Vacation Time in Cape Town


After, 1 year and 2 months in Botswana and we finally made it to Cape Town. I have a high school classmate of mine that lives here now and she has been waiting for us to visit for the past year and two months.

This is the most lively place that I have seen on this continent. My friend and her hubby just finished their new house, so they were ever so kind to let us stay in their old house, which is fully furnished, 3500 sq feet beauty that is less than a five minute walk to Big Bay Beach. We have been here since December 19th.

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And now I continue on January 6th. We have been home since Jan. 4th. The stay in Cape Town was great. Just the ability to walk to somewhere was amazing. I really miss walking. It is not that I can't walk here (even through there are no sidewalks and it is 100 degrees) but there is no place to walk to. In Cape Town within 5 minutes I can get a mini boardwalk that had 10 restaurants and little stores or another mini mall with restaurants and more stores. So much life, it was great. I also realized that I missed the ocean. It is not that I live next to an ocean back home, but I see a large body of water every day when I go to to work in DC. In Gabs-desert! No water! The smell of the ocean, the waves, the wind and kite surfers-it was great!

I am happy to report that during our vacation, we did not visit a single ER. It was close but we managed without it. On Dec 29th, Nikolai woke up screaming which was followed by a giant puke. He had some sort of a super stomach flu. Then, on Dec. 30th I got it. It felt like I was run over by a truck. Everything hurt, but I still went to the mall to get my hair done. I almost passed out on the chair but damn it I was going to look good and passed out. Of course, on New Year's Eve was Michael's turn. Needless to say, this was one of the most uneventful New Year's eves I have ever had. We did not eat anything solid all day. The evening I decided that we can be brave and made some macaroni with a bit of butter and salt. Nikolai went to bed at 8, Mike and I watched James Bond's Casino Royal and we went to bed at 11:00 pm. Our neighbours celebrating at midnight woke me up, so I knew that 2010 has arrived and that was that, just another night.

Thanks to my friend, we went on a day trip to see some cool penguins and then on the next day to the wine country. It was very nice. As I mentioned on Facebook, the South African wine country looks exactly like the Virginia one. If we were not driving on the wrong side of the road and the signs were not in Afrikaans, I would have sworn that I was back home.

The vacations received 2 thumbs up and I am planning to go back in February with Nikolai for President's Day. Botswana is way, way too quiet for me.

On the way back, we had the excitement of looking for the beloved stroller on the Jo'burg airport for 45 minutes and successfully finding it. Then on the Gabs' airport we arrived but the luggage didn't make it until the next day.

Here are some pictures of our vacation to prove we actually were in Cape Town:

http://www5.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=3589960014/a=106932564_106932564/

Almost 11 months

I know it has been over two months since I wrote last, but we were so short staffed with the yearly rotation cycle, that from 5 of us we were down to just me and Rich (the GSO). I had to do HR while he was also covering Management Officer and Facilities. Needless to say it was rather hectic. Again, I would like to reiterate that working for the government is super busy. I have no idea who spreads the rumors that government employees are slackers and it maybe true in DC, but out here in the trenches ( I have been hanging with the Marines too long) it is a daily battle to survive. So here I am super busy and then the people that work for me are sick or somebody died and they have to go to a funeral (the funerals here take a week), so I was also short staffed for the past two months. Today is Labor Day and it is the first day I have had off since I came back from vacation on June 5th. I was sick and went went to work, Nikolai was sick and I went to work, I am just a work goer. And now being September, we are in the end of the gov't' s fiscal year so I see this as the final push which culminates with having Sept. 30th and Oct 1st off as it is Botswana's Independence Day. Yes, I do get all US and local holidays, so there are some perks to my job.

