lies!" I said back. And I walked into the hotel.

The great thing about G Adventures is that they don't charge a single supplement and simply pair you with a roommate for the duration of the tour. (Some tours allow you to pay extra for your own room, but it didn't seem worth it to me.) An hour or so after I checked in, my absolutely lovely roommate arrived. We got on great, and our routines complemented one another, so we were never fighting for the bathroom, thankfully.

We had our welcome meeting where we met (most) of the rest of our group, save the few people with late flights. Our group of 15 included three couples, and the rest of us were on our own. It must be said, this was possibly the best group I've had. We all got along great, had lots of laughs, and nobody was perpetually late or perpetually stinky. I was the youngest person on the tour (which I loved - no crazy partying 18 year olds!), and many had done previous Gap/G tours, while always says quite a lot.

Anyway, we met our guide, a young Jordanian with impeccable English, and we were immediately in good hands. Zuhair did an amazing job throughout the trip (and, yes, I wrote the same thing on the evaluation form!) and really looked out for each of us. He brought us to the 'old' part of Amman for dinner at the famous Hashem Restaurant. We had an absolutely delicious meal of falafel, hummus, foul, bread, and mint tea surrounded by Jordanians young and old. It was the night before Eid, and the streets were busy with merry makers and families doing the last shopping before the holiday. It was a great atmosphere, and we walked around for a while before heading back to the hotel and getting a good night's rest.

As I wasn't really in tourism mode until the end of day 3, I don't have photos for this post, except of cupcakes. However, the next few accounts will be chock full of photos, I promise!

Could You Be More Excited?!

2012-01-10T15:59:00.000-05:00

The FS Blog Round-Up is back! Many thanks to Jill of The Perlman Update for taking the lead on resurrecting this wonderful community feature. Maybe this is the inspiration I need to get back to blogging on a regular basis.

Mosey on over to The Perlman Update for information on how to participate in next week's Round-Up!

(And thanks, as always, to Kolbi at A Daring Adventure for being the brainchild of the Round-Up!)

Snippets From an Ordinary Day

2012-01-08T22:36:00.000-05:00

We had a great Sunday morning with my brother, sister-in-law-to-be, niece, and nephew today, finishing the last of Christmas present opening, playing a lot of Mario on the DSs (how does one make that plural?), eating pancakes, and watching Up. These two cuddly and fast-growing kids are absolutely wonderful - I truly adore them. And the things they say! "Mommy, I need to take a break from the DS because my thumb is turning into an arrow." "Mimi, I can only hug you on this side because you broke your knee." So excited to spend more time with them this summer!

After an afternoon of watching football and getting annoyed with Snapfish, I headed to the grocery store to get the fixings for lasagna. As I got to the bottom of our hill and passed the small village general store, I noticed that there were no cars there. Just a horse. Sans rider, tied up to the porch railing. Yes, I live in a town where riders abound and we keep the old road signs from the days of horse transportation - "walk your horses or pay two dollars fine" and similar. As my friend's fiancé marveled this week, it's a place where few front doors or cars are locked, and it's not unusual to keep one's keys in the car ignition in the driveway.

I didn't have to wait long for the next interesting anecdote - a psychic hotline on the radio was trying a new marketing strategy and extolling the virtues of their hiring process. Apparently, only 2% of psychics who apply make the cut and are subjected to rigorous screenings such as applications, interviews, and sample readings. Oy.

I adore going to the grocery store here. I walk up and down every aisle and marvel and gawk. True, the stores in KSA are pretty well stocked. Amazingly well, it must be said. But, they still don't quite compare to the depth and breadth of weird and wonderful products, novelties, and cooking solutions that abound in the American supermarket.

I realized making lasagna in the U.S. is somewhat simpler than in Saudi. First of all, it doesn't take me weeks to find ricotta cheese. There, I can occasionally order it from the commissary, but it's always frozen. Fresh ricotta is found once in a blue moon, sadly. I have colleagues who have their loved ones bring coolers full of it when they fly in from the States. The other novelty was being able to fill the pasta pot with tap water. In Saudi I fill it from the water cooler. This is probably slightly overkill, since the tap water there falls victim mostly to rusty (and who knows what else) pipes and doesn't carry amoebic dysentery or other nasty pests, but I still err on the side of caution. And filling a stock pot from a water cooler is not easy. Nor is it quick. A mere inconvenience, of course, but something to notice when you don't have to do it.

The lasagna turned out great, the football was exciting, and now the house is quiet, and it's time for bed. Or mouse hunting. There's a particularly brave one haunting the pantry tonight, but s/he doesn't want to appear on camera. Yet.

Bridging the Years

2012-01-07T21:12:00.000-05:00

So clearly R&R has not been the time/internet connection/inspiration I needed to get my blog up to date. Yet. There's still some time. The hectic part of R&R is over, and now I should have plenty of time to rest and write and catch up on movies and TV. And to mail the myriad things I've purchased back to KSA.

A driving force behind the timing and length of this R&R was the desire to be home to help my mom as she had total knee replacement surgery. My FB friends have been kept up to date, but all went well with surgery and the initial recovery, and she's at home now. She's up and walking around and is on track for a great recovery.

I am one of the few people on earth who truly enjoys spending time in hospitals (especially when I'm not the patient), and this was no exception. And after five knee surgeries, I know my way around this particular hospital. (Though I only had three of them there, on reflection.) Timing worked in my favor when a friend conveniently had her baby while I was at the hospital, so I get to meet the precious wee one on her first full day in the world!

So 2012 is off to an exciting start. I will leave Jeddah this summer and move to Kampala, via home leave and Con Gen. I am excited about all to come! My brother is getting married while I'm on home leave (ah, the fun for FS folks of cajoling friends and relatives into leave-conducive matrimonial dates), so I've been getting up to speed on the planning and working on my role (I'm the officiant). A very exciting summer indeed!

Kampala looms closer, especially since my transfer schedule has been approved. I have been amazed by and appreciative of my future colleagues in Kampala who have reached out with offers of question-answering and advice and helped me start some of the transfer logistics processes. This. Totally. Rocks.

And thanks to Carla at Carla Runs the World, I have fallen in love with this little techno-gadget.

2011 was a good year. I lived entirely in one place for the entire year, for the first time in a long time. I spent time in seven countries on three continents, plus airports in two other countries on another continent. I got to attend the weddings of two cousins and spend quality time with family and friends, including reuniting with one of my childhood best friends. Work has been challenging, engaging, and enjoyable, and I am lucky to have some great coworkers who make the days feel shorter and fill them with laughter. PAS is the fun section, as we always say. And, of course, I have two healthy, happy kittens who add just the right amount of snuggle and play into each day. (Who I miss very much right now...)

And can I just say that I am SO, SO psyched to be moving to the land of safari!! Safari makes everything better. I love, love, LOVE watching animals in their natural habitat. It's one of the very few acceptable reasons to wake up before dawn. Perhaps the only one. Watching for deer on the highway just isn't the same thing. Though I do get a little thrill whenever I spot (and don't hit!) a live one :-).

Life is good. Sure, there are things that could go better. There always are. But, overall, I am extremely contented with life. And it doesn't get much better than that! Wishing you the same in 2012.

You're Welcome Virginia

2012-01-03T19:24:00.000-05:00

Retailers throughout Virginia are rejoicing this week after my whirlwind shopping tour of the area. They're off to a great start in 2012 profits. Have I mentioned how much I love the Coach and Williams Sonoma outlets in Leesburg??

My whirlwind tour - 1400 miles in six days - brought me to NJ to visit a dear family friend, to WV to drop off my grandmother and visit my aunt and uncle and their assorted menagerie, and then to VA-DC-MD for a few days of shopping, sightseeing, and friendseeing. It was blissful.

I answered the eternal question - is vision insurance worth it? - by saving $800 on two and half new pairs of glasses. That's a whopping $700 savings once I factor in premium costs. And one of my eyes actually got better this year - yay!

I went to the Celtics game in DC on January 1st and watched my beloved boys in green get their first win of the season. I always get much better (and cheaper) seats in DC than in Boston to see the Celtics. About 40% of the stadium was also rooting for the Celts, which is pretty amazing for an away game.

Yesterday I stocked up on goodies at Trader Joe's, which is pretty much the greatest store ever. Then I headed to Annapolis to meet up with friends - namely my partner in mischief and adventure from my South Africa days and her wonderful husband. We had an awesome time and laughed and laughed and reminisced and caught up and had a blast. Looking forward to having them visit me in Uganda!

And today, on my way back to NH, I had the perfect drive with no traffic and no delays, arriving home exactly 8 hours after I left VA. That, my friends, is a record. It's usually closer to 10-12 hours.

I leave you now with some pictures of the triumphant Celtics and my beautiful new Coach acquisition. A 2011 reflection post still to come...

Paul Pierce is back!

Rajon Rondo!

My favorite commentators preparing for the big game

My favorite photo!

Ray Allen!

The Big 4!

The Big 4 - sort of.

Doc Rivers!

Final score - a win for the Celts!

My newest acquisition

The photos don't do it justice; the color is magnificent

Home Sweet Home

2011-12-30T09:11:00.000-05:00

Ah, U.S. sweet U.S. I have thoroughly enjoyed being home, even if it means putting up with cold and a bit of wintry weather. In my first 24 hours of being home (which came after a difficult and incredibly long 28 hour journey home), I had rented a car and driven to my heart's content, gone Christmas shopping and wrapped all gifts, put up the tree, and purchased ham and my favorite sparkling water at the supermarket. Bliss.

Since then I've enjoyed fast internet, amazing home-cooked meals (including a full Thanksgiving dinner to make up for the one I missed last month!), and lots of time with family and friends. My grandmother has been visiting, so we've all enjoyed catching up and introducing her to the wonders of ridiculous internet phenomenons. We were all belly-laughing after a few minutes of awkwardfamilyphotos.com and LOLcats. My mother and I have continued the tradition of skyping each other from a few rooms (or feet) away, just because we can. One of my best friends is also home for the holidays, so we've been catching up and having a great time. More friend catch-ups to come!

Christmas was a great time with my two younger brothers and their assorted broods, human and canine alike. My youngest nephew got a Nintendo DS for Christmas and barely registered anyone else's presence as he bravely battled the Koopas and Bowser. I brought back shemaghs and aqals for my dad and brothers, who humored us all by garbing up for the rest of the day.

Right now I'm in NJ visiting a dear family friend as Grandma and I make our way south to her home in WV. From there I'll head to DC for a whirlwind few days of appointments, shopping, and friend catch-ups. Should be glorious! Then back to NH to play nurse for my mother when she has a total knee replacement. With five knee surgeries under my belt, I'm a pro at this orthopaedic recovery stuff. Though none of mine have been quite this extensive...

More stories and photos to come as I catch up on the last few months of traveling. I am finally 90% caught up on reading other FS blogs, so I am feeling hooked back in to everyone's holiday seasons and goings-on.

Hope all of you have had wonderful Christmases and Hanukkahs and Kwanzaas and are ready to embrace 2012! Happy New Year to all!

Catching Up - Or Planning To Do So...

2011-12-07T12:55:00.000-05:00

All righty. I've taken an inadvertent hiatus from writing blogs. Or reading blogs. Heck, I barely read my email these days. No real reason - just the stress of the season perhaps, and something had to give. But I miss blogging and reading blogs and keeping up with all the goings on of my wonderful FS compatriots (and the other blogs I read, of course)!

So I'm back, at least today. It's still a busy few weeks until R&R...

Since I last blogged I've been to Jordan (to which I alluded) and to Egypt (great timing on my part) and will head out next week for a quick but exciting in-country trip to be discussed later. And soon it'll be home for the holidays! It'll be an extended trip as I stay an extra couple weeks to help my family out while they need some extra hands. Hopefully I'll get to see lots of my wonderful USA-based friends and family! DC-area bloggers - meet up perhaps while I'm (hopefully) in town for a few days?

So I owe about four Jordan posts and at least one Egypt post and I will definitely need at least one post for next week's trip. Realistically, though, it'll be a few weeks. Unless I get super motivated this weekend. And have super fast internet. Because that's the biggest obstacle to blogging - slow to nonexistent internet access which prevents me from even getting on Gmail some days. And definitely doesn't lend itself to uploading pictures.

I just have to say I'm not too pleased that Lyle Lovett appears to be taking the holidays off. For entirely selfish reasons - he certainly deserves to take the holidays off, of course. He performs all of December up until right before I get back to the United States and then... nothing. I check the website every day hoping he'll schedule a concert or two in early January that I can make. Nothing yet, alas.

The kittens are doing quite well. I am starting to get guilty about leaving them for R&R, even though my helper will come in every day and make sure they're well taken care of. Having helped a colleague adopt a Consulate kitten last week, I realize my 'kittens' have somehow become full grown. They don't act full grown, but they certainly aren't tiny anymore. They're certainly snuggly and playful and loyal, though, and I love that. I allowed them in my room while I tried to nap the other day, and Griffin lay on my chest staring deeply into my eyes. Meanwhile Callaghan curled around my head and peered over it, also staring deeply into my eyes. Creepy is all I have to say. But somehow a bit endearing.

I haven't decorated for Christmas - partly a function of having no free time, partly because I'll be going home for the holidays, and partly because I'm tired of having ornaments broken by cats playing in the tree.

