Steve and A Broad Abroad

It's Official - it's been over a year!

2009-08-23T06:00:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note for those who read this, but don't get some other e-mails from us (feel free to identify yourselves, by the way)!

It's been a year since we updated the blog. In the intervening time, we've had grandiose plans to do a month-by-month synopsis of our activities during the year. Obviously, that never got off the ground.

The biggest news since the last posting was our assignment - and it happened not too much later. We're off to Buenos Aires next summer, after a course of Spanish in DC! Yay!

Ok, that's it for now. Hopefully, we'll have more later... Sooner than later, Inshallah (as they say here).

Bidding

2008-08-19T23:47:00.000-07:00

First, I want to wish Mara a very happy birthday. I'm usually pretty bad at remembering birthdays and the like, but I'm trying to get better. Happy B-day, Mar!

Second, I submitted our bidlist yesterday, so I guess I can share it today without jinxing it. Here's to hoping!

Before I get there, tho, I should explain that we have agonized over this list since July 1. We've culled through post reports, real post reports, post profiles, wikipedia articles, diplopedia articles, post info to go documents, and more to try and cull a list of 550+ positions to 20, with no repeats.

The first thing we had to do was figure out what the requirements were, and then what matters most to us; we broke this into professional considerations and personal considerations. Mind you, since we have to send this to my career development officer, we focused on my professional considerations in our summary, and Katie's in our research.

Our requirements were that we had to find a consular position for me. We also had to find one with timing that works out perfectly and includes home leave, consular training, area studies, and, possibly, language training. Those requirements took us down to about 180 positions.

My professional considerations were already mostly included in the requirements. The only other major professional consideration we had was the size of the post (yes, size does matter!) to try and find something different. Since I've worked on the Middle East for 10 years, we wanted something somewhere else, although, if any really good ME positions had worked, we would have considered them.

Our personal considerations were that we wanted to find a place where Katie could continue her career development, preferably in the private sector, but possibly as a State Department contractor. We wanted to find a place where we can take the dogs (which meant no Jamaica, among other places).

So, here's the list. CON means it's a consular position, the - means it's a rotation, POL = Political Officer, ECON = Economic Officer, and the IROG in Curacao means it's a do a bit of everything. We ranked the top 9 high, 10-16 medium, and 17-20 "Low", but we might go to any one of these, or, if the Career Development Officers (CDOs) don't like the list at all, somewhere else entirely. I like our chances for several of these, tho.

1. Amsterdam/CON

2. Warsaw/CON-POL

3. Buenos Aires/CON

4. Bucharest/CON

5. Santiago/CON

6. Lima/CON

7. Tijuana/CON

8. Bern/CON

9. Curacao/CON-IROG

10. Athens/CON-ECON

11. Frankfurt/CON

12. Montreal/CON

13. Toronto/CON

14. Panama/CON

15. Merida/CON

16. Guadalajara/CON

17. Brasilia/CON

18. Hong Kong/CON

19. Belgrade/CON

20. Belmopan/CON

Bad Bloggers! Bad!

2008-08-14T03:14:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's been over a month since we last posted a blog. I guess we've been busy.

We've spent most of our free time doing research into our next post. Yup, we've been here for not quite 10 months, and we're already trying to figure out where we're going next. We got the list of available positions on July 1, and it got pared down again about 10 days ago. On Monday, we finished our draft bid list of the top 20 places that we'd like to go. We submit the final next Wednesday. Hopefully we'll know where we're going by mid-September.

I know everybody always wants to know what's on our short list, but I don't wanna jinx it. Let's just say that countries in the Middle East, Africa, Central and Southeast Asia aren't, but the rest of the world is pretty much fair game. How long we'll be in DC, and when, depends largely on where we go next.

The dogs are still misbehaving, but I think they're acting out of a desire for more love and attention. They sort of listen at least some of the time. They haven't grown much bigger, but they're still chewing up their toys. We're not giving them any more ropes or rubber toys - the pieces end up all over the house. They're also not allowed on the couches, but they think it's a game to jump up on a chair and wait for us to tell them to get down. We've tried putting aluminum foil on the couches; it worked until they started eating the foil. Katie often tells them, "It's a good thing you're so cute." It really is nice to have them waiting for us when we get home. They follow us around the house, and often seem torn as to which of us to follow.

No pictures this time, maybe later.

Bahrain pics!

