Better Than Drinking Your Troubles Away...

My dad sent me an email asking if I was okay because he hadn't gotten an email or seen a blog post from me  in over a week. So I figured I should write something.

The truth is that work has been, well, work lately. Some times are less rewarding that others, and I seem to be in one of those times. It doesn't help that bidding season is rapidly approaching and bidding as a tandem is hard. I am working on a post about that in my head, but suffice it to say, one of the many things I was excited about when coming here was that it meant four years of not having to bid. Sadly, that is coming to an end.

So to deal with the work issues and the impending bidding doom, we have decided that we need to go somewhere at least once a month, at least for a long weekend.

So last month was a long weekend in Paris. This month, last weekend in fact, was a long weekend in Riga and an afternoon on the way back in the Estonian beach town of Pärnu.

Going to Riga has lots of advantages. It is close...just four hours...and is similar yet different.

But the biggest bonus is we have lots of friends there. My wife's first boss is there. One friend from A-100 is there as is the wife of another A-100 classmate (the classmate is in Afghanistan). There there is a friend from area studies, and another who used to work with my wife on the Russia desk.

And I have said before that when the Foreign Service dream job is being more of a job and less of a dream, it is friends we have made in the service that keep us here. That remains true.

Next month, we are taking a week to hit Norway, plus my inlaws and friends from A-100 will visit. In July, we will take a long weekend to a yet undecided location, and then it will be two weeks in Scotland in August or September. Hopefully sometime in there, my dad will visit (and maybe even convince my stepmother to come along!) And by then, the bid list should have been submitted and the real angst can begin!

This is the location of what Latvia claims was the first Christmas tree...which of course came some 60 years after the REAL first Christmas tree...in Tallinn.

I took this in honor of my favorite post from The Bloggess....Knock knock, Mother F*cker.

Blackheads House...a bit larger and grander than Tallinn's. But we still had the first Christmas tree.