Oh, yeah, I was also thrown in the world of bidding for my next position by myself. I thought that I have one more directed tour, where I get a very short list and pretty much am told where to go, but nope! Two days before bidding was opened I was told that I am on my own. What is bidding in the Foreign Service? Well, it is a lot like going for a new job in the private sector. I needed a resume and bunch of references. Then I had to create a list of the places I wanted to bid on. It took some hard core research but I got them down to six in the following: 1. Zagreb; 2. Bucharest; 3. Kiev; 4. Madrid; 5. Jerusalem; 6. Bogota. I would also like to add Kuwait but Mike is not very excited about it, so I still have it as pending. Once I knew where I wanted to go, then I started e-mailing the current finance officers and other listed contacts and asking them for more details of life at post-Internet speeds, nannies, schools, air quality, traffic, etc. Once I was sure I really wanted to go there, then I e-mailed the Management Officers or whoever the listed contact was and told them that I am the best EVER! and sent them my resume. I know that Bucharest has checked all my references. I have e-mailed just my top three for now and the CFO of the European bureau. I will push the top three for couple of more weeks and then see the other ones. This week, I will e-mail Zagreb and tell them that they are still my #1 choice. I really hope to get a "handshake", which means lock a job before all bids are due in by Oct. 5th. It will be perfect! Otherwise, I am not sure what happens. If I don't get a handshake, I guess any empty place left can be assigned to me. And those are not the ones that I want, but any other open spot.

I also got tenured in July. Getting tenured is an important step, because it tells them that I have proven that I am in for the long-haul meaning I am career foreign service officer. Who knew that I will be a diplomat for the US government back on August 30th, 1973 when I was pulled out of my mom almost 2 months premature, because the doctors believed I that have died and they were trying to save her. Hmm!

It's cold!

Holy crap it gets cold here! This also makes for another weird experience-wearing a coat and pantyhose during a 4th of July reception. Yes, we had ours this past Friday and it was in the back yard of the AMB's house and it was freezing. I had a wool coat down to my knees, with a suit underneath it and I was still pretty chili. So now I have experienced Thanksgiving and X-mas by the pool and 4th of July in a coat. What sucks is that every plan we try to make for the real 4th, has to be during the day, more like between 3 pm and 5pm because the rest of the time it is in the mid-50s. One cannot really say-please come to celebrate b/w 3-5. We'll see what we'll do.

We are starting to talk about our next vacation. Based on the last one, we are most def coming home. Now we just have to figure out what month will be best and how we go about to see friends (VA, CA and UT) and family (WA & CO) in couple of short weeks. I am also getting close to finding out what will be my options for next year. I called my HR lady and she said that by middle of July, she will be able to tell me what we have for next year. I am very excited! It will be my first time to have more than one option. It will still not be the normal bidding, because I am not tenured, but it will be better than just one option.

8 Months for Real this Time

And to think that I deal with numbers all day and I could have counted properly that from October to June are 8 months not 9. Oh, well, I guess wishful thinking. It is not bad, just it is as if we live in Ashburn and that is it. Ashburn is the big place and everything else is smaller. This gives you an idea of the feeling of utter boredom I feel every day. It's not that we will go and party every day or every night, but come on! Not even Tyson's around us. It is all Ashburn and not in the current days of Harris Teeters and Targeee, oh no, I am talking 7 years back-empty f

fields and 2 strip malls.

The new exciting restaurant that just opened is Rodizio Brazilian Grill. The sushi place closed and now we have more beef. Finally, somebody clued in that there should be no sushi in a land-locked place where the dowries are paid in cows. Duh, make a beef restaurant and ta-dah, there is one. We will probably wait for a month before we visit it, so they can get their stuff straight.

In other news, we are styling with two Internet providers. In a typical start-up fashion our original provider over sold the band width and last week Mike was seeing the crazy speeds of 8 Bytes down and 1 Byte up. Yes, this is B without a K in the front. So, he did some research and we found that Orange offers 256KB for a reasonable price and 5 GB of downloads. He signed up and now can work without a problem. What sucks is that the Vonage is still bad. We can hear perfectly fine, but the upload, or us speaking is bad, so it sounds crappy. As usual this makes home feel so close, yet so far. Sniff!

I loaded the pictures from the vacation for everybody's viewing pleasure.

8.5 Months

We have officially been in BW longer than Liberia. Granted, we were on vacation for 3.5 weeks, but still we are here longer than any other place in Africa before.