2008-07-05T02:07:00.001-07:00

Some pics of Bahrain!

Bahrain Pictures

More puppies!

2008-07-05T01:56:00.000-07:00

You may remember the above little puppies from pictures a few months ago. Well, we've finally gotten back to taking pictures.

The monsters aren't so small anymore. George is about 45 lbs. Gracie's a bit smaller, about 35 lbs.

At 6 months, the monsters were converted to impotent dogs. Gracie kept licking her surgery site, so the vet told us to put her in a shirt to protect the wound. Our next door neighbor's daughter, happily loaned Gracie her shirt!

George was jealous that he wasn't getting a new pic, so here he is!

See more pics here:

Dogs

How do we get there?

2008-06-19T22:03:00.000-07:00

As most of you know, when I get and give directions, I like to use landmarks - road names - hah! I don't need no stinking road names!

Well, boy did I come to the right place. The only way you can give directions here is by landmarks. The secondary raods here are all numbers - there is no Oak Street or Maple Lane. You would live at Road 3435. And good luck finding the sign for it.

The main roads are like the States - named after famous people. But for most of us Westerners, who are used to Martin Luther King Blvd. being shortended to MLK and Thomas Jefferson Avenue being just Jefferson, it can get a little confusing when the names are hard to shorten because they are so similar like "Shiekh Khalifa Bin Salman Highway" or "Sheikh Isa Bin Salman Highway" or "Sheikh Salman Highway". All different roads (and different people). Like naming one road John Adams Aveune and the one right next to it John Quincy Adams Avenue.

Anyways, yesterday we received an invitation for directions to a friends house. The directions were so funny and typical Bahrain. Below is a modified version:

"Take Highway that leads to Saudi to the KFC roundabout (that is what I call it). Turn on Jazayer or Jazier road (it doesn’t have a sign so it really doesn’t matter how I spell it). Once you pass the Jazayer Mosque take the first right (You can’t actually see the road-thanks to the sand, so my landmark is the gas station across the street). Follow that road (known as road 4231 – but you won’t see that sign for a while)… as I said, follow that road, it will curve to the right, go over a speed bump, you’ll pass an abandoned shop, go over 1 more speed bump and then my compound will be on the left. I’ll try to put a few balloons outside but I’m not sure how long they’ll last out there."

These are actually really good Bahrain directions - we should have no problem finding it!

Working 9 to 5 . . .

2008-03-27T08:31:00.000-07:00

So I officially have a job in my field! Yeah!

I am working for Gulf Holding Company as a Project Manager. GHC is a development company here in Bahrain, so I am the client - sweet - nice to be in charge. The project I am working on is called Al Areen Downtown. We are the developers of a parcel of land within a master development. The land will be developed with shops, retaurants, a hotel, apartments, villas, townhomes, a spa, a fitness center, mosque and school. We have started construction of the first phase and have started the design on the 2nd and 3rd phases, so I get to see both processes, which is great. I really enjoy what I am doing.

My company is pretty much a mini UN of different nationalities. My boss is from South Africa, and the Senior Project Manager who is basically training me is a Brit. My boss' boss is Kuwaiti. The VP of operations is a woman from Jordan. We have people from Bahrain, Lebanon, India and Pakistan and all over south-east Asia.

So, a few things that are funny about work. First off, because Bahrain used to be a British protectorate, so everything in English is spelled the British way. I have already been corrected on my spelling, "''Color' should be spelled 'c-o-l-o-u-r' in your report."

There are also a lot of construction terms that are different. My favorite one for this week was punch list. This is the list the Architect makes of all of the things that need to be fixed before they will accept a building. So, when my boss kept talking about the "snag list", I had no clue what he was referring to.

They other thing that is weird is that all of the offices I have been in have a butler. It is this guy that brings you water, coffee and tea all day long. You can have European or Arabic coffee or tea. He will also take your lunch in the morning, and if it needs to be heated, will bring it to you at lunch time when you call. It is very weird. There are also no water coolers because you can get water from the butler.

The Master Developer of the project (the company we bought our land from) had the coolest set up -they actually have a Costa coffee kiosk in their office. So, when you are in a meeting and the butler asks what you would like, you can totally say "I would like a double shot, non-fat, non-caf, vanilla, no foam cappuccino" and you could get it. I say could, because everyone else is ordering stuff too, so something that complicated will probably come back wrong. Since our last meeting was in the afternoon, my co-worker recommended a hot chocolate - yummy.

