John and I thoroughly enjoyed binging on the latest season of \u201cThe Diplomat\u201d this week. Friends often ask me if the show is like real Foreign Service life. It\u2019s not. Most ambassadors don\u2019t live in palaces (although a few do!) and host breakfast for staff each morning. They also don\u2019t write their own talking points and press releases, and they are not sampling pies on the day of the 4th of July part (there would usually be a food committee who worked with donors months in advance). But the show gets enough stuff right and has enough \u201clingo\u201d in it to make it fun for us to watch. I\u2019ve been happy that Keri Russell has been supportive of Foreign Service Officers in interviews. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two diplomats have been on my mind this week. One friend is in Kiev on a one-year tour, and she and I chatted for a couple of hours this week. She lives in a hotel room because security on the ground can\u2019t support apartments or residences in the city. That means no kitchen (not even a microwave) and living in one room. A few embassy staff have \u201capartments\u201d attached to the hotel that sound like long-stay hotel rooms, but at least they have a kitchen. My friend talked about the time she spends hunkered down either in the hallway or in the basement during the Russian attacks, and how the sleep deprivation is real. Then she gets up and is back at work in the office like any other day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another friend is posted in another country, and her husband had a horrible accident this week. Luckily the country where she is has medical care but we are holding our breath to see what the prognosis is. This is a couple we\u2019ve known since we joined the Foreign Service almost twenty years ago, and the husband is one of the nicest guys on the planet. It\u2019s bad enough to have medical issues in the U.S., but when you\u2019re on a different continent it\u2019s even worse. We\u2019re holding them and their children in our thoughts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nothing too exciting happened this week. I finished \u201cThis Monster of a Land\u201d and \u201cThe Things We Never Say\u201d by Elizabeth Strout \u2014 thanks to Joan for both of those suggestions. I enjoyed them both. I\u2019m currently reading the very light \u201cThe Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife\u201d by Anna Johnston, recommended by my friend Lea. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
John and I thoroughly enjoyed binging on the latest season of \u201cThe Diplomat\u201d this week. Friends often ask me if the show is like real Foreign Service life. It\u2019s not. Most ambassadors don\u2019t live in palaces (although a few do!) and host breakfast for staff each morning. They also don\u2019t write their own talking points […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8346"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8346"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8348,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8346\/revisions\/8348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}