criplomats

Eastern Market

The movers are coming on Thursday, so John and I have been doing some shopping. I was so happy to get to go to Sam’s Club and Walmart on Saturday! We also went to John’s favorite used bookstore in the area where I stocked up on Jodi Picoult  books to send to Islamabad.

We’ve had a really fun week. We went to FSI on Monday so John could wrap things up, and I worked on my employee evaluation. It was fun to have lunch in the cafeteria and see familiar faces.

Tuesday John had consultations downtown, so I walked over to Pentagon City mall and spent the day shopping.

Wednesday we went to Main State for lunch and more consultations. It was fun to run into some of our old friends. That night, we met Dean for dinner at a Cajun place near Foggy Bottom – always nice to catch up with him.

I thoroughly enjoyed our outing on Thursday. We did some clothes shopping for John in the morning, then went to the Annie Liebowitz photography exhibit at the American Art Museum. This exhibit wasn’t her typical celebrity photos, but instead photos of classic Americana and homes of famous American figures, like Georgia O’Keefe. We also saw another good exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery called “In Vibrant Color” – great photos of celebrities from the 40s and 50s.

Afterwards we went to a movie theatre and saw “The Hunger Games,” which I really enjoyed.

Friday I went for a long lunch with an old friend who I hadn’t seen in many years – we spent hours getting reacquainted – lots of fun.

One of the highlights of the week was dinner with our manager from Juarez, Roger, and his wife Ayse – we went to RT’s and had a fabulous meal. My mouth had been watering for their she-crab soup, and it was as good as I remembered. I also had pecan-crusted haddock topped with crab meat and it was out of this world! It was great to catch up with Roger and Ayse.

The weather has been beautiful since I have been here – a little chilly but nice and sunny. We took advantage of it yesterday to go to the Eastern Market and poke around – we also ran into an old friend and visited with him and his family. Afterwards, we found a yummy Indian buffet for lunch.

It’s been a great week!

I left Tel Aviv Friday night and flew to Washington DC to see John – finally, after almost three months! I got in Saturday morning and we’ve just been relaxing around the apartment while I get over jet lag.

It was a busy week leading up to the trip. I stayed late Thursday night at work, making sure that I didn’t leave any loose ends.

I did a really dumb thing on Wednesday night – when I got home from work around 6PM, I realized I had locked myself out of the apartment! As a security measure, our building maintenance doesn’t have keys to our apartments, so I had to wait a couple  of hours until Embassy maintenance could bring me a key. The ironic thing was that I was meeting Rob and Diane that evening to give them my extra key so they can feed Flavie while I’m gone! Luckily Diane entertained me at her apartment until the key arrived.

Friday our office was closed due to the Tel Aviv marathon – they close the streets around the Embassy and hardly anyone can get to work. It’s fun to watch the thousands of runners go by the apartment. I walked up for a manicure, had lunch at the Thai restaurant and then browsed at the crafts market for a while. Around 8:30 PM, the taxi driver arrived and off we went to the airport.

It’s great to be back in DC (a little on the chilly side)!

Now that my time in Tel Aviv is winding down, I’m starting to realize all of the things I haven’t done yet. One thing on the bucket list was to go to Bethlehem. I had planned to drive, but realized at the last minute that my car insurance doesn’t extend into the West Bank. Rather than take a chance, I booked a trip through a tour company.

The town of Bethlehem is an Arab town with crowded, winding streets. Our Israeli tour guide can’t go into the West Bank (like my car), so we got handed off to another guide, and then later transferred again into small vans that could navigate the tiny streets. I wanted to take photos of the separation barrier wall because it is covered with graffiti-style art promoting peace, but it’s not a good idea to whip out a camera at any Israeli checkpoint.

The tour wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. I had hoped to stroll around and hit some of the gift shops for kitschy gifts, but the tour was more rigid – only one stop for souvenirs and the prices were outrageous. I even sneaked across the street to look at another shop and their prices were the same, so I came home empty-handed. ($19.99 for a Baby Jesus snow globe???)