Puppies!!

2008-03-13T23:36:00.000-07:00

So, many of you know that we got puppies!! That is right, two ridiculously cute and slightly naughty pups.
Our friends at the embassy rescued a litter that was on the side of a road in Manama. They cleaned them up, took them to the vet for their first round of shots and then took them in until they all found happy homes.
It was pretty easy to know which ones we were taking since these two picked us - well, actually, they picked out laps to sleep when we first met them.

We had some great name suggestions from everyone - Cheech and Chong, The Fresh Prince and Jazzy Jeffrine, Peaches and Herb, Mac and Manco,

Woodward and Bernstein....even Courtney's cat Zoe had suggestions - we liked Zoe Jr. and Zoe III. In the end, we settled on George and Gracie. We have taken Dad's suggestion of the kennel names "Salah al-Din Yusif - Urchin's Iced Carmel Macchiato" for George and "Shajar ad-Durr Sultana - Symarun's Red Hot Kisses" for Gracie under advisement, but since they are Bahraini mutts I don't think we are going to need them. They are pretty quick learners, although not necessarily good listeners.

They love their treats, so crate training them has been relatively easy because they will fly into their crates for a treat and happily gnaw on it as they are locked in for the night. Our next door neighbor's daughter comes over after school to let them out, so they aren't cooped up all day while we are at work.
They fight/play with each other a ton and are very funny about who had what toy. You can give them the same exact toys and one will look over at the other's and decide that one has to be better and take it. Not that different from human siblings! The vet thinks that they are somewhere between 3-1/2 and 4 months right now. Looking on-line we think they are probably at least part Saluki - which is also called the "Arabian hound" or as our friend said "a greyhound with longer hair". They are very common here in Bahrain.

So, take a look at the newest members of the fam - we have their puppy pictures (above, probably at 6-8 weeks) and pictures we took today (below) - they are getting big!

Who is Coming Here? Part 2

2008-02-11T22:41:00.000-08:00

So, part two is the actual day of the visit.
The President had a few different places he needed to be over the whole 20 hours he was here. He was met by the King at the airport. After that the President went to one of the palaces for a ceremony where he received a medal from the King and they each gave a short speech. After that he went to the hotel for a meet and greet with the embassy staff and families. Then he had a "working" dinner with the King and each of their advisors. The next morning he went to the navy base to have breakfast with the troops, and then he was on his way.
For the palace ceremony the groups decided on "1 plus 30", which meant that there would be the President, plus 30 Americans, and the King, plus 30 Bahrainis. Most of the American delegation was taken up by people traveling with the President (Secretary Rice, the Chief of Staff, the Press Secretary, etc), but the balance was taken up by Embassy Staff. So, Steve and I were invited to come along for that. This meant we would not be able to make it back to the hotel for the "meet and greet", but that seemed okay because we would get to go to the ceremony and the palace.
So, everyone associated with the embassy that was not meeting the president at the airport met at the embassy and we took a bus to the palace, which was about 30 minutes outside of the city. The palace is a working palace, which means no one really lives there; they use it more as an office and a place for official functions.
It was really chilly and overcast that day, and we were going to eb outside for the ceremony - we were definitely glad we had our coats. The palace people led us past the area where the ceremony would be, which was this big outdoor courtyard. The chairs were set up on this raised patio overlooking a large stone area. We were led to a long, skinny room with a table down on side and a buffet at the other end. So, the embassy group was able to have a nice lunch before we were ushered outside to wait for the arrival of the President and King.
We were led to our chairs on the raised patio. Some of the Bahrainis were already arriving. We just chatted and waited for the people to arrive. A little before the time that the President was suppose to show up, the press corps arrived and began setting up. A little bit after that we heard the King's helicopter arrive, and then saw the President's motorcade drive up to the front of the palace. An honor guard played our national anthem and the Bahraini anthem, after which the King led the President to the raised area where we were all seated.
The President was awarded a medal from the King, and then both gave a speech. After the speeches, the King and President sat down, and in a large courtyard area a sword dance was performed for everyone. It was a few hundred men sort of walk dancing and chanting. There were a few dozen that carried swords and muskets and would swing them up and down to the chanting. The dancers kept on coming forward towards the raised area, at which point the King brought the President forward and gave him his sword so he could join in. So, the King and President swung the sword back and forth a few times. After that the dancers sort of moved back and danced away. During the dance, the audience was given the Arabic coffee, which was wonderful because it was so cold.
After the dance was over, the President and his staff headed over to the hotel, while the rest of us got back on the bus for the trip back to the embassy. It took us a while to get back to the embassy due to the jammed up traffic from the President's motorcade. After we picked up our car Steve and I headed over to the hotel to work.
Steve ended up working most of the night by helping the White House Gift Officer pick out gifts for all of the people involved in the visit. I ended up helping out around the hotel and at the control room for a little bit, and then I hung out in the bar with some of the other embassy staff, enjoying the fact that we were done!
So, all in all, it was quite an experience - it definitely kept me busy for a few weeks, which was nice, because I would have never seen Steve otherwise!

