criplomats

Last night, I got to see my cousin Donna (above) and her family. Her son Chris is also a Foreign Service Officer, and I had run into him earlier in the week at FSI. Donna looks wonderful, and Chris’s one-year old baby is adorable. We had dinner together at a nearby restaurant along with Chris’s wife and Donna’s husband; Donna and I talked non-stop the whole time!

The amount of things to do in this town is pretty overwhelming, and with the amount of studying we have to do, it’s hard to get to many events. But on Friday, we went to a panel discussion about the prospects of peace in the Middle East, featuring Aaron David Miller. (John’s book club just read a book by him.) Another expert in the region, who we have heard in our area studies class, Daniel Levy, also spoke.

We topped off the evening with a wonderful steak at Smith and Wollensky’s.

Thursday afternoon, we went to a happy hour to see our A-100 classmate Joe, who was on his way back from Tel Aviv. He had only great things to say about the city – can’t wait to get there!

The rest of the week was pretty low-key; just studying and the normal errands. We watched a movie in Hebrew (with subtitles, of course) called “Saint Clara,” and I bought some pretty Hebrew music to listen to in the car.

This was the big 5-0 for me – I really can’t believe it. I had a great day of relaxing – John went to a magic workshop in Maryland, and my friend Cathy treated me to lunch, followed by shopping and a pedicure. In the evening, we met our friends Jim and Mary at Harry’s for a wonderful dinner and John joined us on his way home. Thanks to Jim for a birthday book and to Mary for a beautiful bunch of fresh flowers!

The best part of the day was hearing from so many friends, either on Facebook or by phone – even David calling from Diego Garcia. Nice to be remembered!

Friday night we went to a small get-together at Brian’s apartment downtown – a good way to end a long week.

On Cinco de Mayo, I went to the Consular Affairs American Citizens’ Services office for a small after-work party. Our Juarez desk officer was nice enough to invite me to stop by. It’s like going to the mother-ship for me – I’d love to work there if we do a DC tour. They work with the ACS offices within the embassies around the world on ACS cases – very interesting. I met the woman who is working on Haitian adoptions, and reconnected with an old friend who, as it turns out, worked on the two case of the two American journalists who were held in North Korea.

We changed Hebrew teachers this week, so we have different instructors. It’s been a difficult adjustment for me with one of them, so the week was a bit frustrating. We’ve been in class 10 weeks now or so, and I feel like I have a lot of information in my head, but it doesn’t always make it out of my mouth in the proper order! Hopefully, this week will be better.

Happy Mother’s Day!

With Mary

This was a great week for seeing good friends. The highlight of our week was getting to see Mary, who was in DC for work. We met her for dinner at Harry’s on Tuesday night – great to catch up!

Thursday night, we were back at Harry’s to celebrate the upcoming wedding of two of our A-100 classmates, Sarah and Aaron. They will be the second couple from our class to get married (and there will be a third in December). We went with them on their first date back in 2007, so I feel somewhat invested in their future! 

This week was also the 3rd anniversary of joining the Foreign Service. We had an A-100 happy hour on Friday night to celebrate. We were at a rooftop bar on a beautiful warm evening – a perfect way to celebrate. Click for photos from happy hour.

On Thursday, the Hebrew classes drove to Maryland for lunch at a local kosher restaurant. The food was great – John and I had a salad made from shawarma – delicious! After lunch, we each made a mini-presentation about something in Israel. Although it still sounds like baby talk to me, we are making progress. I talked about wine and John talked about cheese from Israel. Click for photos from lunch.

Last Sunday, my friend Cathy and I drove to CostCo – she is moving to Africa and can ship consumables, so we were stocking her up. Afterwards, we had lunch at the Stray Cat Cafe, a little place not far from our apartment. The whole place is decorated with pictures and paintings of cats, and a portion of their proceeds goes to animal rescue. My kind of place.

Yesterday, I metro’d to Clarendon for lunch with my friends Jimmi and Ashley (Jimmi was in our A-100 and I was in Spanish class with Ashley.) We sat outside to enjoy the nice weather and compared our last posts (all of us were in Mexico) and talk about Ashley’s upcoming wedding.

John and I watched a fun movie last night, Pirate Radio, with Phillip Seymour Hoffman – fun, and a great soundtrack.

In Area Studies this week, we had a great speaker, the new Ambassador to Syria, who spoke about his time in Iraq. And we attended an early morning speaker series where we listened to an FSO who is currently an Iraq advisor to VP Biden – both interesting talks. Do I really get paid for this?

With our Hebrew class and teachers

With Dean at the rooftop happy hour

John and I went to the Natural History Museum yesterday to see their new permanent exhibit on human origins – they have a cool interactive exhibit where you sit in a photo booth and have your picture taken, then it’s converted to how you would look as a Neanderthal – if you look closely, you can see it’s our eyes and mouth. Scary, hmmm?

We had two of the Mexican staff in from Juarez this week, so we went to a dinner with the Juarez gang on Wednesday night at Asia Cafe. It was great to talk to Erik and Evelyn, although it is still difficult, since the conversation still always touches on the murder of our friend there. It is still hard for everyone. But, it is so fun to see them relax and enjoy being in such a beautiful city.

On Thursday, I drove to Maryland after class (about an hour’s drive) to get my hair cut at a Ouidad-certified salon (Ouidad has a salon in NY, where Julie and I went years ago for haircuts – she specializes in curly hair). I got a great cut and had an interesting conversation with my Druze stylist – I’ve only recently heard about the Druze, a religious group in the Middle East, so it was fascinating to talk to her.

Friday night, we went to a small fun party in the District at a friend’s house. It was good to relax after a week of study!

Yesterday, we had lunch at Harry’s with our friend Sarah, who was in town this week in between her Bulgaria and London assignments. From lunch, we metro’d to the museum, then got back to the Oakwood in time for a birthday party for the one-year-old child of our friends Whitney and Ale. Whitney’s mom and step-dad were in town, and I always enjoy visiting with his mom – she’s a hoot.

With the Juarez gang at Cafe Asia

With Adrian

It’s absolutely gorgeous here right now. I walked through the cemetery next door yesterday on my way to the grocery store and it was beautiful – azaleas and dogwood everywhere.

We got up early yesterday and picked up our friend Jimmi for a tour of the Treasury Department, along with her mom and her mom’s best friend. It was an interesting tour – it’s a beautiful old building that has been restored for the most part. The interesting thing is that the docents are all employees who volunteer their time on the weekend, and they obviously love the building. John was especially excited to see the original portraits of Washington and Lincoln that are used on our one and five dollar bills.

We had dinner last Sunday night at Harry’s with Adrian, one of our favorite folks from Juarez – he was in town this week for a class at FSI. It was great to see him, plus, he’s a big movie buff, so it’s always fun to hear his movie critiques!

The week was pretty low-key. We managed to sneak in several movies: “Grey Gardens,” “Precious,” and “The Fantastic Mr. Fox.”

My friend Cathy and I attended a workshop Wednesday night about travelling with pets – I’ve got to get in gear to research the import requirements for Flavia to Israel.

Other than that, the week was taken up with Hebrew study, oy vey!