Speaking of vacation, let's recap the experience from hell. We were supposed to be on the flight out of Johannesburg to Paris at 19:40, however Air France oversold the flight (I know shocking!) so they moved us to the flight at midnight. We spent 5 hours on the airport. Gratefully, we had Air France lounge access, so even though N. didn't sleep, it wasn't as hard as it could have been. Then we flew for 12 hours and upon arrival in Paris and waiting for our luggage, we realized that N's suitcase wasn't there. It was 15 C (mid 50s F) in Paris and N had only 2 pj's and one set of clothes from the carry on. Thankfully, I had 2 blankets, so that was helpful. We arrived on Saturday morning. On Sunday morning, Michael woke up with pain in his lower abdominal area. It got worse in the next hour, so he hopped on a taxi and went to the closest hospital in Paris. I called the Embassy and spoke to the duty officer asking for help and the dumb lady was of no help. During this time, Mike was going through test and scans. The doctors found that he has an infected appendix and required surgery. I made my way to the hospital to see him before the surgery. I also called my cousin and she said that she will make it back to Paris from Rabodanche by the evening time. The hospital looked awful. It was old and decrepit. I have seen hospitals like that in Bulgaria, but Paris, come on! Mike had the surgery-endoscopy, in the evening. It went well. The next day (Monday) I was supposed to be in class, but I had no one to take care of N. I went to my cousin's in the afternoon and left N with her and made my way to the hospital-AGAIN! Mike was much better. He was in a room that smelled like pee. Let me tell you how fast I had to remember my French-very fast, because no one speaks English. Everybody was so polite and helpful but still didn't know English. Mike was released on Tuesday at noon and took N and went to my cousin's for the afternoon, so she could help him. I made it to school on Tue afternoon. The rest of our stay in Paris was amazing. We went to the Louvre for a day. N managed to poop himself to such extend that everything was covered in poop in the middle of the Louvre. I didn't have a spare paid of pants or socks so I put his legs through the sleeves of his wool cardigan and wrapped his feet with blankets. He looked pathetic, but he was warm. I have always loved Paris-the cafes, the tons of people, the fact that everybody smells great and looks amazing. There is also all the culture stuff to, but that is a given. I would love to live in Paris for a longer period of time and give Mike the chance to actually see it. Oh and I wouldn't have been able to do it without my cousin's help. It was a miracle that she was there. Oh yeah and the suitcase came on Tue, right after I spent crazy amounts of cash to make sure my baby doesn't get sick in this cold weather.

We left Paris on Sunday for BG. Mike was having some pain on the site of his surgery but it wasn't anything bad. Of course that is not true! By 1:30 am on Monday, he was in total pain and on his way to a Bulgarian ER. I called the Embassy at 1:30 am and the nurse was very helpful. Mike was admitted and was put on IVs of antibiotics galore. On Tue, the scan showed that the body has contained the infection into a puss pocket (I know it sounds great!) instead of infecting his entire abdominal. Mike was in the hospital until Thur noon. The entire time the nurse and the doctor of the Embassy were there, giving me updates and working with the hospital. It was such a difference from our Paris experience. OK, so after this Thur there were no more visits to the hospital. Mike stayed on antibiotics for 5 more days and now is at 100%.