And really, that's all the 'news' that's fit to print for today. More coming soon, and I promise to start reading the backlog of blog posts in my reader! Hope you're all surviving (and thriving!) this busy holiday season!

Coming Soon...

2011-11-13T12:35:00.000-05:00

Stories and photos from my latest trip - to Jordan! I've been home for three hours and have unpacked, cuddled with my kitties, downloaded photos, and am now finally relaxing with some soup. It's a busy few days coming up at work, but I'll try to get some actual content up here soon.

So, coming soon to a reader near you, Jordan in November 2011. Featuring a cameo by another FS Blogger :-) - stay tuned!

And, because I can't resist, here's a teaser of what's to come...

Sri Lanka - Days 7-8

2011-10-27T14:17:00.000-04:00

So it's about time I finish my Sri Lanka series of posts! Only two months late!

My penultimate day in Sri Lanka was fairly blissful. I got up early to take advantage of breakfast at the hotel (nice but not perfect) and then went back to bed for a few hours.

My driver picked me up around noon and took me back to Colombo for one last shopping/sightseeing trip. I chose to go to another government-sanctioned craft center, which had some very high-quality woven textiles. I ended up buying three tablecloths for great prices. I am ecstatic! Added to the two batik prints I already picked up, I was all set. I got a few other things I had been missing on previous shopping jaunts and was then ready to go.

We drove back to Negombo and set the time for my pickup the next morning. I stored my new treasures in my room and then wandered across the street to the hole-in-the-wall salon. It was about 4pm. My plan was to get a quick facial and then go hang out on the beach until the sun set. Janet had other plans.

Janet, the salon owner and practitioner, was so incredibly excited to get a white tourist to play with. And play she did. I do not think she could have possibly put more assorted goops on my face, and she was aghast that I did not want every baby-fine invisible hair on my face tweezed or threaded. I agreed to my eyebrows. I did not agree to my forehead. I convinced her to stop there. Ouch. Well, for $20 what can you expect?

By the time I emerged, more than two hours later, my face was red and puffy, and the sun was well on its way to set. I read for a little while before dinner, ate a fairly decent dinner at the hotel, packed my bags, and got a good night's sleep.

The next morning I was being picked up at 7:45 for an 11:45 am flight. I knew from experience that it takes a while to get through security in Colombo airport, and I wanted plenty of time to get a foot massage in the terminal. When I arrived at 8am, I found that my flight was delayed to 14:00. Okay, two hours, not a huge deal. Except they weren't checking people in yet, so I had to sit and wait with my bags. About an hour later I convinced them to let me through to the check-in counters, and 30 minutes later they called my flight. I checked in, and the apologized for the delay. I said it was fine and proceeded to the terminal. Along the way I looked at my ticket and saw that the flight time was now 16:00. Argh. I went to the foot massage place and spent an hour in bliss. And then I looked at the monitor and saw the flight was now 20:00. ARGH. It was about 11:00. I had a smoothie. I walked around. I ate lunch. I walked around. And then I saw the mob forming.

Apparently, my fellow passengers were angry. The plane was now delayed indefinitely. It had not even taken off from Jeddah yet. Nobody seemed to know anything. There was shouting. And pushing. And screaming. And veiled threats. And mass confusion.

We asked to be taken to hotels. The confused/exhausted airline representatives said the airport hotel was full. We couldn't leave because we were past immigration. That seemed a lame excuse to me, but whatever. I met up with some colleagues on the same flight who didn't have any additional information. I finally found a group of passengers who were demanding access to a lounge. That sounded pretty good to me, so I followed them, and we were given lounge access. The lounge was quiet, temperature controlled, comfortable (I picked a couch), and had clean bathrooms and free food and drink. This was much better. It was now about 15:00.

Well, the lounge was good. But not for 10 hours. Which is precisely how long I stayed there with some of my fellow passengers. I met some very nice people and read a lot and had random conversations. But it was not a fun 10 hours. Particularly because the airline representatives were not forthcoming with information and were downright patronizing and elusive. Plus, 17 hours in any airport, even in a lounge, just plain sucks.

Our plane finally took off, 14 hours late. Not one person was upgraded to business class or allowed in the empty upper deck. Instead we were all sandwiched into one economy section with not even an apology for our ordeal. Or even any hint at compensation. But I am determined not to relive that 17 hours anymore than I already did in these few paragraphs.

I landed in Jeddah a full day later than I was supposed to and slept all day. Luckily I had that day and the next off from work to recuperate. Which was blissful. But what a horrific end to a wonderful vacation.

And now for pictures.

Negombo beach

my Negombo hotel

surf at Negombo

Tablecloth #1!

Tablecloth #2!

Tablecloth #3! This picture does not do justice to the colors - a sort of bronzey-gold and deep purple stripe

Tablecloth #4!

Tablecloth #5!

My elephant collection

Modern Mask #1

Modern Mask #2

Brass Candlestick Holder

Woven bag

Batik Wall-art

Sunday Evening Ramblings

2011-10-23T13:37:00.000-04:00

I'm still here. I haven't gone dark. I just have been supremely busy and somewhat pensive lately.

Luckily I have some trips planned in the next couple of months, which are always great fodder for blog entries. Which reminds me - I am still behind on a few travelogues.

I had my first pang of I'm-going-to-miss-this-place today. I still have oodles of time before departure, but I'm experiencing a series of 'lasts' already. Like September and October and, soon, Hajj. Already passed my last Eid al-Fitr.

And perhaps the most important thing to post is that we are all mourning the passing of HRH Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz al-Saud this week. He died after a long illness yesterday in NYC. The official period of mourning begins Tuesday.

Sultan al-Khair was beloved by his people and will be very much missed. President Obama said it best: "[Sultan] was a strong supporter of the deep and enduring partnership between our two countries... On behalf of the American people, I extend my deepest condolences to King Abdullah, the royal family, and the people of Saudi Arabia."

And with that, it's time for bed. More to come. Soon. Ish.

Lessons From A Troubadour

2011-10-05T14:16:00.000-04:00

Ah, a blog post. This will be a mish mash of random thoughts. I haven't been motivated to do a lot of writing lately. I still need to post about the last couple of days in Sri Lanka, Ramadan, Miami, and a few other things. I have a sticky note to remind me daily. But, motivation and words escape me a lot lately. Part of it is a bit of paranoia. I have been reading with interest/horror/contemplation the many posts lately focusing on FS blogs and bloggers and the potential effect on one's career. And even though I follow most of the unwritten rules, it's still something to consider. I'm not really all that anonymous, but, really, the FS world is so small that it almost doesn't matter.

Work has been really great and really challenging lately. I'm busy almost every minute of the day, which I enjoy. I have been here long enough to know my portfolio pretty well and feel relatively established (and also who to ask when I don't know things). Summer transfer season meant saying goodbye to some wonderful people and welcoming some other wonderful people.

When I hit the one year mark at post, it still felt like I had a long way to go. Which was good. But all of a sudden it feels like time is moving entirely too fast and I'll be leaving Jeddah all too soon. There's still so much to be done! I think I was so anxious about bidding and finding out my second post that one year seemed like an eternity. Now that I know and am excited and relaxed, two months have passed in the blink of an eye. It's both comforting and discombobulating.

Fall is my homesick time. All this talk of apple picking and canning vegetables and fires in the woodstove and leaves changing color has me wistful for a New England fall. It's been a while... It's no wonder I've been making all manner of Thanksgiving foods lately. But pecan pie on a day when it's 110 and feels like a sauna outside just isn't the same. (And, Mom, this does not mean I'm going to get all wistful over NH winter. I still dislike snow and sleet and cold.)

And then there's the world. So much going on. It's hard to keep up some days. The 24 hour news cycle and unique perspective I have on international affairs as a result of my job means I'm never really separated from the goings on. My dreams have been even more vivid and related to real life than usual lately. Maybe that's why I feel less rested even when I sleep more.

East Africa, particularly the Horn of Africa, is on my mind a lot. For some obvious reasons. For some less so. Probably partly because I'm moving to the region next year. A week or so ago I read an article in the NY Times by poet/musician K'Naan about his return to his homeland of Somalia. It is definitely sticking with me. As one Facebook commentator said, the article is both eloquent and heart-wrenching. And now I've been listening to his music almost non-stop. I always loved the very catchy anthem "Wavin' Flag" made popular during the World Cup in 2010, but I'm enjoying his other songs as well.

I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention the latest news from Saudi Arabia concerning voting rights for women. According to most Western media, this is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I'm not convinced, nor are a lot of the women I talk to. This is not the right forum to get into a discussion (see first paragraph), but there's a lot more to consider. And some of the many, many articles I've read have raised some of the other issues. Read a broad spectrum of articles if you want to know more. Don't get me wrong, I am of course excited at the news and applaud King Abdullah's efforts. But everything comes with a context, including this.

But even with everything going on and the nonstop commentary and analysis going on in my head, I'm content. And it feels comfortable.

But if Callaghan doesn't stop biting my feet in the mornings and tearing the lining out of my shoes, I will be a whole lot less content. Perhaps it's time to dip back in to my water gun stash.

When everything else is chaos, the kittens are a constant. As it should be.

Why, yes, I was busy. But if you're going to pet me, I guess I'm available.

Please, please, please take off your shoes so I can eat the linings! And are those exposed toes!?

Sri Lanka - Days 5-6

2011-09-25T11:28:00.000-04:00

Before starting on days 5-6, I need to recap two events from Day 4 that I forgot. First, I fell again. Directly on my already sore knee. The rug in my room was on top of a very slippery tile floor, and I went flying. Score two for clumsiness. So at this point walking was becoming almost impossible.

Second, I had a very sweet conversation with a young girl while on the birdwatching tour. My counterparts took off for a short hike which, as evidenced by my two falls on my bad knee, I just couldn’t fathom at that moment. So I sat on the banks of a pond of lily pads and watched for crocodiles. And a young girl comes shyly up to me and then boldly asks me my name in English. I reply and ask hers. She tells me and then runs away. Then a few minutes later she comes back and asks where I am from. I tell her and ask her. She tells me and runs away. Then she comes back and asks me my favorite color. I tell her blue and ask hers (red). She stays. She asks me my favorite food (mushrooms) and I hers (pineapple). Then she asks my favorite subject. I think and say math and ask hers. She smiles broadly, looks me directly in the eyes, says “English!” and then runs away again, for good this time. Very cute.

Anyway, day five.

I wake up super early (4:30 am) and quickly dress and head for the van. The only time it’s worth getting up this early is when I am going on safari and, even then, it’s tough. The guesthouse proprietor drives me to the park in his van so I don’t have to bump over the roads in an open safari jeep. We get close to the gates just as the sun is beginning to rise and see a herd of wild boar run in front of us. Several moms and about 20 little tiny babies. They are gone before I can get my camera out. I climb into my safari jeep and head for Yala National Park. The driver and my guide go buy tickets while I watch the goings on. The entrance is packed with safari jeeps, pretty evenly split between Western tourists and local Sri Lankan families. There’s a family of dogs hanging out near my jeep, along with adorable puppies of various sizes. They all look alike. A couple of tourists are taking pictures while the puppies try to play with them. A soldier walks by, and the dogs all take off after him. Must be the bearer of breakfast.

My team returns with permits in hand, and we take off for the gate. We’re there just as it opens, with a dozen or so other jeeps.

The first sighting is of a herd of spotted deer, crossing the road. There will be many more deer today.

Then we come upon a small pond, complete with large crocodile on the banks. Finally!

A bit farther on we come across a group of jeeps and an excited air. A leopard! Maybe. Perhaps. A few minutes ago? Nobody is quite sure. We look and look and look to no avail. There is no leopard here now.

We go on. We see more deer, lots of birds, some boar (but only for a moment). But no leopards. We take a road off the main path and come to a beautiful spot on the ocean. I had forgotten the park bordered the coast. There used to be two resorts here. They were lost in the tsunami, along with 49 lives here. About 250 people died that day in Yala. The resorts are gone, with only a smattering of foundation remaining. And a nice memorial on the shores. It’s sobering, particularly on such a beautiful day.

We move on. Lots of leopard-friendly landscapes, but no leopards. On all the safaris I’ve been on in my life (a lot), I’ve only once seen a leopard. And he was moving and not terribly close at that. So I have a bit of a complex when it comes to spotting leopards. And Yala has one of the highest densities of them in the world. I had high hopes.

We did come across a herd of elephants, who paused for a drink in one of the watering holes. More spotted deer. A great close-up of a bee-eater. Water buffalo. Land monitors. Dozens of peacocks. More wild boar, who this time allowed me take photos. Then some grey langurs. One of which did a fantastic leopard impression. But no leopards.

Hours passed. My hope started to wane. We turned around and started heading out of the park.

You know what’s going to happen next, right?

We come across another group of jeeps. I see nothing. But the buzz is, there’s a leopard in the tree over there. About a half mile away. We don’t have binoculars. But I do have good zoom on my camera! My guide is first able to spot the big guy. I don’t know how he did it. With the naked eye all I can see is a black spot in a bunch of trees. They keep talking about a tail hanging down. My eyes just aren’t that good. But finally with some help I was able to see, through my 80X zoom on my camera, something that kind of sort of looked like a large spotted cat. I took a bunch of photos. Then the leopard shifted positions and I could see him a bit better. And could find him again in the viewfinder without too much help. He started looking like a leopard. Very exciting!

