Houston, we have an apartment

It is no secret that I am a nester.

I like to have my home decorated with things that mean something to me: art, souvenirs, pictures, things that tell stories.

So when we pack our HHE (and to a degree, but less so, our UAB), I like to include things that make our place overseas feel like home.

Apparently, my wife also likes that I do this, because this time, even she was clamoring for something to make our apartment (which is ginormous) look less like a corporate apartment.

So we were both really happy when our HHE finally arrived a week ago Tuesday. And there was lots of it, like 6000 lbs (and that number is low because I deliberately reduced how much we brought this time!). Of course, probably half that amount is books...

Lotsa Stuff

The cats approved of the boxes

And the paper

And true to form, I got all of our stuff unpacked and the boxes thrown out within two days (with the help of a local holiday...yay! Bajram!..on Thursday). Admit it, you wish you were married to me.

Making progress

Friday, I put in the order for GSO to come hang our pictures (I tried it myself, but the walls are concrete and I lack concrete nails or transportation to go buy some). And they came yesterday. So now we even have art on the wall.

Even my office at work has a touch of home:

Why yes, I am from SC, why do you ask?

Now it feels more like home...for another 21 or 22 months anyway...

Përshëndetje nga Kosova

View of Pristina from our Balcony

I made it to Kosovo. I had expected to arrive tomorrow with Oskar, one of our cats, and Noostie, our dog. Instead, I arrived Thursday with Oskar and Cayenne, our bird.

Let me back up.

The whole language training fiasco threw a monkey wrench into all of our departure plans. So instead of leaving with my wife on July 22 as planned, I completed another four weeks of language training and retested on July 31.

Oh, and I got my waiver, on July 29. But I opted to test anyway, because I really believed I was at a 3/3 or better.

And I passed! Yay!

Looking on the bright side, I know that the extra time in one on one training really solidified my language. I actually felt pretty darn close to a 3+ on the day of the test. And brighter side, I made some lifelong friends among the teachers. So I am profoundly grateful for that.

Still, getting here was an ordeal (in fact, worst PCS ever), and it isn't over yet. My beloved dog is still in Virginia, and I will be worried sick until she gets here.

So my original plan (original as of the initial language test failure anyway) was to pack out our stuff for storage on Monday and Tuesday (August 3 and 4) and to depart on Wednesday, August 5 with the cat, dog and parrot. I did all the pet appointments on July 27th and overnighted the paperwork to the USDA for their health certificates that night. But mix ups regarding what exactly they needed from my vet ended up meaning that I had to pay a courier to drive the paperwork to me from Richmond on Tuesday.

Then I discovered that the airlines only allowed one pet in cargo (but four in cabin...I am not sure which planet that makes sense on). And Cayenne, my bird, was not cleared to transit Copenhagen, even though I had jumped through all of the hoops to get an EU health certificate (trust me, she does NOT have bird flu) and her CITES permit. So then I had to decide...do I send my bird to the pet shipper in hopes he can get her to me, or to my wife's cousin, who could keep her for two years? I am sure the movers were perplexed about why I was bawling on the front porch. I finally got through to a supervisor at Scandinavian who told me the decision to allow Cayenne to transit had to be made by a ministry in Denmark, which of course was closed. She offered to call me at 2 am when they opened with an update.

In the meantime, I had other reservations on a flight for Sunday. I would have my dog and cat with me on that one. And I assumed that was what I would be taking. So I relaxed a bit in my preparations, even planning for dinners with friends.

The call came at 2:30 am....still no approval for Cayenne on the flight. So I got up at about 8 and started cleaning a bit around the house.

And then the call came at 9:30...she is approved.

So now I am having to fast forward...I have to leave for the airport at 3 to be there by 3:55 for the 5:55 flight. That gave me five and a half hours to finish packing, mail a box of stuff that I had no room for in my suitcase, take Cayenne to the vet for her last checkup (seriously man, EU rules are strict!), and make arrangements for the dog to go to the boarding facility that will hopefully be able to ship her (if not, I will be flying back this weekend to bring her here as excess baggage).