On Sunday, May 24th was N's baptism. It went great! N did great up to the point when the priest dunked him in the giant baptism bucket (not sure of the word) and poured water on his face. The poor baby has not slept since 06:00 am and was so tired and this was the final straw. He flipped out! Couple of minutes earlier a British group of tourists has entered the church to see it, because it is one of the oldest and most preserved churches, and they were so excited to see a baptism and were taking pictures. So right after N got dunked and the priest handed him all hysterical to his godfather and the Brits were snapping along, is when he started peeing with every cry. The priest jumped back very fast and the entire church started laughing. The poor baby kept crying and peeing for about a minute. He had a perfect parabola trajectory. We have it on video for posterity. He was upset for the rest of the ceremony and all he wanted was his mommy, which is kinda hard when the godparents were supposed to hold him. After the baptism, he fell asleep in the car and slept through most of the lunch. Th rest of vacation in BG was calm. We knew we had a 12 hrs layover in Paris on the way back, so Mike found a great apartment for that time. We also tried to get seats next to a bulkhead, so we can put N in a bassinet, but because I bought a full ticket for him, we couldn't because the system assumes that he is over 2 years old if he has a full ticket. Helloooo, we went to Air France's reps and she said we have to do it the day of the flight. The day of the flight came and we made it to Paris nice and safe. The hotel/apt was great. We took naps, relaxed, oh and before we went to the hotel we actually secured the seats we wanted. It took 30 mins and Mike pointing at N over and over showing the Air France lady that, yes he is indeed a baby, not a toddler. Sorta relaxed, we left the hotel to check in our luggage. We made it to the counter, only to encounter a lady with an attitude. From the beginning, she was asking stupid questions such as-why are you going to Botswana and do you have other form of IDs (beside US passports, helllooo). The final part of her craziness was when she said we can't take the stroller to the gate, then she changed her mind and said we can't the baby chair on the plane and the stroller. Finally after she called her supervisor and I showed her that the chair is approved for plane travel they decided that they will go ahead and charge us for the stroller as excess baggage, because the ticket for N was bought as a toddler, not a baby and all he gets is 20 kilos. It made no difference to them that nobody has ever charged us for anything on any flights, because WE ARE TRAVELLING WITH A BABY! Mike argued, I argued, another manager came and in the end we had 2 managers and 2 check-in reps telling us we have to pay 47 euros per kilo for the stroller and the 1 kilo that N's suitcase was over. If anybody would like to know the digits, this is what it meant-both made over 10 kilos @ 47 euros per kilo they wanted 517 euros for a stroller and a kilo over, which is over $700. And they kept saying, "Sorry, there is nothing we can do!" WTF is wrong with AIR FRANCE and these particular French. They said that Air France in Joburg has made a mistake when they didn't charge us so they are correcting it. The original counter wench said the "THIS IS CHARLES DE GAULLE AIRPORT AND WE HAVE DIFFERENT RULES" Duh, lady, we flew out of CDG 2.5 weeks earlier on a flight where N didn't have his own ticket and should have been charged for his 20 kilo suitcase and the chair and the stroller but weren't. But, no, nothing will make them listen. They kept printing some stupid paper and circling that we each got 20 kilos as if I am retarded. In the end I asked what were our options and there were two-pay or leave the stroller behind. So we did, we left my baby's first stroller on the French airport! I took my sleeping son out of his stroller, while I was crying and left it on the scale. I asked them what they will do with it and the bitch said "Oh, it's trash". I wish I could have hit her. Maybe, I should have hit her at least to make me feel better. I asked that they donate it to charity and not waste a brand new Italian stroller. Well, this went on for about an hour and at this time we were late for the plane. One of the managers, a dude, escorted us through passport control and security. I kept crying and he kept saying "I am sorry, there is nothing we could do". Mike called it BS, because there is some thing they could do. They can just put the stroller on the plane. The flight was long and I kept thinking about the very first stroller N had and how one of my girlfriends and I spent months choosing the right one so it could be driven with one hand and closed with one hand, so it will be easier for travel and then I keep seeing it sitting on the baggage conveyor. I am still so sad about this. Those people have no heart and no brain and are total asses. No wonder everybody thinks the French are asses. It is because of people like those, they were admitting they made a mistake and wanting to punish us. Well, when we landed in Joburg and I was carrying N and dragging a carry-on the Air France/KLM manager was at the door. She asked me if I needed my stroller and Mike told her that it was taken away from us. She couldn't believe it, but then she is Dutch and it seems like they have hearts, unlike the French. She lent me an umbrella stroller for the 3 hours in Joburg and we gave her all our information. She said that she will try and get it back for us. I am not holding my breath, because I can see the French bitches destroying just out of spite. This week we are also writing letter of complaint to Air France and every other airline that is member of the star alliance. I woke up 2 days ago, thinking that I should have thrown down my dip. pass on the counter (because we travel with our normal ones otherwise) and told them "I am taking this stroller with me and not paying a dime, if you have a problem, well you better call security" but I was in such shock and disbelief, plus we haven't slept for the past three nights because N is teething, that I just tried to reason. As if reasoning with a bag of leaves makes any difference.

We made it back to Gabs and we even stayed until all the luggage was out, just in case they loaded the stroller after the fact. Nope, no such thing! Heartless assholes! I am never flying with Air France ever again. EVER!

I have bunch of pix from the baptism and Paris but will have to load slowly. I will attach a link as soon as I do.

Next vacation is in the US where we will fly with United or Delta.

