With Gil and Lee
I got so caught up in learning Hebrew that I completely forgot to blog yesterday! There just aren’t enough hours in a day.
We’re happy being back in DC! Last Sunday, our sweet friend Jim hosted a dinner party for us. We got to visit with Jim, Sarah, Richard and Cathy – so nice! And, Jim’s a great cook!
We eased into Hebrew class – Monday was an orientation day, so we just took “what’s your learning style” tests, met the instructors, etc. It’s fun to see so many familiar faces in the hallways at FSI (Foreign Service Institute) – folks from A-100 and from Juarez – it’s great! That night, we went to a friend’s apartment upstairs to meet her new husband – we were in A-100 with her, and she married a man she met on her first tour.
Every Tuesday morning, we have an area studies class where we learn about the Middle East (and the Fertile Crescent, as “we” are called). This week we had two interesting speakers on Iran. I thought the first one was very interesting – he talked about the Iran perspective and why they may feel like they do about the outside world.
Tuesday night, John took me to Harry’s (our favorite restaurant) for an early anniversary dinner – 14 years! (Wednesday was our actual anniversary.)
We continued easing into Hebrew on Wednesday, since it was an “admin” day – which for us means the usual one hour of lab, but only two hours of class (as opposed to four). We were off the rest of the day, so we headed to Main State at Foggy Bottom to re-new our security badges…where we ran into more old friends while we waited.
So, Thursday was our first full day, and man, did it make my head hurt! Hebrew is…well, hard! When we (finally) got out of class, John and I moved into our permanent apartment – we wanted an upper floor apartment in our old building, and one became available – we love it! (Flavie wasn’t thrilled with getting in the carrier one more time, though!)
We ended the evening by running over to a local watering hole to say hi to my old Hot Springs buddies, Gilford and Lee. I never really knew Lee that well, but really enjoyed getting to know him. (He was a couple of years ahead of me in high school.) He’s been in DC for years, primarily working for USA Today – a really neat guy. And it was a treat to see Gil again after – what? 25 years? – he hasn’t changed a bit, as you can see from the picture above.
Friday was another full day of class, but we celebrated the end of the week by having dinner with our old Juarez friends Beth and Tom at a nearby Lebanese restaurant. It was great to catch up with her – Beth left Juarez last summer, so we had lots to talk about.
It was nice to sleep in on Saturday, but we still had studying to do during the day. That night, we headed downtown with our A-100 friend Cathy (who lives in our apartment complex) to a very festive party.
Sunday was…well, more studying (you can see a pattern here). We did take a long break to watch the US-Canada gold medal hockey game (who knew hockey was so fun?), and we started watching a good Clint Eastwood movie, “Gran Torino.”
So, it was back to classes today, but at least I remembered to blog!