Washington, D.C. from above

Paul and I have wanted to go up the Washington Monument since we lived here between 1999 and 2002. For most of that time the Monument was getting a facelift, so it was closed for tourists but it re-opened shortly before we moved to Florida. We, of course, waited until the day before we moved to do it, so we went down at zero o’clock and waited patiently for our tickets. Our tickets were for 10 a.m. and “whaddaya know”, about 15 minutes before our time, a huge storm rolled in and they closed the Monument, so we couldn’t go up!!! We were so bummed out and have been talking about it ever since. Finally, we got to go last Sunday.

This time, I got our tickets from the Park Service website, which was not an option the last time we tried.  I am so glad they’ve added this option because if you live far from downtown (or out of town for that matter) and have kids, going to the Monument at 7 a.m. to get your timed tickets is just a pain. You do have to pay a $1.50 fee per ticket, if you get them online but the convenience is totally worth it. If you get your tickets at the Monument the morning of, they are free but you have to be there between 7 and 8 a.m.

Our tickets were for 6 p.m. and we got downtown about an hour and a half early. We found parking very close to the Old Post Office, which at 315 feet is the second tallest structure in DC after the Washington Monument (with its 515 feet) and which we had wanted to visit for years as well, so we were able to hit both in one trip – pretty awesome.

First, the Old Post Office. It’s a beautiful old building that now houses restaurants and souvenir stores in the first two stories (there may be offices on the higher floors). There was no line for the clock tower and you don’t need tickets, so we got to go right up. You take one elevator to the 9th floor and then another from the 9th to the observation deck of the clock tower and the Bells of Congress. We loved the views from the clock tower. Here you are closer to downtown and the Capitol and get to see the Washington Monument from up high as well. You can’t really see the White House from here because other buildings are in the way but I highly recommend it because the view is different from the Washington Monument and the Old Post Office is much easier to get into.  Here are a few pictures:

Looking down from the elevator to the lobby area, where the restaurants and souvenir stores are.

Pennsylvania Ave. with the Capitol at the end

Beautiful roof gardens on the buildings along Pennsylvania Ave.

Two shots of the Washington Monument with the Ronald Reagan Building in the foreground – they are a little hazy because I was shooting against the sun.

  

A picture of the picture they took of Nia while we were eating and the fake newspaper cover they made out of it that they then broadcast on big screen TVs in the hope that we would buy it. We didn’t.  

We grabbed a quick dinner at the Post Office and headed to the Washington Monument. We got there 5 minutes before our time and went right in. The views from here are also gorgeous but you get to to look through small and not very clean windows (not ideal for picture taking), whereas at the Post Office, two of the sides have large open air windows with steel ropes, through which I was able to shoot pictures no problem. Here are a few of the pictures from the Washington Monument (the ones in the direction of the Lincoln Memorial didn’t work out because of the bright sun):

The National Mall with The Smithsonian Castle, the other museums and the Capitol.

A closer shot of the Capitol from the bottom of the Monument.

The Tidal Basin with Thomas Jefferson Memorial and the Potomac and National Airport in the background.

The White House from afar.

The White House up closer.

The Old Post Office from the Washington Monument

Project Hummingbird

Nia got a hummingbird feeder last weekend. Paul’s brother Ray and his wife Mary have one up at their vacation home in Deep Creek Lake, MD and it attracts quite a few hummingbirds. We were there again this past weekend for a family reunion and Nia was captivated by the tiny birds. Mary, who is an absolute sweetheart, had an extra feeder and gave it to Nia.

Nia and I did some research online and found a recipe for the nectar. It’s really just 4 parts water to 1 part sugar but it needs to be boiled (and cooled) before putting in the feeder to make sure there are no contaminants because that could harm the hummingbirds. They also suggest changing the nectar and cleaning the feeder weekly for the same reason.

Anyway, we put the nectar in the feeder and hung it in the tree by our dining room window this past Tuesday. I didn’t expect we’d attract hummingbirds because the area is very shady but sure enough today we spotted one. We were all glued to the window watching the little bird come and go for quite a while. It was awesome! Nia was totally delighted!

I tried to snap a few pictures but it was quite tricky with the bird being so small and my camera really not up to the task. The pictures don’t do it justice but here are a couple anyway.