5 Months

I fell of the bed yesterday. Yep, all 146 lbs in slow motion fell with a thump! I thought I will break my leg. It was bad! I sat on the bottom edge of the bed to look for documents and brush my teeth. My left leg was straight on the bed and the right was on the bed frame. Well, I must have been brushing pretty vigorously, because I started tipping over to the right-the ground part, not the soft pillowy part. So, I tried to put my right leg down on the floor, but instead I stepped between the frame and the mattress. At this time I was totally falling, while still holding my toothbrush in my mouth. I calculated that if I continue straight down I will either break my leg or for sure dislocate my knee. So I took action and started twisting to the left. Thankfully, this was enough to move my leg up enough, but I still fell from waist high. I couldn't scream, I didn't want to wake up the wee-one. Mike was in the living room and also of no help. I clinged to my trusty toothbrush and whimpered. Now my left thigh is black purple and both of my shins are swollen and bluish. It sucked, but now it is totally funny because it was all in slow mo. I have no idea why I didn't try to lean towards the bed or something, but no-nothing. Just a thump! Pretty sad!


Did I mention that I am the hardest working gov't employee in the entire freakin' gov't? This is just not right! I had all sorts of trainers and visitors from the middle of January until the end of Feb. My people were in training and on vacations and I was stuck doing everything. Once I realized I was doing everybody's work on top of mine, I sat them all down and told them it was over. They just stared at me. I put 2 people on performance improvement plans and still nothing. I am not sure if it is the culture, but there is no initiative whatsoever in any of them. I show them exactly how to do something and I get it late and wrong-aaaaaaaaa! I have no nails left from stress! And why should I care? My predecessors surely didn't, that is why the dept. is such a mess. If there is no change in the next couple of weeks, there will be some firings in the future.


Otherwise, I miss home. Actually, we miss home. It is not that here it is bad, but when we have nothing familiar around us, it slowly gets to you. I also miss my friends. E-mails and talking on the phone is just not enough. In Liberia, the community was so tight that we missed the lifestyle but not the comraderie. Here, no one hangs out with anyone. I mean some of the people at work hang out, but I don't know a single other person from the other Embassies. Right next to us we have the Indian, Angolan, Swedish, Chinese, French, German and Nigerian Embassies and we don't know a single person from them. I have heard that in civilized posts you feel very lonely, but Botswana did not count as one. I hope it gets better. We are venturing out of the city next weekend, so that hopefully will make it better. We are going to Tuli block. It is on the western tip of Botswana. We are staying in the Tuli Lodge-www.tulilodge.com. It will be interesting to finally see all that beauty that everybody talks about. It will also be interesting to go on a game drive with an 8 month old baby. People keep telling me that predators sense when there is defenseless something in their midst so they come out. This means that if that is true, we will be seeing lions, cheetahs and all sorts of other predators none stop. I will give an update when we get back.


Oh, Mike organized a mini Texas Hold'em tourney in January and it went great, so right now he is hosting a second one. I am again the only girl in a house full of boys. The youngest one is sleeping (thank you, Jesus!!!) and the rest are drinking and playing cards.


There are no cool pictures. The only picture I am adding is the one from back in January when we went for professional photos. Mike and I look like the album cover of an 80s band. Enjoy!

10,11,12/104

Christmas in Africa is so not a real Christmas. It is just not right to have blue skies and 100 degrees Fahrenheit. We had the tree and the gifts and the decorations but it never felt like Christmas. Same thing was for New Year's Eve especially when we spent it home and almost missed the New Year's because we were watching "The Dark Knight". Thankfully our noisy neighbours started yelling and others exploding fireworks, so we had the chance to mark the beginning of 2009 and then resume watching the movie. We were in bed by 1:30 am and my beloved child, who did not care that I went to bed late, woke up at 6:30 am. This taught me a lesson-I may go to bed late, but it is guaranteed that I will wake up early no matter what.

In other exciting news, we didn't have water in the Embassy most of Tue (30th) and Wed (31st). Something happened and the water was cut, then Gaborone Water ( I have no idea if that is their real name) fixed it but we had no water pressure. I live close to the embassy, so I could go home to go to the bathroom or to take my people over for a bathroom break. It was interesting. As you can tell, nothing much happens here and with a baby nothing much happens altogether. One of the peeps from the Embassy had a "White Elephant" party on Dec. 26th, but our nanny has been on vacation since the 24th , so we couldn't go. Then the Marines had a party for New Year's and again we couldn't go due to lack of nanny. Michael and I are learning to spend a lot of time together AT HOME! I think I already mentioned that and it continues to be true. There is a saying in Bulgaria and I translate " the female pig ate warm meals until she had piglets"- meaning you had a life until you had kids, after that they are your life. Now I actually know what it means.