Intermission - Pictures!

2008-01-29T22:37:00.001-08:00

I know I promised the rest of the President Post , but I am SO behind in showing pictures, I figured we could have an intermission from the President Post for some picutres.

These pictures are of our house the day after we showed up. Only our things that were on the plane with us are there, so everything else you see is from the Embassy. They give us a "welcome kit", which includes kitchen stuff and linens to tide us over until our things show up.

So, I will give you a tour of our house, and then I will take some more pictures when we are done unpacking and you can see the difference.

Of course, since I am an enginerd, and a picture is worth a thousand words, I thought a little floor plan would be easier then me explaining the layout of the house. So here is the layout - of course, it is not to scale (Power Point) but you can get the idea.

This is the front of our house. We have a yard that goes the whole way around the house. That tree in the right of the picture was dead when we got here and is now gone. Actually, our whole yard had been negelcted for about three months since no one was living there, so it was really sad when we showed up. Now it is really nice, but only becuase the gardner we hired ir great - we didn't do a thing.

Below is the Living Room, which is really big. You can see our lovely embassy furniture, which is the same furniture everyone else has that works here. it is pretty funny when you go to a party and see your couch at someone else's house.

There is this big open room in the house, and when we got here, the embassy staff had set it up as a family room, but it is really big and has no windows, so we copied our neighbors and made it the dining room - it seems to work better.

This is our dining room, that is now the family room. It gets good light in the afternoon, and is a nice place to hang out.

This is our kitchen, which is an unbelievably ugly brown, with dark green blinds. It has gotten better now that most of our stuff is put away.

We have a little utility room off the kitchen and a door to the side yard from here. Woohoo! A washer and dryer - no more apartment living and dragging your stuff to the laundry room.

This is the Master Bedroom. We were so excited when we got our linens, because the pink comforter the embassy provided was not the best. We have these built-in closets, that are great. Not every house has them, so we are pretty lucky - tons of storage.

Here is one of our guest rooms - also with nice closets.

Okay, so we are almost done putting away all of our things, so as soon as we do, there will be another post of the "after", where our house actually looks like home!

Who is coming here? Part 1

2008-01-28T04:48:00.000-08:00

Okay, so, Steve and I swore that we would get better then posting once a month. . . and then the POTUS storm hit.

We got word in mid-December that the President and the Secretary of State would be coming to our little island for part of their visit to the Middle East. The party would show up on January 12th and stay the night.

What we saw next was pretty amazing - the embassy was whipped up and organized and everyone took on some sort of responsibility (along with their daily jobs they have in the embassy). The people who had experienced a presidential visit warned us of long hours, vacations being re-scheduled and weekends spent working.

The embassy staff spent the first couple weeks of planning in an extremely busy, but relatively quiet state. The teams were planning and working with Washington on locations and events.

Right around New Year's though, the storm really started. Advance people from all of the different agencies started coming in and everyone in the embassy had a group in town that they were working with.

Steve ended up with a bunch of different responsibilities. The first was that he was the Control Officer for the Advance Staff. So basically, he was the point of contact for the White House advance team. This was one of many positions Steve was assigned to. He was also in charge of the gifts and the Control Officer for some of the other people coming in on the 12th.

The embassy had Site Officer for the different locations the president would be who would make sure all of the logistics were taken care of, we had a point of contact for all of the security team's questions, the communication's team's question. There were people in charge of different areas of logistics - transportation, customs and immigration, the hotels, etc.

I ended up working with the person from the State Department office that is in charge of international Presidential travel. I ended up making and updating the spreadsheets for all the hotels and who was in which one. It actually became pretty challenging - mostly because there is no hotel in Bahrain large enough to house the President and the 700+ of his closest friends who would be in town on the 12th, so we had four different hotels we were using.