We stayed there for close to thirty minutes watching. While the scale of the sighting was a bit disappointing, it was still a leopard!

We continued on toward the exit. And came across another group of jeeps. This time, a really rare find, a sloth bear! He never quite came into the clear while foraging for tasty termites, but we watched for quite a while and got some relatively good sightings of him.

The entire safari was good - not quite as good as any of my Africa adventures - but still exciting. And three of the big five isn’t bad (especially since there are no lions or rhinos in Sri Lanka).

We headed for the exit, I waved goodbye to the puppies, and we drove back to the guesthouse. Going slowly in an open jeep was great for observing village life and enjoying the fresh air. I ate a hearty breakfast upon returning and then took a well-deserved afternoon nap. One last dinner at the neighborhood tourist trap restaurant and then bed.

The next day we packed up and headed on our way. The destination for the day was Sinharaja rain forest. I had thought I’d be doing a jeep excursion through the forest the following day, but my driver explained that there was actually no road in the forest and the only way to see it was by foot. Okay, I asked, how difficult is the terrain and how long will we walk? I was still barely able to walk and wanted to decide whether this was something I could do. Oh, he said, only about eighteen kilometers through the mountains. And there are leeches. Ummm, yeah. Been there, done that. Still have the nightmares. I nixed the excursion, but we headed out to the guesthouse anyway.

The drive was absolutely gorgeous. Some of the scenery was familiar, as I’d driven through this region on my previous trip to Sri Lanka. We passed tea plantations, rubber plantations, spice plantations, and countless roadside stands selling pillow stuffing. We drove through Ratnapura, where I went a little gem-crazy last time, and saw the gem mines on the outskirts of town.

Once we left Ratnapura we started to climb higher in elevation and were on less well-kept roads. At some points we had to have locals help us navigate around exceptionally large potholes/flooded areas. We took a series of turns, each one taking us into a more deserted and rural (and beautiful!) area. Finally we saw signs for Sinharaja and eventually my guesthouse for the evening. It seemed nice as we drove up, if a little run down. I knew there would not be A/C. I was not expecting, however, that there would only be electricity for a few hours each day. Meaning the ceiling fan and light and water. And, there was nobody there. No signs of life, except for one employee who finally came to greet us. I hauled my suitcases up to my room and set them down. And looked around. And got that feeling that this just wasn’t going to work. It wasn’t even the lack of electricity so much but the eerie isolation and some internal ‘hmmm’ sense. I’ve only ever had to use that sense a few times, but I trust it enough to act on it. I don’t think anything bad would have happened, realistically, but I decided there was a better option. So I talked to my driver about driving on to Negombo, the destination for the next day, and staying at that hotel tonight. While only about 210 kilometers away, I knew it would take a while. We established that the hotel had another vacancy, I agreed to pay a small fee for the change in plans (well worth it), and I apologized profusely to the nice guesthouse employee. And we set off at about 3:30pm.

We were in Ratnapura by 5:15pm, having covered the worst of the road conditions and about 60 km.

And arrived in Negombo at 10:15pm.

The same thing happened the last time I drove from Ratnapura to Negombo. That lowly 150 km stretch takes FOREVER to drive. Most of it is on two-lane roads, like the rest of Sri Lanka. But the volume of traffic (moped, tuk tuk, car, van, bus, truck, big truck, livestock, and tractor) is heavy and passing opportunities fewer between.
*sigh*

By the time we got to the hotel, I was starving, having missed lunch and dinner. The hotel had closed dinner service by then, but luckily there was a decent restaurant across the street. It was by far the cheapest meal I ate all week. I guess being in the ‘big’ city has its advantages. Then I turned the A/C and the fan on in my room, watched a bit of BBC news, and went to sleep.

(Note: it took a total of 16 hours to upload the following photos, and the interface is not user friendly, so they are completely and totally out of order. So read the blog before looking at the photos for some semblance of chronology and storyline.)


Leopard, looking right at ya!

See the bear?

That large black blob is a sloth bear

Sloth bear

Grey langurs!

Grey langur doing a wonderful leopard impression

Wild boar

Spot the leopard! Look at the center of the treeline in the photo. Move your eyes left past the slight dip into the next stand of taller trees. Then just as your eyes hit that stand of trees, look slightly down to the black, dark hole. That's where the leopard was.

One of the clearest leopard shots I got

Leopard! His tail hanging down was the giveaway

Land monitor

Cactus!

See the leopard??

Heron and stork

Spotted deer with antlers

Baby boar!

Strutting peacock

Wild boar!

Spotted deer baby and mama

How many elephants do you see?

Wild buffalo

Spotted deer drinking!

The steps and foundation pieces are all that remain of two resorts, after the tsunami

Spotted deer!

Bee-Eater

Beautiful Yala and the Indian Ocean

Fishing Huts on the Beach in Yala

Crocodile!

Ten Years Later.

2011-09-10T11:25:00.000-04:00

Ten years. In some ways it feels like a lifetime. In others it feels like just yesterday. I feel lucky that the events of September 11, 2001 did not take a loved one from me. But, like all Americans, my world changed profoundly that day. I grieve alongside those who did lose loved ones, that horrible day and in the ten years of war since then. I thank and respect those who have made the ultimate sacrifice and those who put their lives on the line every day for the country that I love. My decision to join the Foreign Service was not necessarily informed by the events of that day, but its legacy looms large over my profession. I have no profound words to say; I can only relate my recollection of that day.

Ten years. I was a college sophomore in Washington, DC, sleeping in on a Tuesday early in the semester, my first class not until 11. I woke shortly after 9am to the phone ringing. It was my roommate's father calling to tell us that there had been a couple of plane crashes. He was safe in an airport in middle America, having just landed himself. He didn't sound terribly concerned, but the second plane had just crashed into the South Tower, and the realization was only just becoming clear. I heard the call waiting beep and hung up with him. My mother was calling, screaming at me to get out of the city and to stay safe. She had been in a senior staff meeting at the hospital where she worked in NH, and she'd watched as one by one administrators were beeped out. The Emergency Department Director. The helicopter squad director. The director of security. The nursing director. The infection disease director. And so on and so forth. Finally someone told them what was going on. She ran back to her office and called me. Hearing her panicked voice scared me more than anything. I assured her I was fine and would stay in place until I knew what was going on. I called my dad at work; he'd only just heard, and they were trying to figure what, if anything, to tell the students at school.

And then the third plane crashed. Only a few miles from where I was standing. By then I was in my suitemates' room, watching the towers burn on CNN. So many questions. So much uncertainty.

So I went to work. The Office of International Programs. They were in full crisis mode, even if the full extent of the crisis wasn't quite clear yet. Nobody had any answers or concrete advice. We didn't know if there were more planes.

And then the fourth plane crashed, thankfully falling short of its as-yet-unnamed target.

I walked over to my classroom. Some others were milling about, unsure what to do. Classes had not yet been canceled. But it was clear we weren't operating as normal.

I walked back to my dorm. Watched a little more CNN. Hugged my roommate, who had come back from her early class.

We walked together over to an apartment building where, from the roof, we could watch the smoke from the Pentagon. It still seemed unreal. A friend, a NYC native, almost lost it when we got word that the Towers had come down. For him, that was the moment it became real. I don't know what my moment was. It still seems surreal.

We gravitated towards an apartment where several friends lived. All day we watched the news and called loved ones and friends and grieved whenever we heard about another link to a passenger on one of the planes or an employee in the Towers or the Pentagon. And there were many. I remember we eventually ordered Chinese food. That was the first restaurant that agreed to deliver. None of us wanted to go to the cafeteria, where grief counselors were already in place.

I spoke finally with all of my relatives in the DC area. We realized we didn't have a contingency emergency plan. But we were all safe, and that mattered at that moment.

As I walked home later that night, I saw that chalk memorials and tributes had been drawn all over the campus. Many of them already calling for tolerance and interfaith community support and proclaiming God Bless America.

The next day, there was class. But only in the form of support and discussion and trying to make sense out of what had happened. But of course, that sense is still not here ten years later.

There were tanks on the streets of Georgetown. The National Guard was all over the place. Which was both reassuring and incredibly frightening.

I spent that weekend with my extended family. We discussed contingency plans and grieved for our nation and hugged each other tight.

That was ten years ago. But the entire week is burned into my memory, for better or worse. It became the new normal. The defining moment of the new history of the world.

I certainly never imagined I'd be commemorating ten years in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. I'm not going to dwell on this; every news outlet in the world has been doing plenty of that this week.

For me, one of the most poignant commemorations has been playing out in the Washington Post over the last two weeks. Each day they've published vignettes of real people affected by 9/11/01 and what their lives are like ten years later. The heartbreak inherent in each story is what makes the anniversary real for me. Because the concept of 9/11 is so incredibly pervasive that it almost loses meaning in the larger context. I hear it every day, many times, and have heard it many times each day for ten years. But beyond the implications for foreign policy and globalization and security and counterterrorism, it's about the stories. Of not just the 2,977 innocents who died that day but the thousands of others who have sacrificed their lives since then. And the millions of Americans and others whose lives changed that day. They all have stories. And mine is an incredibly lucky and relatively mundane one among millions. But it's part of the collective memory. And tomorrow we'll all collectively remember, though none of us has forgotten for a moment for the past ten years. It feels like a lifetime ago. But it also feels like just yesterday.

Sri Lanka - Days 3-4

2011-09-09T04:37:00.000-04:00

Day 3 included an easy, ambling drive along the south coast to Tangalle. We passed some of the worst examples of tsunami destruction, with entire villages wiped out and still not rebuilt. Too many people died in some of them to even justify rebuilding. Other towns showed fewer signs of damage. There were memorials and graves all along the drive, and it was a very humbling sight. Especially given my own extremely minor battles with rough surf the day before. I can’t imagine the horror of having an otherwise beautiful day destroyed by the entirely unexpected wall of water, destroying everything in its path, people and buildings alike.

One of the sights along the way was seeing stilt fishermen - men perched on stilts placed in the ocean with fishing rods. We didn’t stop to take pictures because it’s become a tourist trap - many of the ‘fishermen’ no longer fish and instead sit there waiting for tourists to come along and take their photo - for a fee of course.

We arrived at today’s stop, Palm Paradise Cabanas, in the early afternoon. It was off the main road and quite secluded, which was nice. The cabanas were well-spaced in a garden setting, with lots of swaying palm trees and tropical plants spaced around. The secluded beach was again only steps away. I checked out the beach first but didn’t even attempt to swim today - similarly rough seas. Plus, it was high tide, and there was little beach space left for relaxing. I had a yummy lunch of vegetable noodles and then indulged in a pleasant afternoon nap. The cabana was rustic but pristine, with a large mosquito net over the bed and a small fan providing much-needed relief from the heat and humidity. I kept all the windows open to take advantage of the sea breeze, but this ‘natural air-conditioning’ left a bit to be desired on a hot August day.

I woke up in the early evening to raindrops on the roof. A quick, hard rain was followed by a bit of drizzling for a while, but none of it bothered me. After a nice dinner of curries and noodles, I headed out for another turtle adventure.

Rekawa Beach, located a few kilometers from Tangalle, is one of the best places to see turtles laying their eggs in Sri Lanka. During the high season, an average of 17 turtles come to the beach. The Turtle Conservation Project welcomes visitors to come learn about their operations. After a windy drive down a steep dirt track, we arrived at the main parking area and proceeded down to the beach, another steep dirt track. About 100 meters before we reached the beach we extinguished all flashlights - no artificial light is allowed on the beach lest it disturb the turtles. We arrived about 8:30, and by then all the volunteers were in place. Every night these dedicated volunteers spread themselves out along several kilometers of beach to safely escort turtles who come to lay eggs. They have successfully educated locals on turtle nesting habits and dissuaded potential poachers. The evening’s team leader told me he’s headed to Costa Rica next year to present on Sri Lankan turtle preservation work. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that Costa Rica is not actually in the United States, as he proudly claimed.

We sat down in the HQ - a thatched hut - and waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. Apparently rough seas were keeping the turtles from coming ashore. Finally, about 10:30, the signal went out. A turtle was making her way ashore. Problem was, she was 2km away. Which meant hiking through the woods in the dark for 2km to get to the adjoining beach, and then hiking the 2km back to the original beach. And with my still-tender knee, I just couldn’t fathom it. So we bid the team goodbye and waited some more. But no more turtles came ashore. We waited until midnight and then headed back to the cabanas. I’m disappointed I didn’t get to see one, but I also know I would have been miserable and foolish to try and hike in the dark with a bum knee.

It was a relatively sleepless night, with mosquitoes continually penetrating my mosquito net fortress and cautionary layer of insect repellent and keeping me awake and itchy. And, again, the ‘natural A/C’ just wasn’t cutting it.

We set out after breakfast and headed a bit inland, towards Yala National Park. After about two hours of driving we reached Tissamaharama, a small town that is the main gateway to Yala. Tissa is also close to Kataragama, site of a very important temple complex for Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims alike. It’s an extremely popular pilgrimage destination for millions.

I stayed at a small but charming guesthouse, Elephant Camp, which is a beautiful little place with very generous and hospitable owners. The room was large, comfortable, pristine, and complete with A/C - what more could you ask for?

After lunch I headed over to Kataragama for a walk through the temple complex. It was very busy, even during the mid afternoon, so I just did a quick walk through.