It was seriously down to the wire, in fact, even more so than I thought. My taxi arrived a bit late because of traffic and we got to the airport a little later than I had hoped. The line for security was about five miles long, and they were letting some folks ahead because they needed to make their flights. But I had no worries, right? Plenty of time!

Except when I got to my gate, and was at the little store getting some water, I hear the LAST CALL for my flight. At like 4:40. So I saunter across to the gate and ask why they boarded so early. They said they got started early. So I board, find my seat. Everyone else is seated. And we pull away from the gate at 5:15. It was only then that I looked at my ticket again (I didn't have a printed copy, just a link on my phone) and saw that my flight was at 5:15, not 5:55! It was the Sunday flight that was at 5:55! In hindsight, I am glad I didn't know.

So we are here. Noostie should get her new health certificate Tuesday and be eligible to fly until the 19th. Please pray. if you are the praying sort, that she gets here safely sooner rather than later. There is a doggie-sized hole in my heart right now and I need her home and to have my family together.

I do think once Noostie is here, I will be really happy here. It is great to be back with my wife so we can explore together. Our apartment is ginormous and really nice and is about a block and a half from the embassy. Even with my bad knees, I can walk it easily. The embassy compound is nice and I seem to have an awesome staff. I am excited to work with them.

The city so far seems nice, with a great restaurant scene and some decent grocery stores. And of course we have the commissary at work and the PX at the KFOR Base for the must-have American goods, including diet Mt. Dew (which my amazing wife actually had waiting for me in the fridge when I got here!).

Also great, our UAB had already arrived and was even mostly unpacked! So we have stuff!

Life is good.

Change of Plans

Our UAB and HHE are on their way. My wife will be in two days. 

I will not.

Those of you who know me from the real world (and, who are we kidding, from Facebook, though to be fair, all of my Facebook friends are people I have real world ties to), know that my language test did not go well. Almost there is not what you want to hear about 43 weeks. So our transfer, including this past weekend's packout, has become maddeningly more complicated than it needed to be.

My wife and I were supposed to leave together (though on different flights because the main airline the Department uses doesn't allow parrots and the cost construct for that flight was pretty expensive, so my wife will use the regular flight). We were supposed to leave on Wednesday. This Wednesday. So we arranged our packout for this past weekend.

It was supposed to come after a week of leadership training and a few days off (read, days organizing) for me and a week off and a few days off for my wife (also for organizing). But with the test issue, that didn't happen. Instead, my week of leadership was exchanged for more time in language class, because it turns out that it takes four weeks to have your test reviewed, to pursue a language waiver, or to take enough additional language training to retest.

I am pursuing all three, in case you were curious. My plan now is to head to post on August 5, two weeks after my wife gets there (and no, this doesn't means she will unpack and set stuff up for us...she didn't unpack her shipments in Azerbaijan in the three months between her departure for post and my first visit there. Nesting is not really her thing.)

So I am still in language. No vacation for me. Meaning I couldn't help much with the packout of the UAB and HHE. Also meaning that the packout for storage and the car had to be postponed until August 3. So there has been much more stress than there should have been. I feel far less on top of this PCS than I have previous ones (though the movers were impressed with my labeling system...stickers on everything for UAB, HHE and storage since there wouldn't be two of there to organize and then supervise).

So our UAB and HHE are on their way to Kosovo, and my wife will begin her journey with one of our cats in two days. I have two more weeks in language and I retest on July 31. It is possible that either the waiver or a positive review of the test will come through by then (because I actually felt like I did better than my score on the test, but that is another story...), but it is already too late to change anything. So even if I get the waiver or find I passed at least one part of my test, I will still retest in the other part and leave on the 5th (Me, the dog, one of the cats, and the parrot. Fun.).