Anyway, I did get to go the Church of the Nativity, the traditional site of Jesus’ birth. If you have any desire to go, by all means go with a guide who can get you down in the tiny grotto without waiting in line. It’s so small that only a handful of people can be there at a time – the line for the public had about a thousand people in it – they may still be there waiting.

So I saw “the exact spot” where Jesus was born and the location of the manger, down in this grotto below the church. The church itself is divided into Greek Orthodox, Armenian and Catholic – the Greek Orthodox section is extremely ornate, and they were holding their afternoon mass when we were there.

Church of the Nativity Mass

Artist sketching Dome of the Rock

The tour also went to the Old City and Mount Scopus in Jerusalem, so I re-visited some spots like the Wailing Wall and the Church of the Sepulcher.

In small world fashion, there was a guy on my tour who had worked in the Embassy in Warsaw with a guy I went to A-100 with!

This was a pretty good week; my manager was away at a conference, so I was left to my own devices.

Last Sunday morning, I took Flavie back to the vet for her titer test; the vet was pleased to see some hair re-growth. We think the combination of hypoallergenic food and Feliway (an aerosol calming agent) may be doing the trick.

Sunday night I went with some friends to a nice restaurant to celebrate Diane’s birthday.

On Wednesday night, we all took a shuttle to the DCM’s house to listen to a professor from Ben Gurion University talk about Iran – interesting. For all the news, Iran doesn’t really seem to be a big topic on the streets here in Tel Aviv.

Street in Old City

This morning I had breakfast with Petit across the street from the beach, then got a manicure and pedicure – not a bad way to spend a rather chilly Sunday!

Selling Jerusalem bread

Old City cat

Making sushi last week

I guess Mother Nature wasn’t quite ready for spring, because we had another few days of very windy and wet weather last week – hopefully it’s over!

Here’s a photo from the sushi party last week – it was during the Purim holiday, when you are supposed to wear costumes. Our host, Ray, was in a pink too-too!

Last Sunday, my pleasant walk down the beach to Jaffa turned into two hours of wandering around lost, trying to find a place that frames pictures. I finally found it, thanks to the help of a local staff friend who called to give me directions.

Last weekend, rockets started coming out of Gaza – which don’t come anywhere near Tel Aviv – but on Monday I had to work on getting an emergency message out for travelers.

I am in the process of getting my medical clearance to go to Pakistan; as part of that,  I wanted to have a colonoscopy. Not the most pleasant procedure, but my results were normal. Luckily, the medical care here in Israel is very good. I did the test last Wednesday morning, then took the rest of the day off to recover. I spent part of the time up at Rob’s watching a movie with his kitties.

Thursday night I went to the Thai House with Petit and Katie – a good girls’ night out.

Friday night, my manager Juan and I went to Hotel Montefiore for drinks after work – a good way to unwind!

It looks like the chilly wet weather may be behind us – the weather has been amazing this last week! People are coming back to the beach, and while still a bit “air-ish,” it is sunny and gorgeous.

This was a long week for me, but did have some nice highlights.

Last Sunday night, I went to a dinner at Kimberlee’s apartment. Kim works at USAID, so I visited with my friends from there and met a few new folks. Turns out Kim is a great cook, so we have a mini feast with salmon, roasted chicken and salads – delicious!

Friday night I went to Ben and Jen’s for a sushi dinner. We had lessons in rolling sushi, and stuffed them with veggies, tuna and chicken – the best part, of course, was enjoying the fruits of our labor!

And last night I went to a fun party at Petit and Howie’s to celebrate Petit getting her green card! Lots of fun.

Thursday afternoon we had Consular Leadership activities that I was in charge of. Everything turned out fine, despite all of my worrying and fretting!

I’m on cat duty this week for both Rob and Diane, so I’m making the rounds. I took a movie up to Rob’s yesterday (“Master and Commander”) and his big black cat sat on my lap for most of it. Then I got Diane’s kitty and brought her down to play for the day – she is so cute, although Flavie doesn’t seem to share my opinion!

Liz came over from Jerusalem and spent the night last night. We just had a nice breakfast together at Miztada. Now I’m off for a nice walk down the beach to Jaffa to enjoy this beautiful weather!