The owner of the guesthouse took a few of us out on a birdwatching tour in the early evening. We first passed by Tissa Wewa, a large man-made lake in the middle of town, which was very active with dozens of pilgrims bathing themselves before heading off to Kataragama. Vendors were selling fish and fruit and cool drinks on the side of the road, and there was a lively and excited vibe.

We continued on a small track near the lake and came across an agricultural area filled with rice paddies ready for harvest. Farmers were heading home for the day, along with their cows and buffaloes. I don’t know what it is about it, but I absolutely love driving down roads with livestock. It just seems exciting to me, and I’ve always been intrigued by this.

The first major sighting was a large tree with hundreds, if not thousands, of sleeping fruit bats. So incredibly cool! These large bats looked like oddly-shaped leaves at first until you could focus on what they actually were. Some were waking up and flying, and they looked exactly like the typical ‘vampire bat’ silhouettes you see at Halloween. So, so, so neat!

We continued on and watched weaver birds popping in and out of their distinctive nests, kingfishers and bee-eaters flitting about, green parrots roosting at the tops of trees, egrets and cormorants hanging out with the livestock in the rice paddies, various types of crows annoying the general population, and the Sri Lankan national bird - the jungle fowl - darting across the road.

We didn’t see any crocodiles, sadly, though not for lack of trying. All-in-all, a perfectly lovely tour and a great benefit to staying at a small guesthouse with eager owners! Dinner and an early bedtime - safari in the morning!!

(As much as I try to put photos in order, the Blogger interface prevents me from doing so. Apologies for the following lack of organization.)

Rice Paddies

Green Parrot

Buffaloes in the road!!

Beach at Tangalle

Palm trees - my absolute favorite

Home sweet cabana

Banana trees!

View from the cabana's porch

Mosquito fortress

Weaver bird and nests

Kingfisher (l) and Bee-Eater (R)

Fruit bats!!

So, so cool!

Pilgrims bathing in Tissa Wewa

Time for a boat ride!

Sri Lanka - Days 1-2

2011-09-08T13:28:00.000-04:00

All right. Queen Elizabeth’s favorite potatoes dauphinoise are in the oven (thanks for the awesome cookbook L!), so I have some time to sit and begin the process of relating all the wonderful adventures from last week in Sri Lanka.

The trip got off to a great start. The plane was on time out of Jeddah, and for once there was seat-back entertainment. I was sad that the plane filled up in Riyadh, but I managed to fall asleep and wake up with only about 45 minutes left. No problem going through immigration, though my bag was one of the last ones onto the belt. My driver was waiting, and off we went!

The first day was scheduled to be a slow day, allowing time for me to get some sleep and get over jet lag. We did a driving tour of Colombo, which I greatly enjoyed. Sadly, I didn’t take a single picture; my camera was in the trunk (stupid planning), and I was pretty out of it. Colombo is a nice, quiet city (despite the traffic), and I would definitely bid there in the future. We saw the U.S. Embassy - located right on the beach for all you eager bidders! I asked to stop and do some craft shopping, so we went to one of the large government-sanctioned centers that showcase tons of handicrafts at set prices. The prices are fairly reasonable, the quality is pretty good, and they do a great job getting everything documented and wrapped up. I didn’t go terribly craft-crazy, having bought tons of gifts for family and friends the last time I was in SL. I supplemented my collection of housewares and got a few small gift items.

I really enjoyed driving through the bustling market areas of Pettah in Colombo, but I just wasn’t up for being a part of the crowd or haggling or anything like that. I get reaaaallly tired when I fly all night...

Afterward, we headed to the hotel. I stayed at the very nice Hotel Renuka, which was clean, had a comfortable bed, A/C, and an attached restaurant - exactly what I needed! I took a shower and a nap, had an awesome dinner of curries, sambols, hoppers, and wattalapan (my new favorite sweet). After that, I read for entirely too long and eventually fell asleep.

The next morning, I had a spicy but filling breakfast before reconnecting with my driver and heading south!

We drove down the Galle Road towards Galle, passing lots of neat beach towns along the way. There was some evidence of tsunami destruction in places, which, almost seven years on, is still very apparent. We stopped in Kosgoda at one of the turtle hatcheries, one of my top priorities for the trip.

Five species of sea turtle lay eggs on the beaches in Sri Lanka, all of them threatened and/or endangered - green, hawksbill, olive ridley, leatherback, and loggerhead turtles. The females come ashore at night and dig a nest in the sand for her eggs - up to 150 at a time. After 61-62 days, the hatchlings emerge at night and make their perilous way to the water; the females will return to the same beach years later to lay their own eggs. Unfortunately, this very natural process has lots of risks. Poachers and animals dig up the eggs for food; the hatchlings are preyed upon by birds as they make their way to the ocean; and sharks and large fish eat the tiny hatchlings once they make it into the water. The turtle hatcheries try to eliminate the poaching by collecting eggs as soon as they are layed, depending on volunteers and fisherman who sell the eggs to the hatchery for more than they could get on the black market (about 10 rupees per egg, or approximately $0.10). The hatcheries rebury the eggs in an enclosed sand pit and let them incubate. The hatchlings are collected and kept for three days before they are released, giving them a bit of an extra bit of strength and swimming experience. They are released on the evening of the third day, under cover of darkness, and they only have to crawl a short distance on the beach to the water - both allowing them to imprint the beach for future laying purposes and minimizing the potential of being picked off by seabirds. Even with all this extra care, 80% of all hatchlings still don’t make it.

The hatchery also functions as a de facto turtle rehab center, taking in sick and injured animals brought to them by well-informed fisherman. There are amputees from shark attacks, albino turtles, and all other manner of problems. Most will be released upon healing, but the albino turtles stay - they’re just too threatened in open water.

I got to tour the very simple but well-run hatchery, holding the tiny hatchlings, observing the enclosed sand pit, and seeing the older turtle patients. I was there during the day, which precluded releasing the three-day olds, but it was still a fun experience. It’s one of several such operations in the Kosgoda area, and they seem to do very good work.

We continued on down the coast, stopping in Ambalangoda to visit a mask museum and workshop. This town is the locus of ancient devil dancing and devil mask production. Sons of one of the most famous mask-carvers run modern-day workshops and museums, and we stopped at one of them. I bought a couple of very modern interpretations of the masks and am kicking myself for not buying more - they’re just so cool! I really enjoyed seeing the craftsmen at work as well and wish I’d taken some pictures.

The next stop was Galle, a pleasant city with a European feel and storied history. The main attraction there is Galle Fort, which was originally built by the Portuguese in 1588. The Dutch made extensive fortifications to it from the seventeenth century, and much of it remains intact today. Galle was hit very hard by the tsunami, but the Fort’s walls protected much of the old city.

I walked along parts of the walls, observed dozens of local families having picnics on a beautiful end-of-summer-vacation day, and ate a yummy lunch at a hotel overlooking the ocean.

We continued on to Unawatuna and an overnight stay at Unawatuna Beach Resort. The Resort was very nice; I really enjoyed my stay there. The rooms were comfortable and clean and sported A/C. First order of the day was to visit the spa. It was well placed - steps away from the beach, with fans augmenting the ocean breezes and beautiful aquariums built into the pebbled walls. I opted for a foot massage and an Indian head massage. They both started out extremely well, but each therapist was extremely overzealous in their use of deep-tissue techniques. I was a bit bruised by the time I walked out.

I changed into beach clothes and headed for the beach. The surf was quite rough, and the beach had a steep slope to the water, but there were people standing in the water, so I thought it couldn’t be too bad. I headed down and was immediately knocked down by the first wave. I got back up, and the second one did a number on my knee - my already fragile, oft-operated-on precious knee. I spent a few more fruitless minutes trying to enjoy the water and float in the waves, but I soon gave up when I realized there was a strong undercurrent and limped back up the beach. I stayed out and read for a while before heading inside to assess my injuries. My knee was pretty sore, and going up and down stairs normally was out of the question. It didn’t feel like anything was structurally wrong, but it was hard to tell. I took a long shower to try and de-sand myself and then read until dinner.

Dinner was a nice international buffet in the thatched-palm restaurant overlooking the beach. It would have been perfect had the neighboring hotel not built a bonfire on the beach. The winds were not in our favor, and the acrid smoke blew directly into the restaurant. Nobody could see well, people were coughing and wrapping scarves over their noses and mouths, and the whole thing was a bit painful. Still, the food was delicious and varied, and I got to try some great new Sri Lankan dishes.

Another quiet night’s sleep, another slightly painful foot and chair massage, a nice breakfast on the beach, and I was off!

Day old hatchlings

Two-day old hatchlings

Two-day olds up close

Albino turtle

Amputee turtle

Galle Fort

Buddhist Dagoba from Galle Fort

Sri Lankan families enjoying an afternoon picnic at Galle Fort

Unawatuna Beach

View from the spa, Unawatuna

Turtle eggs in enclosed sand pit

Each next is labeled with the type of turtle and date of laying

I'm Back!

2011-09-06T11:23:00.000-04:00

And I'm back! Well, I've been back for several days, but exhaustion from the return trip (long story), a touch of jet lag, and a bout of tummy issues (from KSA, not Sri Lanka) have conspired against me posting until now.

And I'm not really posting now. I'm just posting to say I'll be posting stories and photos from my Sri Lanka trip soon.

Turtles, leopards, and bears, oh my! coming soon to a blog near you...

Holiday!

2011-08-24T11:54:00.000-04:00

I'm headed off the grid for a week or so. Looking forward to a wonderful Eid break in Sri Lanka - lots of pictures and stories on my return! Keep your fingers crossed I spot a leopard, pun intended :-).

And this is my own reminder to write a recap of Ramadan 2011...

Eid Mubarak!

The Bidding Story

2011-08-18T15:29:00.000-04:00

It's 23 hours later, and I'm still oh so excited about my next assignment to Kampala. It has been a stressful month navigating the bid list and the process, and now that everything worked out well I can look back fondly and sigh. Those around me who had to deal with my worrying and what-if-ing and calculating and fretting - I owe you a million thanks. And to N, who can happily say "I told you so" - thank you for talking me down several times. You really would have made money if you'd taken that bet on me getting Kampala.

My first look through the bid list was not a great one. I wrote about how I was expecting some disappointment and let down, but it was pretty devastating at first glance. I was not prepared to have so few valid options - well under 30 required bids, which would mean including posts I really did not want to put on my list. My top choice was on there, but the first position was invalid and the second position was deleted from the list. My poor mother skyped with me within an hour of my seeing the list, and I was an emotional wreck. She tried to reason with me and give me good advice, and I just was too upset to listen. My top 10 was solid and exciting, but I was worried about getting assigned to 11 through 22, which were posts where my cats couldn't come and/or with other factors about which I wasn't thrilled. And no matter how many people told me I was likely to get a top 10 pick (all high differential, mainly non-garden spots), the anxiety was there. Sure I had equity and a solid strategy, but what if?? It was hard to concentrate on the exciting possibility of getting one of my top bids because I was still worried about not getting one of them.

I was able to add in some previously-invalid bids to fill out the 30 bids, but they had to be ranked 23-30 even if they were all posts I liked better than 11-22. I did a lot of reading, asking questions of fellow FS people (including some amazing FS bloggers who were generous with their time and advice), calculating, re-calculating, fretting, and more reading. Finally, I submitted the list, and it was out my hands.

I had a pretty good idea of when the assignments would be announced, based on previous bid cycles. And the CDOs were right on time! I was a mess yesterday at work, knowing the assignment was probably coming. I actually started running a fever from the anxiety, and my stomach was in knots.

When I finally got home around 9pm, a friend announced that the revised bid list had been posted (a good indicator that decisions had been made). I asked if Kampala was still on the list. It was. My heart sank, even though I had decided I would be deliriously happy with bids 1-4, happy and satisfied with 5-10 and 23-30, and only disappointed with 11-22. Another friend cautioned that the revised bid list might not be the final revision and that some posts may still need to be removed. This cheered me slightly, but I was still sure I was not getting Kampala.

And then the email came.

I opened it, and of course it loaded agonizingly slowly. And there it was. Sadie, you are going to Kampala! I don't even know how to describe the elation, because I was a little bit in shock. I posted to FB (because it's not official until it's Facebook official) and immediately called my mom. My mom had already told me she was not going to answer the phone at work if she saw it was me because she didn't want to talk to an emotional wreck. (She's not being heartless, just practical. Add in crying to a poor internet phone connection, and it's a nightmare.) But for some reason she did answer. I didn't even say hello, I just screamed, "I'm going to Uganda!" I'm not sure who was happier... After I got off the phone with her I called my dad at home, who was also very excited.

Facebook was busy last night and today with all my newly assigned friends and colleagues announcing their posts and congratulating one another. Thank goodness for Facebook! It looks like most people got a top 5 pick and are pretty happy with where they are headed. Nobody has told me outright that Kampala was a top bid for them, but I still wonder...

And now with the wisdom of hindsight, I can say that the process worked out and that I'm very happy. But boy did I manage to stress myself out!

I've had lots of messages, calls, and emails today from people telling me that they have known people who loved serving in Kampala, which is very encouraging. It seems to be a great place to live and work. I am super excited about my job as well as the post itself. And one of my very good friends from A-100 will be posted there as well! And my great friend B and I can finally have the East Africa adventure we dreamed up all those years ago when we were poor grad students at UCT.