And if you are the religious sort, I wouldn't mind any prayers or positive energy you want to send my way. I am already carrying around a four-leaf clover my mother found in West Virginia. Can't hurt, right?

Coming Home to Home Leave

We made it home, including all of the pets (pausing to say another round of thank you thank you thank you) and are currently enjoying home leave.

Yes, I said enjoying. There are lots of folks who disagree with me on this, for completely valid reasons.

Home leave is the vacation we are required by Congress between tours. Yes, you read that right. Congress, in an effort to make sure we don't forget we are American, gives us one day of leave for every month we are overseas. We are required to take that leave in between tours and we are required to take that leave in the United States. Never mind that I feel MOST American when I am overseas...I'll just thank Congress for the free vacation anyway.

Of course, as I said, many don't enjoy it, not because they don't love their country (why you would live this crazy life unless you loved your country is beyond me), but because it isn't exactly free.

In fact, it is pretty expensive. If you don't have a home to camp out in, you are essentially a vagabond for about five weeks. Five weeks in hotels can get expensive. Five weeks camping out for free with relatives can get...well, you insert your own descriptor. And if you have kids, that becomes an even greater hassle.

Luckily for us, we don't have kids except for the pets. We own a home in the DC area and we arrange to come back for more than five weeks between tours. So last time, we came home and served in DC for a couple tours. This time, we are home for a year of language. Each option makes it worth our while to live in our own home. So we don't "have" to get hotels for the whole time. More on that later, as we ARE using the opportunity to travel a bit.

The other complaint people often have with home leave is competition among families to get to see them while they are stateside...that can be stressful....you think "who do we visit at Christmas?" is bad - try, "who do we visit when we are only stateside for five weeks every three years?"!

Again, having some time in DC avoids that conundrum for us (though we are visiting both of our families on this trip, it is only a short stop with each set of parents because we will be home for a year). It is harder on R&Rs, but then we have opted for the "home base" route of renting a place, usually at the beach, and inviting the family to visit. So far, that has worked pretty well.

All of which is prelude to say we got home just over two weeks ago. Because I am uber-organized/insane, I arranged for our stuff from storage, our UAB, AND our car to be delivered the day after we arrived. Yes, all of them (packing out the UAB and car early worked and they both arrived stateside before we did!), PLUS I had the cable guy come set up our cable and interwebs that day. Of course, that meant pure chaos the whole day, but also meant we had a bed to sleep in that night and a television to watch while sitting our our sofa.

Lots boxes on the lawn

Our car...with a very dead battery
because the parking lights were left on!

I planned for our vacation to start exactly one week later so we would have time to go to the Department and get new badges (success!), get our new Maryland drivers licenses (success!), and get the car inspected, registered and plated (success!...after spending $1000...sigh), and be completely unpacked (not a complete success, but not bad considering our new place has three levels and my knees post-surgery are not liking that one bit.

Side note: I think all DMVs are awful...we went to get our licenses and I brought all the stuff needed for proof of residency, including our mortgage statement. We went to separate clerks. My clerk would not accept the mortgage statement because although it was for a Maryland home, it was mailed to me at our DPO address. So I needed another proof. They said they would accept the vehicle registration, which my wife was working on. Meanwhile, my wife's clerk accepted the very same mortgage statement as proof of residency. So I go over to get the vehicle registration from her, and her clerk says, "Oh, she can just sign for you as proof of residency since you are married."

Yay, marriage equality. Boo/yay for bureaucracy!

So for unpacking, living room, dining room and kitchen are done. Spare bedroom, where we are sleeping, is mostly done, as is my wife's office. Our bedroom is done to the degree it can be until our HHE arrives...our bed is in it. My office/the parrot's room and the basement are started. I'll call that a win.

So for now, we have a home. And the pets seem to approve.

The cats approve of Birdie TV in the back yard

The dog approves of the porch from which to survey her new domain

And now we are vacationing. But I will leave that for later posts.

