John graduated from his Consular training (ConGen) this week as class valedictorian, so he got to wear the much-coveted purple robe. He received the honor because he didn’t miss any questions on any of the four tests. ConGen is a pretty fun course – there are lots of role-plays. We work in the land of Z, a fictitious country that has an in-depth back story. At the Zian Embassy, we get lots of “zany” characters whose names all start with “Z.” Neighboring countries are X and Y. This week I had my jail visit to visit an arrested American in our Zian jail cell (a real cell, complete with toilet, cot and stuffed rats on the floor).
We had some great social outings this week. Last Sunday, we hosted a fun dinner party at our apartment for our friend Jim Jay, who’s leaving for his post in Lagos, Nigeria. We cooked burgers and enjoyed visiting with everyone (see photos below). Thursday night was happy hour, and then last night we went to a dinner party at Carolyn and Konstantin’s (the friends who recently got married and had their puppy Meatball be the ring bearer) where we dined on great chili and homemade mac-n-cheese.
I also made the trek to the outlet mall yesterday with some girlfriends to go bargain hunting – successfully, I might add.
We watched an interesting movie this week called Jindabyne, with Laura Linney and Gabriel Byrne.
Jim Jay
Foreground: Jim and Kristin; Background: Marcy and Zanaida
Chris with Noodle