And now it's time to return back to Earth and get back to the here and now. I still have a year left in Jeddah, and I need to be careful not to let it slip by too quickly without enjoying my time here. Knowing where I'm going next (and being excited about it) is just a bonus.

The best part: I don't have to bid again for two years! And then it's a whole different system to learn.

And The Winner Is...

2011-08-17T16:20:00.001-04:00

KAMPALA, UGANDA!!!! A Consular position beginning Fall 2012.

More info, including the story of bidding, to come soon. For now, I'm basking in the excitement of getting my #1 bid and putting all the anxiety of the last month behind me. Time to focus on the future - back to Africa!!

For more information: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ug.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda.

One Year

2011-08-11T13:04:00.000-04:00

It's a blissful Thursday evening - I have no plans or obligations, I have a pot of vichyssoise simmering on the stove, I'm planning my upcoming holiday in Sri Lanka (again!), and my kitties are running and jumping around the apartment as kitties are wont to do.

Yesterday marked my one year Saudiversary, as I've come to call it. It's been an amazing year in many ways, and I can honestly say I am looking forward to what the next year here brings. And I am also very much looking forward to learning in the coming days where I'll be off to next. I feel fairly settled in here, comfortable with my work and still excited and challenged by it every day.

Today, though, marks one year without my beloved Hattie. I already wrote an emotional post a few weeks ago about her death and its enduring heartbreak. I don't want to repeat that here. I just don't want today to pass without acknowledging my beautiful little puppy and the impact she had on my life.

Hattie, not a day passes that I don't think of you and wish you were still here. I am thankful for the wonderful seven years you were in my life and am forever sorry about the circumstances that led to your untimely and unfortunate passing.

I am very thankful for the two beautiful kittens who came into my life shortly after I lost you. They can never replace you, but they help fill the void you left.

For everything you were, I thank you and love you.

Some of my favorite Hattie memories and pictures...

Hattie loved to chase the barn cats. During the winter, she could get close to their hideout

As soon as she turned around, there they were, taunting her!

Hattie with her equine friend, Merlin. He fascinated her.

Doggie cupcake! She liked it more than this face makes it seem...

Comfy in her bed

New haircut!

First time at the beach!

She loved it!

With her favorite panda toy, after a long DC-NH drive.

I am pretty sure my nephew added the dinosaur...

Stop taking photos!

Presents and Christmas were Hattie's favorite!

Such a good sport!

With the whale.

Hattie and Bowzer on a spring walk in NH

Cutie patootie

Hattie, tables are not for sleeping on...

Toy jumping! And in need of a haircut!

The Miracle Orchid

2011-08-11T04:29:00.000-04:00

Yes, yes, I know it has been two weeks since I last posted. But it's been a busy two weeks, really! And I'll get to that (probably) in another post this weekend, but, first, here's my contribution for this week's State Department Round Up, hosted by Cindy at enclos*ure. The topic is gardens created loved, and left in the Foreign Service.

Now, I am not any kind of a green thumb. I am very, very bad with plants. I like them, but I am not good at keeping them alive. When I lived in South Africa, one of my friends and I shared this amazing furnished cottage. It was not until we had lived there several months that we realized we had a 6-foot tall plant in our dining room. We realized it because it was dying and the leaves were falling off and crunching underfoot. Whoops. So that's the kind of thing I'm talking about.

At my wonderful job before I joined the Foreign Service, we worked in a condo with a lot of natural light. When I had knee surgery one spring, my coworkers gave me a beautiful orchid as a get well gift. I loved it - it was pink and elegant and so beautiful. It sat in a place of honor on my desk and soaked up the light and the occasional water when I remembered to give it some.

My orchid seemed to thrive, and, before long, I had to transfer it to a larger pot. I selected the new pot carefully and even bought special orchid potting soil. The transfer went smoothly, and the orchid continued to thrive, with new blooms and new shoots (stems? branches? see, I have no idea...) all the time.

About six months later, it was time for me to transition. I packed up and moved from NH to DC. The last step was a long drive to Falls Church - 8 hours at the best of times, but usually closer to 12. My car was packed to the gills with stuff - I really could not have fit anything else in there. Hattie and her bed rode in the front seat, which was not ideal, but it was all I had. The orchid, protected by several makeshift cardboard shields, rode on the floor by the front passenger seat.

The drive was long and hot. My car didn't have A/C, it was a miserably hot August day, and every family in New York and New Jersey was headed south towards the shore. Hattie and I barely survived it, and I know my orchid suffered. I spent much of the ride dousing Hattie with cool water and pleading with her to drink.

When we finally arrived at Oakwood thirteen long hours later, Hattie and the orchid were the first out of the car. My poor orchid had already lost a few blooms. I set it on the counter in the kitchen and gave it a bit of water. Hattie parked herself in front of the A/C vent and played anxious puppy there (instead of at the front door).

In the coming days, my poor orchid lost all of its flowers and started to turn a nasty shade of brown. (Hattie adapted quickly and easily to being an apartment dog and started to thrive, loving our daily walks and lots of cuddle time.) I didn't know what to do for my plant, so I stuck it on a windowsill and promptly forgot about it. I may have watered it once every few weeks.

A few months later, having settled into Oakwood for the long haul of language training, I took a look at my orchid for the first time in forever and, to my complete surprise, saw a number of new buds and branches! I gave it some water and moved it to a spot in the living room where it could sit on a bookshelf and get some natural light and more attention from me. Miraculously, my beautiful orchid was bigger, better, and more beautiful than ever.

I always meant to buy a companion or two for my miracle plant, but I never did. And as it came closer and closer to departure time, I fretted over what to do with it. I was flying back to NH, so it was not going to be easy to transport it back. It certainly was not going to make the trek to Saudi. So I asked a friend and neighbor if she'd be interested in taking on my plucky, low-maintenance orchid. She was delighted, and the night before I left I brought it to her. It was hard to say goodbye, but it was a great solution for all.

Over the next year of her language training, my friend occasionally let me know that the orchid was still doing well. I realize now I don't know what happened when she left for post, but I imagine the orchid stayed in VA, possibly passed on to another FS family. And instead of asking, I think I'll just use that as the reality.

Here is the only photo I can find featuring my orchid. It's a poor one, taken for book inventory purposes. The stem with the visible flowers grew after the move to DC. Clearly I never found a good stick to support it. The glass on the shelf was to remind me to occasionally water the poor thing. Really, I have no idea how it survived.

Oh! I see on the second shelf the other little plant I kept alive for longer than a week! I think I passed this one along to my grandmother, who has the greenest thumb of anyone I know.

In Saudi, I don't have plants at home, but the compound is lusciously landscaped and very pretty. There's a giant bougainvillea outside my living room balcony. I do, however, have a plant in my office now. Walking down the hall one day, I noticed this large pot with a 5-foot tall plant of some sort, complete with a Post-it on one of the leaves proclaiming, "please take me home with you today!" So I came back with a dolly, loaded it up, and wheeled it back to my office. It was almost dead when I found it, but several months later it's still alive and occasionally looking good. My coworkers are helping me keep it alive, occasionally giving it coffee or nutrients or water when I forget. We've named it Aziza. Right now I have to say she's looking a bit worse for the wear, but I am determined to get her back to full strength. And, after all this time, Aziza still sports that original Post-it note on one of her leaves. I just couldn't bear to throw it away, for some reason. The leaf, however, has grown big enough to accommodate the note. And that's what really matters, I suppose.

A Tale of Two Packouts

2011-07-27T14:18:00.000-04:00

Heather at The Wandering Drays is hosting this week's State Department Blog Round Up on the very important topic of packing out. For any State Department family, the packout is a reality of life every few years. I've been in for just under two years and have already survived two packouts. My favorite part is that the movers do everything once they arrive. My least favorite part is that there's a phenomenal (unending??) amount of work to do to prepare for that eventuality.

I am by no means an expert preparer for packout; my strategy is to do as much as I can up until the day before, survey what is left hours before the packers come, cry a little, and then just say "screw it" and watch a movie. This is probably why I have both times ended up with boxes of random stuff that really should just have been given/thrown away and not packed and moved thousands of miles. I have to say that neither packout has had an in-person packout survey - the first time because they determined I lived too far away from anything for anyone to drive out there twice. The second time was because my grandmother passed away unexpectedly, and I went to NJ for her funeral. So I don't quite know what a packout survey accomplishes and/or whether it improves the moving experience.

My first packout, before A-100, was nervewracking to prepare for. I was living at home at the time and needed three areas packed out - my bedroom, my storage/staging area in our barn, and my storage unit in a nearby town. It was of course hot and humid in July. It took most of the day just to get the bedroom/barn done. Then I got in my car to lead the truck to the storage unit. We got about a mile down the road, and the truck could go no farther. Turns out, the truck had been parked on an angle in my driveway all day, which drained all the gasoline from one tank, and then when the truck needed to pull from that tank while going uphill, it stalled out. So we had to sit and wait on another angle until the tanks stabilized. Or at least that's what I think happened. I really didn't quite understand the whole thing. Anyway, an hour later, and we were underway! Packout at the storage unit went quickly, and they were on their way.

About a week after A-100 ended and I still didn't have my UAB, I started getting worried. So I called the moving people at State who told me I didn't have UAB. Umm, yes I did. I faxed them the inventory sheets to prove it. Turns out they conveniently skipped the directions for those 250lbs saying "SHIP BY AIR - UNACCOMPANIED AIR BAGGAGE" in giant letters. A week or two later and I had my UAB. Only eight weeks after packing out.

Before my second packout, for post, I went to the storage area in Woodbridge and "accessed and segregated" my storage belongings. The guys were really nice and let me open a few boxes which were unclearly marked (a hazard of packout!), which is not always the norm. I put entirely too much into the HHE pile under the misguided idea that "I'll have plenty of room at my housing at post to be able to do a REAL access and segregation and purge of all this stuff." We all know how that turned out.

My second packout was also incredibly stressful, but because of a combination of personal and professional stressors in the background, the death of my grandmother the week before high among them. The packers arrived only a couple hours after I was expecting them and got right to work. The packing crew was two very efficient and nice women. From now on, I always want female packers. Because these women, when packing up my kitchen, truly appreciated my things. They lovingly unpacked my beloved Le Creuset French oven from its original box just to make sure I'd packed it correctly. And then they oohed and ahhed over it and we talked about where to buy them cheaply.

They were done packing by about noon. And then they disappeared. And then they came back 2+ hours later. And then the moving crew came in and started taking stuff out. And then it started raining. And then I realized that the moving crew had at least two other moves going on in the same Oakwood complex that day. And they couldn't pack the trucks in the rain. So they disappeared again. And finally came back about 5pm. I think they finished close to 7pm. UGH. Thankfully my friend and neighbor had promised we'd go for pho that night, so I had something to look forward to after the day of waiting. And boy did that pho taste good! Thanks L!

All my stuff made it to post safe and sound, so the packers did a great job. No horror stories yet, knock on wood. No trash or passports or checked baggage ending up in a shipping container. No children or pets maimed in the process. Though the kittens really did not like the movers being in the apartment. They hid under the couch for hours afterward.

(Stop reading here if you want to end on a happy note.)

This post is going to end on a sad note because my packout almost a year ago today was the last day I spent with Hattie. The next morning I brought her to the kennel to board for a week while I went home to NH, the plan being to reunite in Saudi. That was the last time I saw her alive. This week I've been super emotional over Hattie, for many reasons, including the upcoming anniversary of my arrival at post and her tragic death. (And partly because I'm bidding and considering how to get my cats to post, not to mention trying to eliminate posts where the cats can't go. Because I cannot go through this again.)

A year later and it's still as painful and horrifying and heartbreaking as it was then. All the guilt and anger and sorrow and grief and frustration is simmering just below the surface. I can look at pictures of her without losing it most of the time. I can talk about her in passing, particularly if it's funny stories or memories. I can even have some of her toys and things around (inherited by the cats). But many times when I go to the airport (particularly driving past the cargo terminal) or talk/think about her final days and hours, I just lose it. Thank goodness for my cats who are highly attuned to my emotions and, like now, always manage to find me for a cuddle. But then there are the moments that take you by surprise, often inopportune - yesterday in the shuttle on the way home I found myself with tears streaming down my face upon realizing that almost one year has passed. It doesn't seem possible.

And now that I've totally brought down the mood of this post, my apologies. I meant originally to separate these into two posts, but they're so inextricably linked in my mind that it's hard to do. So apologies for my emotional purge. And thank you for reading.

State Department Blog Round Up: Collections

2011-07-22T11:47:00.002-04:00

Welcome to this week's State Department Blog Round Up! (And just in time to save me from the horror that is bidding... Wow is this painful!)

The OTP this week is collections. What do you collect (intentionally or not), what do you wish you collected, and/or what do you wish you didn't collect? I am using the theme quite liberally, as you'll see below.

I'll start with my own post which started this entire theme. It pretty much speaks for itself - I am bordering on having too many collections!

Crafty Foreign Service shows us one of her collections (lucky cats) and a gorgeous puppy but keeps her fabric/yarn collections to herself for fear of someone staging an intervention. Amy, I think we all have that fear...

Raquel at 3rdculturechildren has a wonderful, more introspective approach to the collections she and her family have made during their time in Brazil. Congrats on making it to the halfway point of your tour!

Small Bits reflects on her very special collections of friends and memories from her beloved border post.