And here is where the dorky Architectural Engineer comes into play - one of the things we needed to do when assigning rooms to people was see where the rooms were on the floor layout. Of course we don't have CAD (which would have made life easy, because the hotel did have an electronic copy of their drawings) so I ended up making a floor plan out of text boxes so we could layout where people were and type their names in each room. It made life a lot easier and everything was easy to update and check against out master list - I know - I am a dork....

For the two weeks before the visit Steve and I both were logging in 80 hours a week for work. We didn't have a day we weren't working from December 29th until January 17th. It was a little bit nuts.

Stay tuned for the next post about the actual visit.

Has it really been a month?

2007-12-16T13:33:00.000-08:00

Wow, time flies.

I really thought it'd only been a week or two since we last posted. How much has happened in the last month? The easy answer: A lot.

In terms of home goods, we got our first shipment of stuff. That's the 450 pounds of stuff that we wanted here before the rest of our stuff gets here. We had packed our clothes, towels, sheets, and shoes, and some kitchen stuff. We're excited to have it, but, almost every night look at each other as we realize we can't really cook the stuff we want to cook and say, "I can't wait for our stuff to get here." When will it be here, you ask? Well, it's supposed to arrive in country on Dec. 25 at about 9 pm. We're hoping we have it in hand the first or second week of January. That'll be good.

Work? Work's good, but really busy. I actually made the paper - once in a picture about somebody else, and once as the "Embassy officer responsible for the annual human rights report." Hey, it's something! Some of our recent visitors included Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Homeland Security secretary Robert Chertoff, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Robert Kimmitt (anybody else noticing a pattern or am I just screwing up the first names? Mom just pointed out I screwed up Chertoff's name, it's Michael. Sorry Mr. Chertoff!), and several congressmen, none of whom were named Robert.

Katie's started working at the embassy part time, although it doesn't seem to be part time anymore. We drive in together, and, more often than not, leave together, too. The unfortunate part is that she's working in the basement and therefore doesn't get a signal from her cell phone, so if any of the private sector jobs call her, she doesn't even find out about it.

Which brings up another point - voicemail. They don't seem to have it on their cell phones here. I don't get it. how the heck are you supposed to know who called you and about what without voicemail?

In the interest of keeping this entry short I'll just add two more paragraphs - one about Thanksgiving and one about Chanukah.

We had Thanksgiving at my boss' house with some other of my boss' friends. He and his wife (Steve and Stephanie) are both from Kentucky, and turkey day showed it! We had dressing, turkey, oyster dressing, mashed potatoes, and mac and cheese! What a great day! Our next door neighbor, who also works at the embassy, was going to come, but her daughter got sick. So, on the way back, we stopped by with a box of leftover desserts and two unfinished bottles of wine. While it didn't compare with being home with our friends and family, it was still a good Thanksgiving!

I forgot about the first night of Chanukah amidst the SecDef's visit. I remembered on the second night, and every night thereafter we lit candles. On the eighth night of Chanukah, Katie surprised me with a Chanukah dinner - including her first Kugel and Latkes! It was really good, and I had no idea it was coming!

Told you it'd only be 2 more paragraphs! We hope everybody's well!

Camels and Cows and Horses, Oh My!

2007-11-14T04:11:00.000-08:00

When we got to our house the first night in Manama, we were greeted by about six cats, and the amount of animals we have seen since then keeps on growing.

So, there seems to be a pack of neighborhood cats that live in our complex. There are about four black kitties, a white and black calico and an orange tiger kitty that seems to hang around our place, even though we don't give them food. They seem to be pretty used to all of the people and cars. This morning one of the kitties just laid in the road taking a rest in front of our house. She seemed to feel I could get my car around her, which I could, and did not bother to bat an eye as I drove past.

Along with our everyday visits from the kitties, we have also been seeing a bunch of different animals as we drive around. I have seen people walking their goats and donkeys along the side of the road. I have seen some sheep and bunnies too. We went to the outdoor market the other day and saw some chickens and ducks. Unfortunately for them, I don't think they had that much longer to live since we saw them outside of a poultry butcher stand.

Bahrain is known for its horse racing and riding and a lot of the well to do Bahrainis have horses. Last week I saw three Arabian horses being walked along the road in one of the developments near our house.