 

Pregnant Woman vs. Bid List

Last evening started out like any other in our household. We read books with Nia and put her to bed around 8 p.m. The house got nice and quiet, so I decided to check my email and read my blog faves. I was struggling to stay awake, as has become my habit since I got knocked up pregnant. All the baby-production going on in my body is making me exhausted and sooooo sleepy, so I was nodding off at the laptop, when I heard Paul say, “Wanna see the bid list?” I was like “Huh?”

It took my sleepy, pregnant brain a moment to register what he was saying but the realization sent a mega dose of dopamine throughout my brain and all of a sudden I was fully awake and my mind was going 100 miles an hour, “The bid list’s here!!! OMG! OMG! OMG! Are you kidding me - of course, I want to see it. We’ve been waiting for that thing FOR, like, EVER!”

So we sat down and stared at it. My mother realized something was up, so she came over and started asking questions. We explained what was going on. Around 9:30 p.m. my mom had had enough and went to bed. At 10 p.m. Paul called it a day too. Not me. I was way too excited and anxious to go to bed because for the first time in a long time we had something specific to look at that narrowed down the number of possibilities for our second post. I was on a mission and not at all interested in sleeping anymore.

A little background (in case you are new to this blog): In order to get tenured, Paul is required to serve in a consular position and learn a language in the first 5 years with the Foreign Service. He is in the Public Diplomacy cone. His first post – eDiplomacy in DC doesn’t satisfy either of the tenure requirements, so the second post has to.

Back to the bid list. First, I removed all the posts that were not consular. Then of those that were, I had to say a teary Buh Bye to lovely posts like Johannesburg, Sydney, Auckland and a few others because they didn’t require a language (damn!). That left me with 171 consular posts that require language, to play with. Of them, we have to bid on 20, in order of preference.

And this is when I let my imagination run wild and created multiple top 20 versions. I know some of you are dying to know, so here’s the spoiler alert - a few of our favorite posts, for which we may or may not qualify due to timing constraints: Casablanca, Istanbul, Skopje, Prague, Moscow, Havana, Hong Kong, Kuwait, Bangkok, Athens, Beijing, Taipei, Almaty, Amman, Manila, Kuala Lumpur, Budapest, Rio, Berlin, San Jose and more but I better stop before I get in trouble. Oh, yeah, there were no posts in Bulgaria, again, but that’s OK. Guess it wasn’t meant to be…

I was missing a key piece of information in order to do any meaningful prioritization: namely, the length of time Paul will be in mandatory functional training. Knowing that is crucial because you have to submit 20 realistic bids, which means that the date you are done with all your training (language and functional) can’t be more than 2 months apart from the date your 20 desired posts start. Figuring that out can be tricky because even though all posts are consular, some require different training, so the length of training will vary. So, as much as I would have liked to, I was not in a position to complete the exercise. Not that I really had to. Our top 20 list is not due for weeks.

Anywho, around 1 a.m. my body crashed and I decided to go to bed. But my brain was still in serious overdrive, so I kept tossing ant turning and thinking about various posts. I must have finally zonked around 3 a.m. but at 4:30 a.m. Paul woke up and so did I. It’s around noon now and I am in desperate need of some Zs but it’s just not happening.

I was a mess with our first bid list too but nothing like this and I am not quite sure why…

In any case, in this battle of Crazy Pregnant Woman vs. Bid List, the Bid List won.

Stay tuned for more bid list drama…

Frying Pan Park/Farm

Last weekend we went to Frying Pan Park with some FS friends and their kids. The park is close to Dulles Airport and has a lot of farm animals as well as a playground and picnic tables. It’s a good place to take the kids if they want to see/pet animals. Here are some pictures from our adventure.

Diplomats on a farm – Greta, Doug, Jason, Paul and Charlie

 

Three pregnant ladies and a cute little girl – Greta (almost 30 wks pregnant), Carrie (20 wks), moi (10 wks) and Mila.

 

Diplokids and farm animals

 

Bid List Blues

So the Foreign Service blogosphere has been abuzz with chatter about bit lists. The new A-100 class that started this past Monday got their bid list a couple of days ago and are feverishly researching their posts. The 2011 Summer Bid List is also out and everyone who’s bidding this summer is discussing the possibilities, mostly in vague terms for fear of getting in trouble because the bid lists are not to be shared publicly. By the way, does anyone know why the bid lists are not public? If so, could you please explain. Inquiring minds want to know.