The Dinoia Family is about to say goodbye to one of their collections- diapers! LG is well on his way to full-time potty learner status!

Email from the Embassy learned that a collection of cars outside a house doesn't necessarily mean a party.

Where in the World are Luca and Juliana? collected the letter Y on their trip to the appropriately-named Yucatan.

Adventures of a Misplaced Texan is collecting ideas of how to deal with winter as she prepares for a more northerly border post.

Whale Ears & Wonderings collected both great memories with family and friends and a new collection of quilting materials while on R&R.

The new Virginia residents at The Perlman Update are close to making the collection complete - Matt is back from Iraq (!) and the new house is almost ready!

Kerns'R'Us finally met the mysterious Bobby her son has been so obsessed with. Chalk this up to a collection of stories to tell his prom date!

What Were We Thinking? is having a grand old time while her mother visits. This week, her children learned a valuable lesson about lying to their father. Another prom date collection story!

Just Us collected another trip to a special place: Galilee.

Something Edited This Way Comes shares her photos of Milan circa 1901 and 2011 - very cool collection!

A Daring Adventure explores her new and unexpected name change and, rightly, has her very own meltdown cow. Yet another in the collection of weird moments with State...

Life in the Land of the Long White Cloud writes a post including photos of (his lovingly collected and documented) traffic cones being used for their actual intended purpose. I'm not sure he realized this?

Well, That Was Different is busy exploring her new neighborhood and collecting new memories and ideas of how to stay busy during her tour. It looks absolutely lovely! Are you paying attention Where in the World are Luca and Juliana?

From the Back of Beyond, while waiting for the arrival of the newest addition, is collecting both inspiring housewares and fun visitors!

I Run, You Run has discovered something new, handy, and inexpensive to collect in Manila: frames! Check out the blog for the exciting results.

Spectrummy Mummy has collected a fun new place for her daughter to hang out... just in time to move to a country where said fun new place doesn't exist. Sad!

We have a collection of bloggers headed off to new posts. Safe travels!

The Pulling Stakes family is off to Brazil and a whole new marketplace for adding to the shoe collection!

B-Files has three weeks to go before leaving for Santo Domingo - how exciting!

Travel Orders is one week from Benin, along with their absolutely adorable new edition.

Digger at Life After Jerusalem is doing her final consultations before leaving for post, and discovering the wonders of SA-5 at the same time!

Diplomatic Mom collected a whole lot of frequent flyer miles on her way to post (and an exciting long weekend away).

I hope you'd enjoyed this collection of FS blogs. Nobody is signed up yet to host next week's Round Up - check out A Daring Adventure to sign up. It's easy!

Happy collecting!

The Future. It's Here. Finally. Sort Of.

2011-07-21T16:55:00.002-04:00

Apologies in advance: this is an entirely melodramatic post.

Imagine my consternation when I find out at 11:20 pm on a Thursday that my bidlist is out. MY bidlist. The bidlist I've been waiting for since September 2009. (Because, really, as soon as you find out your first post you start dreaming of the next one.)

I put out feelers to colleagues working in EST-friendly time zones to see if anyone would send me the list, but nothing yet. I have decided I am above getting dressed and going in to the Consulate at midnight to get the list. But just barely. And only because I am going to be down near the Consulate tomorrow morning anyway for something, so I will just go then if I don't have it by then.

Stupid time zones! Stupid weekends that don't coincide with the rest of the world! (And I mean that in the nicest possible way.)

So while I'm waiting with barely-contained excitement/anxiety to see the list, I am savoring these last few moments of "what-if?"

Because once I see the list, there's no turning back. There's no more dreaming of that perfect post or hearing of some far-off place and doing research and finding out it's my new favorite perfect post. It's the end of naivete and dreaming. It's the beginning of reality. My next few years will be limited to what's on the list. All of a sudden there's a due date and a realistic time frame of when I'll find out my next post.

I am perfectly aware that I may be disappointed, having built up in my mind what this list will contain. I know my top choice is probably not going to work for me for language reasons. I know that some of my top five also will probably not work because the Consular sections are quite small.

I also know that the list may contain some gems that I had previously not considered.

I will not be sharing much of the bidding process on this blog, but here's an idea of what my next job will be, based on job/training/language requirements and restrictions. I will be working as a Consular officer for at least half if not the entire next tour. It will be in an Arabic, French, or English speaking country or at a post that has Consular positions that don't require language training in the local language. I will be in DC for 6-26 weeks of training beforehand, depending on where I go and whether I need a top-up in French. It will likely be another two year post.

And as I write this, a friend just let me know he has an Excel version of the list, which he's sending me as I write this. So here goes nothing. The end of innocence.

Collections aka "How do I avoid ending up on an episode of 'Hoarders'?"

2011-07-21T16:02:00.002-04:00

All right, enough procrastinating. It's time to write my own entry for this week's State Department Round Up, hosted by me. The theme is collections. This came to me as I was unpacking a couple of boxes I sent myself during R&R and realized the sheer number of things I collect. If you had asked me about it, I probably would have said I actively collected a couple things. But when I started thinking about it, it's more than a couple things. Some of them are ways of easily buying souvenirs when I travel, while others are all about making my home a nice place to live.

Magnets

This is probably my most active collection and the one I contribute to on every single trip I take. I started collecting magnets as a college student, inspired by my aunt's tacky magnet collection. And following this tradition, I collect tacky magnets as well. Everywhere I go I try to find as tacky a magnet as I can to add to my refrigerator. It's a great daily reminder of the places I've been. This is a collection I prefer to keep to myself; I don't ask others to contribute to it. I want my fridge to reflect my own travels throughout the world. I am missing a number of countries from early in my travels, when the collecting was more sporadic, but all of my recent trips are accounted for.

Seen here, the collection looks smaller than I think it is...

Probably because some magnets are on the sides of the fridge as well.

And last night I unpacked two different magnetic poetry sets, which I attached to my washer/dryer

Christmas Ornaments

This collection is partly travel-related but mostly a natural consequence of working at Hallmark for 10+ years through high school, college, grad school, and beyond. I only left my PT job there when I absolutely had to upon moving overseas with State. I have dozens and dozens of Keepsake Ornaments - entirely too many for a single tree. And even though I no longer work there, I still buy several each year. I also often buy ornaments on my travels, though not with particular regularity. But these have very nicely rounded out the collection.

I know there are no visible ornaments here, but isn't Cally cute?

Pottery

I started this one a few years ago as I started making the rounds of art studios in New England and West Virginia and elsewhere. I have some amazing baking dishes, platters, vases, and kitchen miscellany. I have some guinea hen platters and casserole dishes from South Africa as well as a number of beautiful pieces from Jerusalem. This collection is expensive, heavy, and unwieldy, but I do love me some handmade and/or funky pottery!

Is that not the coolest spoon rest ever!? And I love the pomegranate! And one of my favorite tile trivets is in the background.

Beautiful Jerusalem pottery!

Blown Glass

Another accidental collection, made possible by living close to the Simon Pearce headquarters in VT. I also have a nice Murano vase from Venice and another vase from a small studio in Seattle. The rest - vases, bowls, platters, decorative baubles, business card holder, etc. - is all Simon Pearce.

Baskets

This is an inherited collection. My mother ADORES baskets and has entirely too many to count. We live in an old farmhouse in NH, and the living room has exposed original beams. Hanging from these beams are dozens upon dozens of baskets of all sizes, shapes, and origins. We always would pick our Easter baskets from the extensive collections. In the summer, the baskets get used constantly as we pick veggies and berries from the garden. Throughout the year they get filled with flowers, fruit, bread, mail, assorted odds and ends, Christmas cards, etc. There's always a perfect basket for any occasion!

I realized recently that I too was starting to collect baskets - mostly for functional uses such as storing blankets in the living room or holding cookie cutters in the kitchen. Thanks Mom! I think.

I adore Basketville. And the fact that they shipped everything to me.

The scene that started the whole collection post... Notice neither cats is in the basket I actually bought for them.

Cookie Cutters

Another inherited collection. My original collection of cookie cutters from childhood decorated the back wall of our kitchen. They're still there, though many now reside in baskets. My own nascent collection also resides in its very own basket.

Some new additions from my sea mammal/star collection

Basket & cookie cutters = awesome!

Anyway, that's a few snippets from my own collections.

You still have time to submit your post for tomorrow's Round Up by linking to your blog (or others you want included) in the comments section. Alternatively, you can email me.

State Department Blog Round Up: Call for Submissions

2011-07-17T11:22:00.000-04:00

All right FS bloggers! It's time for another State Department Blogs Round Up, for Friday, July 22nd, 2011

This week's optional talking point is FS collections. (Inspired by my realization that I collect way too many things that have to be packed up and moved and unpacked every few years...) What do you collect (intentionally or not), what do you wish you collected, and/or what do you wish you didn't collect? Magnets, ornaments, figurines, artwork, pottery, doo dads, knick knacks, unmatched socks, measuring cups, DVDs, books, stuffed animals, actual animals, or really anything else you could think of!

You may, of course, submit posts on other subjects as well.

In keeping with the new RoundUp format, please link to your blog (or others you want included) in the comments section. Alternatively, you can email me.

Happy blogging!

My Favorite Things: Kitchen Edition

2011-07-14T12:44:00.000-04:00

Sara at Wife-Mommy-Woman is hosting this week's Round Up on FS kitchens. A great topic!

So here is a (less-than-erudite) 100th post (woohoo!) on this important topic.

Before coming to post, I bought a lot of kitchen stuff. A LOT. Really, I'd been buying kitchen stuff for years and promptly putting it in storage, so I had no idea of what I really had. That didn't stop me from buying more. I think cooking is so much more fun when you have really good cookware/bakeware/gadgets with which to do it. So I set about fully customizing my kitchen to my very own specifications. I was so, so, so excited.

Then I got to post and met my kitchen. While the layout is okay, with relatively ample counter space, that's where the positive attributes end. First of all, it's ugly. 1970s-era peachy-beige and avocado tiling with flower accents. Brown tile floors. Horrific wood-laminate cupboards. Then, the features are problematic. Electric stove (I hate cooking on anything but gas) and an oven whose door falls apart/off with alarming regularity. One of the stove burners fell off its moorings the other day. A dishwasher that may predate civilization. It certainly predates silverware, as there is no silverware holder in it. The washer and dryer are underneath kitchen counters, which would be fine if it didn't mean there was little to no storage space. About half of my pots and pans and all of my food is relegated to the counters because there are only a couple drawers and a couple of cupboards in the entire kitchen. Most of my kitchen gadgets are also relegated to the counters for the same reason. I have never seen a kitchen with less storage space. There are, in fact, precisely six cabinets and six drawers in the entire kitchen. All of them poorly designed so that you lose a lot of the potential space because of the way the appliances are wedged in. My sink has one basin. There is only one overhead cabinet, which means there's all that wasted space in the rest of the kitchen. Which is why all of my nonperishables live on the counter. At least I don't forget what I have on hand...

So, instead of whining more about my ridiculously awful kitchen (have I mentioned that housing is a top priority for me in second-tour bidding?), I am going to outline a few of my favorite kitchen tools that I could not live without.

Now, I fully admit that I am a brand snob. Especially when it comes to my kitchen. However, I will shop around endlessly and wait years for the right sale. I refuse to pay more money than I think I have to. (I stalked my set of KitchenAid cookware for 5 years until it finally fell enough in price for me to justify it.) If you are in the DC area, I think the Williams Sonoma and Le Creuset outlets in Leesburg are two of the happiest places in the world. They are awesome for stocking up on high-quality kitchenware at fair (sometimes even low) prices. I never fail to find awesome deals and surprises there.

-First, high quality cookware. I really like my assorted Calphalon pots and pans and my KitchenAid hard-anodized nonstick set. Cooking in them is always easy and even.

-My favorite all-around pot: My Le Creuset Round French Oven. I firmly believe no household should be without one of these versatile enameled cast-iron pieces. Mine is a 5.5 quart, which is perfect for most things. I'll continue to build my collection as space and finances allow.

-My Calphalon steamer/sauce pot is pretty awesome too. I love steamers big enough to accommodate artichokes.

-Microplane cheese graters. I have a box grater, a rotary grater, and several hand-held models. They are all awesome.

-Sharp, high quality knives: I love my Zwilling J.A. Henckels set for most things but have several Kuhn Rikon paring and utility knives on hand as well. My Kuhn Rikon auto deluxe safety lid lifter can opener is pretty nifty too.

-Onion chopper. This has made my life so much easier. Just cut the onion into large chunks, put it on the chopping platform, and push down on the lid. Voila. This has changed my life. And made my hands smell like onions on a much less frequent basis. Double win! (Mine is made by Progressive.)

-Mushroom slice and catch. Similarly, this is awesome for slicing mushrooms quickly and easily. Made by Vacu Vin. And since mushrooms are one of my favorite foods, I use this several times a week.

-For that matter, I have specialized cutters/slicers/tools for most things. Tomatoes, avocados, mangoes, melons, pineapples, strawberries. I may use each a couple times a year, but I can't resist them.

-Wooden spoons. I love wooden spoons and use them almost exclusively, especially on my high-quality cookware. I have spoons from the U.S., New Zealand, South Africa, Sri Lanka, and Palestine. Some are specialized and/or pieces of art, while others are mass-produced and perfect for everyday use.