Last week I saw a cow and, this morning during rush hour, I saw a camel in the back of a pick-up truck. The truck has these rails around the bed that are about five feet high so that the animal cannot fall out. In case you were wondering, the camel was definitely smarter then the cow. The camel was sitting down in the back of it's truck, so that when the traffic stopped and started it didn't go flying around. The cow stood up for the whole time we saw her. I felt bad for it because every time the truck started or stopped the cow almost fell over.

So, there you have it - the animals you can see when driving the roads of Bahrain.

Hooray!

2007-11-03T23:05:00.001-07:00

So, the internet is up at home! And, you know what that means - No, not porn, but Vonage! That's right, for a limited time only (as in as long as we're here/at home), you can call us just as if we were in the States! Please, please, please check the clock on the blog before you make that fateful call, though. Nobody wants to talk to me after waking me up in the middle of the night, not even Katie.

So, for those of you who know, we came up with a great way of determining if we're awake (outside of using the blog clock). It's really quite simple, we call it the James and Erica method. If Erica is going to bed, we're waking up. When James is going to work, I'm getting home. When Erica's normally scheduled workday is done, we're going to bed! See, it's simple!

Ok, so on to some other news. Some work news, perhaps?

On Thursday, we attended a reception at the Japanese Ambassador's residence for the new Japanese Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM). The DCM is the second in charge of the embassy, and, when the Ambassador's out of the country, acting Ambassador, or Charge' de Affairs. So, we went to this reception, and had a love-ly time. While not quite the most junior there in rank, we probably were in age! There were a number of ambassadors, DCMs, and various individuals from some small embassies. I got to use my Arabic, and Katie "got" to sit and chat with the ladies all night. What fun! The best part was that they had sushi! Unfortunately, some of the Arabs didn't know how to use chopsticks, so we helped as best as we could.

There are 3 Steve's in my office. There's Steve B., S., and J. We've been going by full names, "Hey, Steve Jacob, I got something for you!" But, I've come up with a better way: Steve B - the Boss. Steve S - Senior, and Steve J - Junior! There's another Steve in a different section, but he's Steve M., and I can't figure out how to work that in.

There's also a Steve Jacobs. Steve Jacobs is a Tunisian street dog. I haven't met him, yet, but I'm looking forward to it, even if his mommy says he's mean.

Made it to Manama

2007-11-01T05:29:00.000-07:00

So, we have made it to Manama!

We still do not have Internet, so I cannot post any pictures yet. I am posting this from the embassy today. As soon as we get the Internet up we will post some pictures.

So, a little about the trip here and the first week settling in. The actual travel to Manama was pretty uneventful. I actually slept most of the way and Steve wasn't that far behind me on the hours of sleep. When we switched planes in Frankfurt it was about 45 degrees there. When we got off the plane in Manama is was about 85 degrees here!

Our sponsors picked us up and took us to our new home, which is is a quiet gated neighborhood in the suburbs of Manama. We arrived at the beginning of the Bahrain weekend, so we actually had two days to explore before Steve had to start work. On Friday we were taken out by our sponsors for lunch and a trip to the Navy Base, which has a Navy Exchange on it - a great place to buy some American things. On Saturday we drove around and got a little lost in Manama - we ended up driving through the Souk, which is one lane and surrounded by shops and people walking around. Locals do not drive through there - we felt a little silly!

Sunday was Steve's first day of work, and I was suppose to come along to get badged in and meet some of the embassy personnel. Everyone has been extremely nice to us here, and very helpful.

So, some of you have already received some of these interesting tidbits, but I have tried to add some new ones:

1. Driving here is CRAZY! The Bahrain people are very nice, but once you get on the road with them - watch out! The best is that the roads have tons of roundabouts - thanks to the British influence here - so along with crazy driving, we have to deal with those too. They also have the traffic lights that flash yellow before the green light comes on, and the zig-zag lines before a stop light like in London. The main difference from the Brits is that they do drive on the right side of the road here.

2. The island is very small. It is about 3 times the size of DC, so if it takes you more than an hour to get somewhere, you are probably lost. It takes us about 20-30 min to get to the embassy. Everyone here complains about how long it takes to get in from where we live - I think it is great though - that commute from Washington to Baltimore has made me jaded about traffic!

3. The grocery stores "on the economy" (which means not at the Navy Base) do serve Western food, but most of it is British. It is like shopping in a weird version of the supermarket in Leeds. All the same biscuits and candies and things like that. Vegetables are very expensive at the grocery stores though - I think we paid about four dollars for two peppers, and a small container of raspberries is about six dollars.

