Days like this...

...are why I came here. As you probably have seen in the news today, the Secretary of State was in Jerusalem. We are a pretty small post, so whenever there is a visit, most of us have to work on it. This is my fourth in a year and a half, and the last three have been as site officer at Palestinian President Abbas's headquarters, the Muqataa. So that was how I spent my day.

Most of the work on the day of the visit is comprised of hours of waiting intersperced with minutes of chaos. Ours went off well I think, and as usual, the Palestinians were fabulous hosts. Palestinians understand hospitality. So they prepared a fabulous lunch for everyone involved. You should be warned never to come here if your goal is to lose weight!

So while I am definitely tired, I got to spend the day doing my small part in assisting people who are trying to negotiate a peace. How cool is that? Oh, and to top it off, we got a letter today from the Ambassador in charge of consular affairs thanking us for our hard work on getting the folks out of Gaza...all in all, not a bad day!