We (meaning Paul) are also supposed to bid right about now but don’t have our bid list yet. We checked out the 2011 Summer Bid List thinking it may be what we should be looking at and someone forgot to let us know. Apparently not. Turns out the 2011 Summer Bid List is for tenured Foreign Service Officers (which Paul is not yet) bidding on post 3 or higher (we’ll be bidding on our second post, our first post being DC).

Paul got a note a week or so ago saying that he’ll be getting the bid list in the next few weeks but that was it – no further explanation. Patience is not my virtue, so I have been urging Paul to ask for more info but he  is CDO-less right now (CDO = Career Development Officer). The woman, who was his CDO, got an overseas assignment and has moved on. We are told that there’s no replacement yet. Besides, Paul is not the type to ask questions. He’ll just wait until they tell him what to do.

So we are waiting again... And I’m thinking, waiting has got to be the one activity every FS family loves to hate.  But we have no choice. We have to wait… For our bid list... For our new CDO… For Godot…

We did sneak a peek at the 2011 Summer Bid List and there were some really cool posts there. We know it’s pointless to look at any bid list but our own but a little dreaming never hurt anyone, right? Plus, it makes the waiting a little more bearable.

Of course, because of tenure requirements, our bid list will be very limited this time around. In order to get tenure, new FSOs have to serve in a consular position and learn (or know) a language at a predetermined level, which depends on how hard a language is. Paul’s first position is in his cone, Public Diplomacy, so his second one kinda has to be consular.

Paul also tested with Bulgarian during A-100 in order to satisfy the language requirement but didn’t pass. Shameful, I know, considering his wife of 13 years is Bulgarian, which gives him infinite FREE opportunities to practice!!! That same wife also has a stack of Bulgarian language books, which she has been placing strategically in various very conspicuous spots around the house, to be picked up at any time, you know, for practice, should anyone be interested,… only to see them put away by the reluctant student. In his defense, the student has been reluctant because he passed the phone test (also in Bulgarian), without preparation, when he was on the Foreign Service register last winter and got his bump-up points, which made him perhaps a little too confident in his Bulgarian skillz.

But I digress… Where was I? Oh, yes, so, we’ll be bidding on consular positions that require language this time, which will probably render a large chunk of the bid list off limits for us but getting tenured in the first 4 or so years is a must, so we have to comply.

So in the meantime, I am praying to the Second Post Untenured FSO Bid List God(s) to have mercy and send us our bid list pronto and assign us a new CDO, so we can move on to the next stage in the FS Waiting Game…

Bun in the oven…

I saw an online discussion on slang terms for being pregnant – things like preggerz, with child, on stork watch, in the family way, knocked up, preggolicious… Well, I am all that.

Yes, it’s official, we are expecting. And we are thrilled! Just had an ultrasound to stage the pregnancy today and our due date is March 15, which means I am about 8 wks pregnant. I am not sure I believe that though because I feel and look way more pregnant than that. I guess I got chunky preemptively, you know, in anticipation of the pregnancy.

We are also apparently going to be geriatric parents. My new OBGYN, who looked way too young to be a doctor, pointed that out to me. My age was a definite risk factor, she said and proceeded to inform me about the increased risk for all kinds of serious problems for the baby if the mother is over 35. I’m 38. I was already aware of the risks and was stressing out about them. Of course, it’s her job to share that information with me but I was hoping for something a little more reassuring along the lines of “Congratulations!” Yeah, didn’t happen…

We have been trying to get pregnant, on and off, for several years now. We didn’t plan to take this long but life can be unpredictable. We had to wait out several periods when one of us was laid off and the insurance situation was less than optimal. Then, of course, there’s the fact that getting pregnant in your thirties is not as automatic as they want you to believe when you are 16. Either that or we should have been trying in the back seat of our car… Anyway, it took us a while and here we are pregnant at an age when some people may be getting close to becoming grandparents. Oh, well…

Be that as it may, we are all thrilled about being pregnant. Nia has been asking for a sibling ever since she learned that we sorta held the key to that particular puzzle. She seems to change her mind about wanting a brother or a sister. Lately, she’s been saying she wants a baby brother, so she can see his pee-pee – can you think of a better reason? My mom has been pleading and cajoling for another grandchild for years as well. She’s beyond happy. We told my dad via Skype yesterday and he cried tears of joy. We also called Paul’s parents and the news totally made their day.

