Two more weeks in DC

It’s been an eventful week for us here in DC. On Wednesday, the moving company came to the apartment to do our pre-pack survey and figure out how much stuff we were moving and storing. We actually don't have all that much stuff. It's a nice feeling.

Chris spent all day Thursday test-driving cars while I spent the day figuring out some HR-related things for the move. We’re now the proud owners of a 2005 Honda CR-V, which will sit on the lot at the dealership until we can arrange for it to be shipped. So we checked “buy a car” and “get international car insurance policy” off our list of things to get done. 

New car - yet to be named (or seen in person by me for that matter)

Friday night we ate dinner at a delicious Middle Eastern restaurant – we’re 99.99% certain that the guy at the table behind us was Kal Penn, from the Harold & Kumar movies (also a former Obama White House staffer).

On Saturday, we made our final trip to IKEA to pick up a few random things and also went by AutoZone to buy what we hope is two years of miscellaneous car supplies (wiper blades, air filters, headlight bulbs, oil, transmission fluid…) to ship over. Our apartment is starting to look more and more like a hoarder lives in it…and I’m pretty sure all of the checkout clerks we’ve encountered in the past few weeks must think we’re crazy.

Today we pretty much crashed…a delicious brunch, naps, and now cooking one last Thanksgiving meal (just sides, because that’s the best part!) while listening to Christmas music. By the end of this week, the apartment should be pretty much organized for the packers and we should have our plane tickets to Georgia. Crazy.

Until next time…

Things are finally coming together…I think...

I returned from my week visiting family in St. Louis at 3am on Monday to spend two days in security training preparing to be bombed, robbed, assaulted, taken hostage, exposed to nerve gas, and attacked with WMDs. (Don't worry Mom, most of these are "low probability" events.) And naturally, after all that, we ended with evacuation protocols, available resources for PTSD, and the importance of wills and power of attorney documents.

Welcome to the Embassy - here’s your gas mask and nerve gas antidote…

Tomorrow the moving company will be coming by to do our pre-pack survey and I’ll be finishing up my online “Intro to Working in an Embassy” training.  Then it’ll be time to get down to business getting moving arrangements done…our stuff should be packed up on the 12^th and we should be on our way to Tbilisi on the 18^th. Lots of things to get done between now and then, and the list seems to keep growing.