criplomats

Truck art

This decorated truck was at the Embassy to move a big container, so some friends and I climbed on for a photo. I do love the way they decorate trucks here – it’s very fun!

I had several meetings with our Deputy Chief of Mission this week about the International School (where I’m on the board) to bring him up to speed on it, and I had a long school board meeting at Rose’s house on Wednesday – luckily she feeds us well!

John and I finally decided on a place to stay in Thailand for our fall R&R – we’ve really spent a lot of time looking at different places. It’s nice to have that resolved and tickets purchased – something to look forward to!

I had my first long distance Spanish lesson this week – it went fine but lordy it makes my head hurt. I haven’t been as diligent about studying this week as I should have been – it’s so hard to come home and study when you’re pooped from a long and busy day!

We watched a great movie last weekend, “Side Effects,” and we finished the “Luther” series. And last night we started watching season three of the Danish version of “The Killing” – excellent! And I wonder why my Spanish isn’t getting done…!

Here’s a close-up of the front of the truck:

Looking at you

It’s Sunday morning here and we’re having another storm. I love it, especially when I am snug inside the house with John, the dog and the cat! It will pass soon but the morning rain has been a common occurrence this monsoon season.

The week was fairly busy. I had a financial committee meeting one night for the international school. Thursday night we went to an event sponsored by our public affairs section which was a lot of fun. And Friday night we went to a very enjoyable dinner party at Joseph and Sunera’s house. Lots of good conversation and good food!

The rest of the week was spent studying Spanish in the evening or watching the final season of “Luther.” I worked yesterday morning trying to get caught up a bit – it’s just crazy the amount of work we have to do!

I’m starting a distance learning class for Spanish where I will study on my own during the week, then talk via telephone to a Spanish instructor back at FSI on Monday nights. Should be good, but it’s so hard to be disciplined to do the homework! Hopefully it will pay off in the end.

John and I spent a nice Labor Day weekend at home. Studied Spanish much of the time, but took a break on Monday to go to the spa. Very relaxing and I avoided any urge to go to work!

Unfortunately I didn’t feel great this week – had a touch of a stomach bug, which is common here. I stayed home on Thursday and slept and read all day.

Friday was back to work, but we left around 3:30 PM due to a large protest that threatened to cut off access to our neighborhood. Luckily we got home with no problems.

We watched several episodes of “Luther” this week (it has one of our favorite actors from “The Wire” in it), and we watched this week’s episode of “Breaking Bad.”

We’ve been trying to decide on a vacation spot for our fall R&R. We’d like to take advantage of being on this side of the world, so we’re looking at Thailand, Indonesia, etc. It’s hard work!

Honey is still with us and we’re still really enjoying her being here!

John and Honey

This was a pretty slow week. I’m trying to just come home after work to study Spanish and not plan anything social to distract myself. I did make it to the gym three days after work – good to get back in the swing of that. We stayed home all day last Sunday to study, which was nice.  We did manage to watch the rest of Season Two of “The Hour,” and the latest episode of “Breaking Bad.”

We’re really enjoying Honey, the little Chihuahua. She’s very well-behaved, although she will occasionally bark at Flavie – but they seem to have established a truce of sorts. She loves nothing better than to get treats and sit on John’s lap.

John spent two afternoons this week interviewing applicants for Fulbright scholarships. He really enjoyed it and said it was interesting to hear the students’ proposals for studying in the U.S. He also went to a going-away dinner for his boss on Thursday night.

Saturday I went to an all-day orientation for the school board at the superintendent’s house. It was actually informative and a lot of fun – the superintendent and the board members are just really nice.

When I got home I studied for a bit, then we watched a very raunchy, trashy movie called “The Paperboy.” Despite how extremely disturbing it was, we really enjoyed it. It had a great cast, and Nicole Kidman played a campy Florida tramp – I really enjoy her acting.

Settlers of Catan

Last weekend was a lot of fun. Sunday afternoon, after some pampering at the spa, we hosted a Settlers of Catan afternoon party (a board game). We had Howie, Petit, Joseph, Sunera, Joe, and Christy. The game lasted for three hours – lots of fun and snacking.

Honey, with a coin next to her for scale

Our big news of the week is the guest puppy in the house! One of our friends is on R&R in Washington, so we have Honey, their darling little Chihuahua, for a while. She’s so cute! It’s fun to have a dog in the house, although Flavia doesn’t really share that opinion. She mostly glares at us from the safety of her cat tree. Honey is really curious about Flavie – oh, and she loves Flavia’s food. That probably hasn’t endeared the dog to Flavie…

Monday I went to the International School to officially open the school year. I thought I was just going to say hi to the teachers and staff, but when I got there, they were all in the auditorium and the podium and microphone were set up! Granted, it’s a small school and there were only about 75 people in the audience but I was still surprised. Luckily I had rehearsed some talking points on the drive out, and my old Toastmasters kicked in, so it was all fine (and short)! The school is lovely and everyone is really friendly.

Tuesday night we went out for a nice steak dinner and to celebrate getting handshakes for Guadalajara. Now we have to get over the Spanish hurdle. We are cramming for a phone test in September – hopefully that will allow us to finalize the deal so we can start getting excited!

Friday was a nice dinner party at a local restaurant to celebrate Howie’s birthday – lots of fun and a nice group of folks who we don’t normally see. Dinner was interrupted by a flurry of “emergency visa” emails about a VIP, but luckily it all got settled pretty quickly and I could get back to the party.

This week we watched the latest episode of “Breaking Bad” and finished Season One of “The Hour” – thanks to Christy, we are now on Season Two. Lots of fun.

On the wildlife front, this week was interesting. I didn’t see the goats, but the local staff supervisor came one morning to tell me he needed to enter a maintenance work order for the “died buffalo” in the creek. I had to go out to see what that was all about. Sure enough, a dead water buffalo was stuck in some trash and foliage in the creek outside the Consular section – emitting a putrid smell, as you can imagine. While we were out looking at this lovely site, we saw a huge turtle (about 1.5 feet across the back of his shell) swimming in the creek. I assume he was a snapping turtle given the length of his neck and the shape of his head.

I was skeptical that the city would do anything about the died buffalo, but sure enough, they sent a crew out. Not to remove it entirely from the creek, but to give it a shove to keep floating downstream. At least it’s out of our smelling range now. Wonder who’s downstream?