Being happy and excited is part of it. The rest, of course, is being nervous and worrying. With every milestone, I think, “Once I get there, I will be able to relax.” But the truth is, you can never relax because as soon as one milestone passes, there’s another one to worry about. I want to make sure that everything is OK with the baby and all those genetic tests that they say you should take, especially if you are over 35, are making me very nervous. I am particularly scared of the two invasive ones, the Chorionic Villi Sampling and the amniocentesis because while they do tell you whether your child has genetic problems, they carry an uncomfortably high (to me) risk of losing the baby. We discussed those tests when I was pregnant with our first child but opted not to do any of them and were lucky to have a healthy baby. Things are different now though as I am over 35 and the stakes are higher. What has your experience with these been?

Fingerprints, Flour and Whiskey

I am sure you’re wondering what those things have in common. Well, let me “splain.”

I took my mother to get fingerprinted for her US citizenship application today. The office where she had to appear for the fingerprinting procedure happened to be in Alexandria, but more specifically in the Mount Vernon area. I had never been to that particular office and wanted to leave plenty of time for the drive in case there was traffic. So we ended up getting there about an hour early. Shortly before we got to the office I noticed signs for George Washington’s Gristmill and Distillery. One of Paul’s brothers lives in that area, so we had driven by the gristmill/distillery many times. I always wanted to go see them because they seemed interesting but for one reason or another we never went. 

With an hour to spare, visiting the gristmill and distillery seemed like the perfect thing to do. So off we went. We got  our tickets, which were reasonable ($4 for adults, $2 for kids) and went to the gristmill first. It was pretty neat. My mom and I had seen mills back in Bulgaria and this one was similar but Nia hadn’t, so it was neat to show her how wheat is ground into flour and corn into cornmeal. She liked the big grinding stones and the huge waterwheel. We also learned that George Washington made really fine flour that he sold in Pennsylvania, New York, Boston, the Bahamas and Europe.

Then we headed for the distillery, which is only a short walk from the gristmill. There we learned that George Washington was the largest distiller in America in the late 1700s. We also got to see how whiskey is made. My mom was especially interested in the process and asked a lot of questions. I could see that she was thinking about trying to make whiskey. That is really not as crazy as it sounds because my family (on both sides) have been making wine an brandy for generations in Bulgaria. Some of my relatives even made wine and spirits industrially before the communists came to power in Bulgaria and nationalized their vineyards. When I was very young, I remember these huge 2-3-story-high wooden casks/barrels sitting in my family’s barns, which they had used for making wine (and had to eventually burn as firewood because they warped after sitting there unused forever).

But even though my family couldn’t make wine and spirits industrially anymore, they continued making some for our own consumption. I used to help by picking grapes and doing other odd jobs every year. To this day, my parents make their own red and white wine as well as brandy each year. Their wine is really good. The brandy (called rakia in Bulgarian) is very strong, kinda like vodka or grappa. I personally can’t stomach it – it’s too strong for me.

That was a long way of saying that my mom really knows about making spirits and it was cool to see her excited about whiskey. She wanted to know the proportions of grains and how long each part of the process took. Whiskey is another drink that’s not for me (guess I am a total lightweight), so it doesn’t much matter to me but it would be interesting to see her and my dad try to make whiskey in Bulgaria. I think it will be quite an experience for them. And yes, it is legal to make small quantities of wine and spirits for your own consumption in Bulgaria.

As neat as our visit to the gristmill and distillery was, we had to go back to fingerprinting. It took a little waiting and some paperwork but the fingerprints are done and the next thing is for us to hear about my mom’s naturalization interview. We got a book to help my mom prepare for the US history, civics and English language portions of the citizenship test. Because my mom knows very little English, I will have to help her with her preparation but I don’t mind. It’s the least I could do. Plus, it will help me remember some key facts for the FSOT, which I foolishly plan to take again next year.