Let's see - in other news, we have received our local cable TV - it is called Orbit. We watched Meerkat Manor last night on Animal Planet. Cori and Jason told us about it (hi Glucks!), and so we got a little hooked last night. It is this goofy show that follows the life of these Meerkats in the wild. Think soap opera - Animal Planet style. There are about 16 English channels. They showed Gilmore Girls too (that information is for Grammy L.) - but they showed it with subtitles in Arabic - you would have to be the world's fastest reader to understand. We are waiting for our AFN box from the Navy - it takes some time - but after we get that we can get ESPN and some other US channels - go FOOTBALL!!!!

Anyways - I have to run, my ride is leaving the embassy, but I will post a part deux soon......sorry so long - we will try and be more frequent and slower.

New Format

2007-10-05T08:53:00.001-07:00

You've probably noticed new additions to our little Blog. This is, as always, a work in progress. If you have other recommendations on things to add, let us know, and we'll do our best to figure out how to put them up here. (Yup, we're talking about a Flickr account so we can post more pictures!)

Back to Arabic

2007-10-04T10:09:00.000-07:00

Ladies and gentlemen, the backlog is gone! That's right, you can get your very own new passport, and quickly, too!

Why do we mention this?

Well, the answer is because it means Steve is back in class, learning (or relearning, as the case may be) Arabic. His new test is on October 18, so wish him much luck and success, because there's $$ in it for him if he does really well.

Tomorrow is Katie's last day at Barton Malow. This company, where she's worked since graduating, is sorry to see her go, but has been wonderful about helping her find employment in Bahrain and beyond.

After numerous SNAFUs with State Department Medical, they have Katie's records and promise us a clearance in the next few days. This is good, because when that's done, we should get orders, which we need in order to get Diplomatic Passports, get State to pay to pack up all of our stuff, and to get our tickets.

We just recieved pictures of all of our furniture in the new home - most of it's "18th century", a lot of dark wood and the like. It'll probably look even better in person! Now, we just have to go through all of our stuff and find out what we're going to take with us.

Sticking Around

2007-07-26T13:32:00.000-07:00

So, over the last few weeks, Steve's been hearing rumors of a passport taskforce at State Department. You might be asking What's a Passport Taskforce? and What's Steve got to do with that? Well, the answer is simple. Congress decided that effective January 20-something of 2007, ALL US citizens needed a passport in order to get back into the US, even if they were just hopping across to Tijuana for a donkey show and coming back that night. Unfortunately, Congress didn't think to give State Dept more money to hire people to process all of these passports, nor did anybody in Congress (or maybe even at State) think about how big a percentage of the 300+ US citizens didn't have a passport and might want one (Those donkey shows are tight, or so I, uhh, hear!)
So, in January and February, as Americans started hearing from their friends that they needed a passport to travel ("What?! You mean they ain't gonna accept my driver's license no more? Damn Government. I'm gonna go join me one of them militias; this way, if they track me down, at least I'll be more heavily armed!"), they started submitting applications. Can you imagine what happens to a system that's used to processing 20,000 applications when it gets flooded with 20,000,000? The wait time rocketed up past the "normal" 6 weeks to something approximating 2 years... State, however, had a solution. They decided to recruit State's highly trained and overworked Foreign Service Officers, especially the ones in training in DC, and pay them overtime to come in and either adjudicate passports or answer phones from Americans who want to know where their passport is in the process.
Unfortunately, they didn't get enough volunteers. Something about important missions abroad and being understaffed and overworked in the embassies or something. I'm not really sure. So, State decided to pull from those people who were most available - the Junior Officers who were already in DC, in training, getting ready to go to Post. While these JO's aren't the only ones being picked (not by a long shot), they are the group that most affects Steve. So, after hearing rumors of people getting told (as little as a week before they're supposed to head out to Post) that they have been assigned to the "Taskforce" and, instead of Iceland, would be going to New Orleans or Portsmouth, Steve decided to find out for himself.
On that fateful day when he spoke to his Career Development Officer about the Taskforce, he was told, "We're going through the list of everybody who's at FSI (The Foreign Service Institute, where diplomats are trained) and selecting those who have some time and we can assign to the taskforce. Post is being told to 'Suck it up' and will just have to deal with being shortstaffed."
So, now at the top of the list (owing to his curiosity), Steve has been assigned to the Passport Taskforce from August until Mid-October. The plus side is that this gives us time to get Katie "in the system," and get her medical clearance so we can travel together. The other plus side is that we'll be staying right here in DC.
Ya'll come visit now, ya hear? You don't need a passport to get here, just to Bahrain!