Saying Goodbye to Friends and Stuff

I said my first goodbye today. One of my staff members is going on vacation and won't be back until after we depart post.

It was hard. It was all I could do not to break down and cry. There are so many awesome people here, especially among my staff. I adore them all.

Leaving Tallinn is going to be hard.

Less emotional was saying goodbye to some of our stuff. Today was the day we packed out our UAB, or Unaccompanied Baggage.

As officers, we each get 250 lbs of UAB, so 500 lbs total. I discovered coming here that a lot of my weight was taken up by clothes, especially work clothes. I knew I wouldn't need much of those since I am going to FSI (the Foreign Service Institute) to study language. Jeans or khakis and polos will do the trick.

So I wasn't packing a lot of suits...and shockingly, after three years in Estonia, I have a limited amount of "summer" clothes in the non-Arctic sense of summer (as I write, I am wearing a fleece and shearling slippers...and our apartment does not have AC).

Still, I was ready. I had lists. I had all of the stuff from the lists carefully piled so we didn't forget anything.

The box-like thing to the right is actually the pads for the dining table.
We used them to surround our clothes so the cats didn't make a bed there.

I highlighted each thing on my list as I put it in the pile.

What I didn't plan for? Needing more stuff to put in it.

So the packers arrived. (Have I mentioned how much I love Estonia? The movers were scheduled to arrive at 9 am. They got here at 8:55. They removed their shoes. They brought actual bubble wrap. And they estimated about 2 hours and left just shy of 2 hours later.)

And they packed up our pile.

The embroidered pillow is the cats'.
The blue and purple thing is a stuffed dog toy. Priorities!

And then they asked where the OTHER HALF was.

I have very little idea what is in the second half. Some more clothes. A carpet from Azerbaijan that the cats will love because it is covered with their hair. A Catawba pot for smudging our new home. My favorite coat (because I use my leather jacket here in June...why wouldn't I need it in DC in July?). Softball gloves. Who knows what else?

There is one thing in there I didn't intend to put in...my camera. I meant to put in my camera BAG but to bring the camera with me in my backpack. Hopefully it arrives before our home leave, or my pictures are going to be with my little point and shoot. Sad, but not devastating.

When it was all said and done, we managed to use most of our weight. I think we each used about 235 of our 250 lbs. And it should soon be on the way to DC.

Goodbye, stuff!

Other Lists

So in addition to my list of items for the UAB, I also have my lists of items to go into my suitcase and my carry on.

These need to be packed and locked away in a room before the movers come for the HHE, or Household Effects, so that they don't get packed along with everything else including the trash...because we all know that happens.

So in case you want to either a) crib from my list, or b) remind me of something I am forgetting, here is what is going on the plane with me (in addition to the animals).

Carry on:
Passport, Driver’s license paperwork (we are new Maryland residents and need to get new licenses...buh bye Virginia and your non-recognition of our marriage!) and orders
Pet passports and paperwork
Car titles and marriage license
Badge and paperwork for new badge
Check book
Jewelry
Phone and charger
iPad and charger
Cameras and chargers
Video camera
Computer and cords
meds

Suitcase:
Cat bowls and a little food
Dog bowls and a little food
Noostie’s kong and ziggies (they are her favorites...we can't go a day without them)
Cayenne’s treat cup and food
Sheets
Pillow
Towel/wash cloth
One suit
Small litter box and litter
Fleece
swimsuit (for our home leave trip)
tevas (ditto)

I admit I probably don't need the fleece but I like having it...and I plan to re-acclimate to the wonderfulness that is air conditioning! This is also why, despite a friend saying that a summer blanket is an Estonian concept I won't need in Maryland, I am putting on in my UAB.

You might have noticed, if you read yesterday's post, that I have sheets, pillows and towels in the UAB and in my suitcase. There is a reason for that.