-Mezzaluna/Ulu: Essential gadget. My parents have an amazing ulu knife they bought in Alaska 30+ years ago, but mine is just an off-the-shelf special until I can get to Alaska for one of my very own.

-Cheese Spreaders: I have a number of random themed spreaders, perfect for cheese or dips or the like.

-Pyrex. Who could live without these amazing glass baking dishes?? I have many in assorted sizes and shapes.

-ClickClack food storage canisters. No explanation necessary. They rock.

-George Foreman Quesadilla Maker: A much more versatile appliance than I thought at first, receiving it as a gift. I make quesadillas, sandwiches, toast, calzones, paninis, and many other things in it. Because here's a guilty confession: I do not own a toaster. Nor do I feel the need to own one. I just don't eat bread that often in that form.

-I like the Martha Stewart for Macy's kitchen collection because a lot of it is in a beautiful aquamarine color that appeal to me. This is the default color for my kitchen tools. Which, as you can imagine, looks FANTASTIC with the peachy-beige/avocado tiles...

-I could go on forever, but I will leave you with two words: butter crock. And two more. Totally awesome.

And now, my wishlist:

-KitchenAid stand mixer. I would buy one now, except for the whole lack of storage/counter space issue.

-More Le Creuset. I love it. And those colors!

-I guess at some point I should buy a toaster. It's just not a priority.

-I spend hours looking at kitchen gadgets online and in stores. It's my favorite shopping experience. So I have a long list of things I will buy if/when they go on sale.

I also have very strong opinions on glassware, flatware, and dinnerware. But that's another blog for another day. If you're really curious, feel free to get in touch. But I can't imagine anyone really is. (Or at least anytime I get on my soapbox about the ideal heft and rim shape/thickness of a drinking glass or the appropriate number and size of tines on a fork, eyes tend to glaze over.)

So, these are but a few of my favorite kitchen things. I've tried to include links where possible if anything strikes your fancy. Let me know if you have questions!

Manaqish, Kittens, and Jambiyas, Oh My!

2011-07-14T04:21:00.000-04:00

Blogger says this is my 99th post. So I might as well get some really silly/boring thoughts down on this one before I feel pressured to be all classy and erudite in my 100th post.

So here's three fairly random and not at all erudite stories.

1. My newest guilty pleasure-

I am not opposed to paying people to do things that make my life easier. I couldn't live without my housekeeper, as I've come to learn. But there are some things I just never saw the need to have someone else do. One of them is having someone take my grocery cart from the store to my car. That is, until I realized a couple of weeks ago that it's more than just transporting the cart. In the grocery stores here, there are always men at the checkout (usually store employees) looking to help. They bag groceries, they take the cart to the car, and, as I recently discovered, they take the items out of the cart and put them on the conveyor belt for you. All I have to do is wheel my cart to the line, and they'll take care of the rest. I cannot tell you why all of a sudden this extra service makes me relinquish control of my cart, but it's my newest guilty pleasure, well worth a couple of dollars in tip. It may indeed be a slippery slope to employing several domestic staff. But please, stop me if I ever suggest hiring someone to carry my purse for me. Seriously, that's a job description here.

(Also related to grocery stores, I recently discovered that the bakery will make fresh manaqish for me. Cheese manaqish may just be my favorite food, and coming home with a hot plate of it makes the toil of grocery shopping that much more tolerable.)

2. Life With Cats-

My cats are very attached to their schedule, so much so that even the slightest deviation causes great consternation. In the morning, they like to wake up and cry outside my door until I wake up. This can go on for hours, and they progressively get louder and whinier until I finally succumb. At this point I must IMMEDIATELY give them their shared can of Fancy Feast. If I hesitate even a moment, they will bite my toes.

I then go about my get-ready-for-work routine, with both cats underfoot. They are occasionally so curious that one or both will fall into the shower and let out a high-pitched squeal when they get wet. Then, Griffin will do his level best to make me forget he is hiding in my room and close the door on him. Having done this a few times and left him accidentally for 9+ hours, I don't know why he continues to insist on trying to get locked in.

I am pretty sure they spend their days sleeping and watching birds on the balcony. This is based on my observations on the weekends. I have a cozy setup for them by the balcony door, and this is a favored spot. They also get extra treats and cuddles twice a week when my housekeeper comes in. I have to be careful not to let them overeat on these days.

When I come home, Callaghan is always waiting at the door for me. I think he hears me coming up the stairs and then fumbling for keys. Griffin tends to sleep a bit longer, and I'll generally find him curled up in some uncomfortable-looking spot a few minutes later.

As soon as I open my bedroom door, they run in and explore to see what they've been missing all day. From what I can tell, nothing has changed. (I have come home a couple times on days my housekeeper was there and found Griffin locked in my room, which means he plays the same game with her.)

Evenings are cuddle time; whenever I'm sitting on the couch with my laptop, Griffin curls up on my right side and Callaghan on my left. When I cook, they insist on being underfoot. They are both very good cuddle cats, which I love.

Then it's playtime. The cats will chase each other around the apartment and play fight and get all their toys out and tear up cardboard boxes and have a grand old time. Whatever chores I'm working on, they will help with. Wihtout fail.

When I start getting ready for bed, they get all excited. Until recently, they both used to try and hide in my room and make me forget they were in there. But I found a foolproof cure for this. Feline Greenies. Right before I turn off the last of the lights and head to bed, I throw out a handful of Greenies on the other side of the apartment. This distracts them long enough for me to get into my room.

Then, once they've finished their treats, it's time to spend 40 minutes trying to break into my room. They succeed on occasion, and it's always startling to have two heavy furballs jump on you just as you've fallen asleep. (And you wonder why they are not allowed to sleep in my room?)

(About once a month I'll forget how annoying it is to have them sleep with me and will allow them in my room while I take a weekend nap. Callaghan will sleep on my head, and Griffin will spend the entire time trying to make me pet him, whether I'm willing or conscious or not.)

I have been very proud of myself with the Greenies treat trick, but I am a little afraid they'll start biting my toes if they think I am up past my bedtime and they're hungry for treats...

The cats sleep in the spare room, usually on the softest box they can find. This, despite the fact that I have several cat beds/baskets throughout the apartment. Their newest favorite sleep spot is together on top of a stack of rubbermaid containers.

See below photos for Griffin's horrific(ally cute and fuzzy) home haircut and Callaghan's odd foot posture when he's stalking a cardboard box.

3. My Jambiya

Courtesy of one of our wonderful drivers, I am now the proud owner of my very own Yemeni jambiya. He surprised me with it a couple of weeks ago, and I am so excited. It's beautiful, and I need to figure out how to best display it. I may have it mounted in a long shadow box that can also accommodate the belt. See below for pictures of this as well.

Riding Along In My Automobile

2011-07-08T11:43:00.000-04:00

A week since my last post. Poor effort. But, in my defense, it's been a slow week. While so many of my friends are engaged in exciting pursuits like moving! bidding! finding out the results of bids! getting engaged! getting married! having babies! going on vacation!, me, I'm just keeping on keeping on. Which is kind of nice. I have had some nice down time, some nice naps, some good progress on projects at work, and even time to cook. Yesterday I even had a chance to unpack/inventory a box of treasures from my time in South Africa. My collection of guinea hen-themed cookware and dining decor is now proudly displayed. I do love me a guinea hen.

I need to write blogs about my trip to Miami and the Keys, but that would require posting photos, which my fragile internet connection is just not up to. And which I am just not up to getting frustrated over.

So I think it's time for some reflections on (not) driving in Saudi Arabia. These days, most conversations eventually turn to driving and traffic and (the lack of) rules of the road. One of the excuses I hear most often for not allowing women to drive is that they will cause accidents because they are not used to driving. Which may be true and would of course be a short-term effect (just look at teenagers the world over and their insurance rates for proof), but this excuse is just a bit ridiculous to me because of the poor driving one encounters in Saudi Arabia every day. The number of road accidents here is astronomical (in the absence of actual statistics), nobody seems to have had any driver's education, and every day is an adventure in ridiculousness on the road.

So, some observations.

-I am pretty sure the only people who use seat belts in this entire country are my colleagues and me (who, by the way, ride in armored vehicles with "seat belts required" signs liberally posted throughout).

-Similarly, nobody has ever heard of a car seat? It is normal to see children unrestrained in cars. And they're not sitting down. They're crawling over the seats, obscuring the driver's vision, bouncing around, poking out of windows and sunroofs, and generally making me cringe. It is not unusual to see toddlers driving, sitting on their fathers' laps. Ditto infants. This is one of my biggest pet peeves.

-It is not unusual to make a left turn from a lane other than the left turn lane. Including the far right lane. Including on 10-lane highways. It is also not unusual for the vehicle doing this to be a giant, heavy water truck.

-Red lights are mere suggestions. As are turn signals.

-The right of way belongs to he who asserts himself.

-I found out last week that it is technically illegal to use a cell phone while driving. And I laughed out loud. Because you would never, ever, ever in a million years guess this from driver behavior.

-Cutting people off could be a national sport.

-Traffic is worse at night. Especially weekend and holiday nights.

-Traffic is light when there's an exciting football match on. Amazingly, this seems to extend to the Women's World Cup.

-After a win by a favored team in an exciting football match, it's anything goes. Roller blading while holding on to the car, check. Roller blading while being towed behind a car via rope, check. Having more passengers ON the car than IN the car, check. Exciting games of chicken, check. Chinese fire drills, check. (And not necessarily at red lights!) Chinese fire drills between cars without stopping, check. Holding giant stuffed tiger heads out the window, check. Driver's window, of course. And, of course, all manner of displaying and waving flags and banners.

-It is possible to buy SpongeBob SquarePants merchandise at every intersection in Jeddah.

-Lines separating lanes are mere suggestions. It might actually be more efficient without them altogether. What was designed as a four-lane road is more often a seven-lane road.

-You need not have a specialized vehicle to transport goats and sheep. (I know this one from my days in Africa, but it's equally creative here. In surprising ways sometimes.)

-You can tell where the traffic cameras are placed by the explosion of red brake lights in front of you.

-The people driving the cars at the front of the line at every traffic light are colorblind. Or at least this is what I gather from the cacophony of horn honking that happens EVERY time a light turns green. And sometimes before said light turns green.

-Pedestrians, beware. There are only a few brave souls anyway, but they literally take their lives in their hands every time.

-Why bother with stop signs at a four-way intersection when you can just honk when approaching to signal your intent to proceed?

And with that, I'm exhausted just thinking about it. There are millions of other crazy examples of (not) driving in Saudi Arabia, and I reserve the right to update this list as I remember/witness more things. And I know that bad driving is a special feature of most places in the world: what are some of the most egregious (to you) violations of the rules of the road at your post?

All for One, One For All

2011-06-30T15:04:00.000-04:00

Ahhh. The weekend. Finally. It was, as expected, a busy week at work, but there's definitely signs that the summer slowdown is starting. Time to look at planning for the next year, working on a bunch of downtime projects I have put aside, and some spring cleaning. Oh, and bidding! Next month...

Until then, I am keeping myself (and especially my mind) occupied with organizing my apartment and doing some spring cleaning of my own belongings. It's beyond time. Luckily this week I have a holiday right in the middle (Monday, or our virtual Wednesday), so I have some extra down time. Of course, those in the U.S. are gearing up for a three-day weekend, but, having just come back from vacation, I am actually looking forward to my two two-day weeks :-).

Nomads by Nature is hosting this week's Round Up on the very timely theme of Independence Day, which is, of course, the holiday in the middle of next week! And while many of my friends at Embassies and Consulates around the world are frantically preparing for their official celebrations in honor of America's National Day, I am preparing for a relaxing week. Because we celebrated our National Day in March, to avoid the heat and summer slowdown. And right now, I am very thankful for that. All I need to do is show up to our Consulate's unofficial celebration and enjoy myself. No suits or heels or makeup or endless small talk required!

Independence Day, for me, has always been linked with my birthday (two days later). Growing up, it was always an almost painful day to get through - so much celebrating but still so long to go before presents and cake. And, on occasion, the cake had a 4th of July theme (you all know the strawberry/blueberry/cool whip cake I'm talking about!). As I watched fireworks in the evening, all I would be thinking was that it was only 36 more hours until MY day. As I get older, I don't have the same kind of anticipation for my birthday, especially as I have started wishing the numbers stayed the same or reversed. (And I know I'm not old, but I'm coming up on some scary birthdays.)

So since I don't have a terribly exciting Independence Day story to tell, I am going to write about this year and the best early birthday present I could have possibly received.

I have struggled with how to present this story for the last few weeks, and I will probably botch it now, but here goes.

I have a number of very close friends, some dating back to childhood and others met as I progressed through school and life. However, my most enduring friendship from an early age has been with two (now) women from my hometown. E and I were the same age; L is a year younger and grew up on the same street as E. We look back and laugh now, but the truth is that when we were very young (5-8 or so), L and I were occasionally jealous of each other's relationship with E. As we grew older, though, and entered middle school we became inseparable. We formed our own little Three Musketeers group. Rare was a weekend when we didn't sleep over at someone's house. Right before high school, E moved with her mom to a town about an hour away, meaning a new school. Even with the distance, though, and our now three different schools, we maintained the relationship. Most of my memories from childhood and high school involve E&L. We did everything together, talked about everything, and grew into three very different young women together. We experienced together amazing highs and heartbreaking lows and everything in between. We were also, as you'd imagine, very close to one another's families, all whom I still love to this day.