Wedding Day - June 16, 2007

2007-07-18T10:58:00.000-07:00

Hello All!

So, this is my first post. I thought I would start with the event that precipitated my receiving the blog as a gift in the first place - our wedding!

Steve and I had an unbelievable time! It was so much fun. On the Friday before the wedding we had our rehearsal and then a fabulous time at the "Pre-Ring Fling". It was a great party and a wonderful time to catch up with friends and family before the big day. There was dancing, singing and lots of fun.

I left at a reasonable hour that evening, but Steve and our friends and family did not disappoint me by staying up and enjoying some tasty beverage....scotch to be exact. So I was not surprised on Saturday morning at the salon when I heard "Do you know how drunk your fiance got my son/ husband/ brother/ etc. It would appear the ladies knew how to hold their liquor a little bit better.

We were lucky and had an absolutely BEAUTIFUL day on Saturday. The actual ceremony was a little bit late, but otherwise it went off without a hitch. We had a great time seeing everyone, dancing and enjoying the evening. Everything turned out great!

So - the ways you know it was a Jacob/Lynahan wedding?

Well, the first is that we started late (although this was actually not mine or Steve's fault - shocker!) and the 2nd was our programs - I not only did not spell check the programs very well, I also did not verify exactly when I was getting married. Mis-spelling Pachebel's Cannon seems like a not so big deal when your 200 programs say "July 16th" rather then "June 16th" Whoops - the best part is that I didn't even notice, even when we were folding all of them!

We did check the engraving on our rings after we realized the programs were wrong. We got those right at least!

Meet the new Jacob Family

2007-06-18T18:09:00.000-07:00

Aren't they cute?

Want a few more pics of the great weekend?

Check out the set here.

And she can cook too...

2007-04-23T09:48:00.000-07:00

Not only is she a knock out, she can cook too....

You can see more of the weekend in Wilmington on the flickr set, Katie's Retreat.

Katie, from your gang of lovely ladies:

Thank you for being such a great friend to us and such a good sport this past weekend!

More Photos!

Lisa's awesome set on flickr

Katie's Shower!

2007-04-21T10:20:00.000-07:00

We love you Katie! We wish you all the best and want to make sure we hear all about it!
~Crystal, Robyn, and Lisa!

Penn State the beginning of it all

2007-04-19T09:24:00.001-07:00

palmer freshman year
Originally uploaded by rchach.

The simple answer to why we all met and then traveled the world together is ... Penn State.

The longer answer is super convoluted.

I met Crystal in Math class where all 5 of the guys I sat with were trying to get her phone number. I met KT about the same time in a really weird coincidence that her roommate and my roommate (both strangers to us) were rivals in high school, well at least my roommate thought she was in competition with KT's. Then we became friends over having the same 8am drafting class and taking the bus to the opposite side of campus. (This is also how I met my husband, who knew PSU buses were the place to meet people?) Lisa was in AE with us too. She and I randomly grew up in the same town, but never knew each other. All through college, the four of us took turns being roommates. C, K, and I. Then C and K. Then K and L. And on and on. We all bonded like mad after college in the struggle to find our way in DC. So much fun so little money.

SO the long story is just long. But the beginning picture makes me crack up every time I see it.

The summer of 1999

2007-04-18T07:21:00.001-07:00

lucerne bridge 99
Originally uploaded by rchach.

In late summer, Katie, Crystal, and I toured Europe together before spending a semester studying abroad together in Leeds, England.

Here we are in Lucerne. That city was magical. As was the amazing hotel we stayed in. You could only get to it by a skycar. Very cool. We did a lot of hiking, cruising, and shopping here. I think I have 2 pictures of us here and hundreds of the beautiful landscape.

The Beginning!

2007-04-16T18:12:00.000-07:00

Soon, KT and Steve will get to take over and tell us what fun or exciting things they are up to...

But for now, Crystal, Robyn, and I are just going to Post pictures of the broad abroad!

Happy Travels and Happy Wedding!

~Lisa
(p.s. This picture is technically from Baltimore, but that's almost like another country!)