For many reasons, which I won't go into here, our paths diverged with E more than we would have liked as college progressed. L and I were able to maintain a close friendship over the years and distance. We probably grew even closer than ever. But there was always a part of 'us' missing.

But, thanks to the wonder of Facebook and perseverance by all of us, we managed to reconnect with E in the past few months. We've exchanged lots of emails and planned to get together whenever two or more of us was in the same place. E lives in New Hampshire, L in London, and me in KSA. We had tried to all be in the same place at the same time, but, sadly, L couldn't make it home in June. E's mom and I set the date for me to go to the family home for dinner.

As I drove the familiar but new-all-over-again roads to their home, I was both excited and a little nervous. After all those years and all that had happened to all of us, how would it go.

Every tiny fear was put to rest as soon as I put the car in park in the driveway. E came bounding out of the house, looking exactly as I remembered and apparently not aging a day. We embraced, and all was right again. I went inside and gave big hugs to her brother, mother, and step-father, all of whom had big parts of my childhood and adolescence. It was as comfortable and as perfect as one could hope. E's husband had to work, unfortunately, but I can't wait to meet him.

We had a wonderful afternoon and dinner talking and catching up and telling stories and reminiscing and laughing. And as night fell and it got later, we just kept talking. E and I were finally the only ones still up, and we just couldn't stop talking. We talked about college and jobs and her marriage and my travels and everything we'd missed in each other's lives in the last years. We fell right back into our old rhythm of talking into the wee hours of the morning about everything and nothing. We talked and laughed and talked and cried and talked until three in the morning. Until we both started losing our voices. Until I absolutely had to leave and drive home. I really should have thought ahead and packed an overnight bag. We were missing L, without question, but thankfully she'll be in NH in August for her own much-overdue reunion with E. And I cannot wait until the next time all three of us are in NH together. Because that will just make everything complete and perfect.

I didn't regain my voice for about three days after that, but it was worth it. More than anything, I needed to spend a wonderful twelve hours talking to one of my best friends. And I needed to reconnect and get that important piece of my life back. And every day since I've been thankful for reconnecting. And whenever I look at the picture of the three of us that I have hanging in my bedroom, I can smile and no longer look at it wistfully.

Almost twenty-five years on, we've grown into three remarkable women (if I do say so), living on three continents and working in three very different fields. But there's an unbreakable bond of friendship, and I am so thankful for these women and their families and what they mean to me. Reinforcing that bond was the absolute best early birthday present I could have asked for.

And now that I've gone completely sappy and made myself cry, I'll end this entirely too long post. Here's wishing everyone a wonderful Independence Day, surrounded by family and friends. Happy Birthday America!

The Pros and Cons of International Travel

2011-06-25T12:58:00.001-04:00

As we all know, travel is fraught with complications. That's part of the adventure. But sometimes, the complications are just comical. Here's a pro/con list of my trip back to Jeddah. The pros and cons are slightly inverted in places, but you'll get the general idea.

Con:
Had to say goodbye to my parents... Tears.

Pro:
Got a good seat on the bus to Boston!

Pro:
There was a movie showing on the bus!

Con:
It was a movie I had ZERO interest in watching. (Tron or some such nonsense.)

Pro:
Wifi on the bus. Slow, but manageable. As long as I didn't try to stream Netflix.

Con:
I tried to stream Netflix.

Pro:
Reached Logan almost on time.

Con:
Longest. Line. Ever. To check in.

Pro:
Turns out said line was only for the flight to Cape Verde! Score one for the zero-wait Air France line!

Pro:
Coolest gate agent ever doesn't even blink at my 67lb and 55lb bags, just waves them onto the conveyor belt.

Con:
Longest. Security. Line. Ever.

Con:
Having to drink my last Poland Spring sparkling water before security...

Pro:
Plenty of time to drink said bottle of water!

Pro:
TSA agent with a sense of humor and a smattering of Arabic!

Con:
Flight delayed one hour.

Pro:
More time to hang out with free internet!

Con:
Flight delayed two hours.

Pro:
More free internet!

Con:
Seriously, how many times does the gate agent have to say, "if your row has not been called, please move away from the gate area. You are only delaying boarding for yourself and others." Nobody moved. Except slightly closer to the gate area. I think this was repeated 15+ times. It was almost funny. But not really. Especially when my row was called and I had to fight said space-invaders to be able to board the plane.

Pro:
Gate agent calls out list of rows that do not have audio/visual functionality. Mine is not among them!

Con:
Upon boarding, realize there is no audio/visual functionality in individual seats anyway.

Con:
Full flight.

Pro:
Nice, quiet, considerate row mates.

Pro:
BEST airline meal EVER. Unbelievable. Beef with wild mushrooms over mashed potatoes.

Con:
Curried orzo chicken salad accompanying said entree = not so yummy.

Pro:
Slept (relative term) most of flight.

Con:
Breakfast on flight sucked.

Pro:
Flight only landed 90 minutes late.

Con:
Next flight not listed on connection board, and I didn't have boarding pass, forcing me to wait in line for an agent. For 30+ minutes. Only to be told Air France cannot issue a boarding pass for the Saudia flight, despite it being an Air France codeshare.

Pro:
Quick connection to next terminal.

Con:
Nobody at the Saudia counter in next terminal.

Pro:
Air France agent seems willing to help.

Con:
Air France agents (now plural) don't seem to realize it's an AF/Saudia codeshare, and it turns out the Saudia staff never actually staff their in-terminal counter. Please proceed through immigration.

Con:
Immigration line RIDICULOUSLY long.

Pro:
Immigration line moves ridiculously fast.

Pro:
Stamp in my passport! Woohoo!
Note: though totally unnecessary, those of you who know me know this was the highlight of the trip.

Con:
Saudia flight not open for check-in yet, despite it being only 3 hours before flight.

Con:
Make that 4 hours. Delay.

Pro:
Saudia finally opens its check-in desks.

Pro:
Agent takes pity on me and promises me a row to myself on a fairly empty flight. I can't believe her entirely, but I appreciate her attempt.

Con:
Must go through immigration line again.

Pro:
Stamp in my passport! Woohoo!

Con:
Most. Boring. Terminal. Ever.

Con:
I am in France, and I cannot get a croissant or a ham and cheese baguette?! Seriously, WTF?!

Pro:
Leftover sandwich from airport in Boston for just this occasion! (originally planned to be used during flight, but said meal was too good to pass up.)

Pro:
The one store open is the French goods duty-free store. I stock up on cheese, chocolates, more cheese, and other items.

Con:
I did not get to purchase any Jacquard Français table linens, which I'd been looking forward to since my previous trip through CDG three weeks earlier.

Pro:
More money for cheese!

Con:
More of a flight delay. This is starting to eat into my arrival time.

Pro/Con? You decide.
Seven pilots wait to get on my flight. Seriously? What exactly does this mean?
Result: only two went into the cockpit. The other five went into First Class.

Pro:
I indeed have an entire row to myself.

Con:
It's only a two-seat row.

Pro:
Hey, it's a row to myself, I'll take it.

Con:
Family of seven going for Umrah seated all around me who has clearly never flown before. (This is typical on flights to Jeddah, which are always full of pilgrims, but it gets old fast. Yes, young child, if you press that button a light will turn on. If you press it again, the light will turn off. Yes, if you press that button a bell will ding and the flight attendant will come ask you what you need. Pressing it again before she reaches you and then pressing it again as soon as she turns away is not very nice. Nor is repeating this over and over and over. And then getting your brother to do it. And then your father. And then your little sister.)

Con:
Meal = icky.

Con:
No ginger ale.

Pro:
I have Orangina left over :-).

Con:
Said family never, ever stops talking. The entire flight. Even when they were shushed. And not just by me, I promise!

Pro:
That's not entirely true. They stopped talking once we entered the miqat/ihram zone.

Con:
15 minutes before landing...

Pro:
Only landed an hour late!

Con:
I have now been traveling 26 hours and desperately want my bed. An hour ago.

Pro:
Deplane and board bus in record time. Get to terminal and am in short line for immigration.

Pro:
Immigration officer processes me quickly and with no questions.

Pro:
My expeditor is there waiting for me!

Pro:
My first bag comes quickly.

Con:
No second bag. No second bag. No second bag.

Con:
Baggage conveyor stops.

Con:
Baggage conveyor appears broken.

Con:
Airport personnel not in a hurry to remedy the situation.

Pro:
They finally switch to another conveyor!

Pro:
My second bag is one of the first to come through!

Pro:
I'm waved through customs without having my bags checked.

Pro:
My wonderful driver is waiting at the curb!

Pro:
Traffic isn't too bad for 2am Friday after school gets out!

Con:
Prospect of lugging three heavy bags from car to my building and up stairs.

Pro:
My wonderful driver insists on helping!

Pro:
I have my keys!

Pro:
My cats greet me at the door! They remember me!

Pro:
My apartment is spotless, and my housekeeper cleaned off the dining room table and my craft table! Score!

Pro:
Bed. As wonderful as I remembered.

Con:
Cats tried for several hours to break down and/or claw through my bedroom door to get to me for cuddles.

Pro:
I finally fell asleep despite the clatter.

Pro:
12 blissful, uninterrupted hours of sleep.

Pro:
A day off before having to go back to work.

Pro:
I managed to fully unpack and get my laundry ready for my housekeeper!

Pro:
Cheese and sausage for dinner!

Con:
The store didn't have fresh bread, and multigrain crispbread just isn't the greatest thing.

Pro:
Hey, it's French cheese and sausage...

And that, dear readers, was my latest travel adventure. I am fully unpacked, my laundry is done (not by me!!), my cats have forgiven me, and I still have lots of cheese and sausage left.

But I'm Not Ready...

2011-06-22T22:53:00.001-04:00

This vacation consisted of three countries (one simply for transit), six states (again, one only for transit), six airports, eight flights, two beautiful weddings, planning for another wedding, countless miles on the road, way too many packing expeditions, lots of hugs with family and friends, catching up with my best friend from childhood, quality time with my niece and nephew, a good dose of animal fun, and lots of much-needed down time. I shipped 40lbs of non-perishables to myself today, which supplements what I can't get on the local market or through the commissary. I watched countless Red Sox games, celebrated the Bruins winning the Stanley Cup, and reveled in the Heat losing the NBA finals.

This vacation did not consist of any trips to Trader Joe's, The Container Store, DSW, a movie theater, Coach, outlet malls, or any of several other things I planned to do. I did not get a chance to eat Coquilles St. Jacques or make vichyssoise. I did eat lobster, bagels, conch fritters, and reubens.

I didn't get my dry cleaning done or my alterations/hemming done. Which is just as well, since it should have been done before I left for R&R and will be cheaper in KSA anyway. But I feel silly lugging it across the ocean twice with no tangible results.

I was only able to access my Blackberry a few times, so I didn't get to look at work email very much. Which is probably a good thing. But I'm already starting to think about unfinished projects and creating my mental to-do list for once I'm back at work on Saturday.

But I still wish I had a little more time. Or knew when the next time I was going home next. Or, for that matter, knew where I was going next. Bidding will come soon enough and consume all of my time, I know, and I've already started having dreams about it. Both good and scary.

I love my job and my lifestyle, but there are a lot of unique facts of life - including uncertainty, constant change, and occasional feelings of helplessness, an inability to easily answer the question "where are you from?" - that accompany it, for better or worse. There are a lot of hellos and goodbyes, also for better or worse. If you don't like something, it will change soon enough. But if you do like something, it too will change. This is my first post and only my first R&R, but I've come to learn this much already.

So I'm heading back to KSA and to my work and my life there. And in some ways I'm ready. But, in others, I'm not quite ready.

I'll write more posts once I'm in Jeddah and have time to stop and think. I'd write more now but need to board fairly soon. Ready or not...

Saudi Cultural Center Videos

2011-06-22T15:25:00.000-04:00

I'm 7.5 hours from leaving Boston on my way back to KSA. It has been a busy, fun, and eventful week, and I have lots of stories and pictures to share. But since I've procrastinated on packing and my last shopping stock-up, those will have to wait. For now, here are videos of traditional dance and drumming from a Saudi cultural center I visited several months ago.

Total Lunar Eclipse, Part II

2011-06-15T16:41:00.000-04:00

I was born 28 days after my due date. In the middle of summer. My parents, tired of people asking if I'd been born yet, just stopped answering the phone. This wouldn't happen these days, but it happened then. Early in my mom's pregnancy, as legend goes, one of my elderly Polish relatives (maybe my great-grandmother?) put her hand on my mother's stomach and said that the child (me) would wait for the ninth cycle of the moon.

I was born on the night of a total lunar eclipse, a fairly major one of the last century. My mother relays the story that, while she was in labor, the doctor, nurse, and my father were on the roof of the hospital watching the eclipse.

Today is another such total lunar eclipse, though it isn't visible over North America, sadly. It is, however, momentous in that is the first Inex series lunar eclipse since the night of my birth. According to Wikipedia, "the Inex series repeat eclipses 20 days short of 29 years, repeating on average every 10571.95 days."

I actually think this is a much cooler marker of time than a birthday...

Kandyan Dance Videos

2011-06-15T16:26:00.000-04:00

More videos!

This time from a dance performance at a cultural center in Kandy, Sri Lanka.