In our storage, we have a double bed for guests. We will be using that until our king bed arrives in in our HHE (new FS folks...embassy bedding is uniformly awful. If you have a bed you love, take it with you). So in the UAB, I will pack some sheets for that bed. We will use two single beds pushed together to sleep on once our HHE is packed, so we will have our king sheets on that. We will out those in our suitcase. Once we get stateside, we can use those on the double bed (lots of tucking under the mattress) until the UAB is delivered. Then we wash them and have them ready when our HHE arrives so we don't have to hunt through the boxes for clean king sheets. Having pillows in both the UAB and suitcase means no time with the embassy's airline pillows from the welcome kit. And having an extra towel is always a good idea.

Preparing to Pack

And so it begins.

The long goodbye to our stuff.

We have the good fortune of two back to back local holidays this Monday and Tuesday, meaning we have a four-day weekend. Yay, Estonia.

Our first day back, Wednesday, is when we have our packout survey. If this were the states, I would tell you that this would be when the moving company would come by and grossly underestimate how much stuff we have and how long it will take to pack our stuff. They would then use that gross underestimation to bring too little of what they need to actually pack our stuff, or at least too little of what they need to pack our stuff the way they tend to pack it (really, how many trees died to wrap my shoes in that much paper?).

But this is not America.

This is Estonia, where people are efficient and generally accurate. So I am cautiously optimistic that I will get a reasonable estimate of the amount and the time involved.

I'll let you know.

And then Friday, they come for our UAB, or Unaccompanied Baggage.

That is the stuff that arrives, or is supposed to arrive, fairly quickly. The stuff you need immediately, like clothes, sheets, towels, some dishes, etc.

I say supposed to, because when my wife was posted to Baku, they forgot to send her UAB until she had been there for FOUR MONTHS. That is a long time to live with the stuff from your suitcase. And coming home from Jerusalem, where we dutifully packed out our UAB two weeks before leaving post so it would get home around when we did, they didn't bother to send it until AFTER they sent our HHE. When I called post to figure out what happened, they asked if there was something in there I really needed immediately.

ALL OF IT! THAT IS THE POINT!

Of course, these are also the movers that tied down our car, the one going on a ship, with bungie cords. Ships rock, bungie cords stretch, and our car was scraped down to the metal. Thank god for insurance.

So it is that time again. It is all I can do not to put things into a UAB pile, but with the in-laws arriving tomorrow, there is just no good place to do it. So instead, I have a list.

Here is what I have for the UAB so far:

Clothes
Summer blanket
Sheets
Pillows
Towels
Shower curtain and rod
TV
PS3 (doubles as a DVD player)
Kitchen - Pots/pans/dishes
Dog’s blanket
Cat food
Cat bed
Litter box
Tool box
*Camera backpack
*Walking stick
*Day packs
*Small cooler
Bose Radio
Shower radio
Laundry hamper
Baby gate
Scale
Flashlight
Step stool

Of course, I also have lists for my suitcase and carry on. I really want to pack them too.

* For our home leave hiking trip.

Preparations

So the preparations have truly begun.

We have just three months left in Tallinn.

I have begun my list of what needs to be in the suitcase, the carry on, and the UAB.

Lists make me happy...and more relaxed.

But of all that we have to take home with us, what always concerns me most is the pets. This is why I started the process of getting the CITES permit for my bird several months ago (I have the Estonian one...still waiting for the U.S. permit).

Last week, I took my dog for her shots, and today it was the cats' turn.

Now they are all ready to go...they even have their passports!

"Lemmiklooma Pass" means Pet's Passport in Estonian.
I love that the word for pet, lemmikloom,
comes from lemmik (favorite) and loom (animal).

Unsettled

There used to be a blog out there called "Six Months of Settled." The idea behind the title is that as Foreign Service Officers, between arriving at a post and getting past culture shock and really settling in until you are bidding again and then mentally moving on, you get to feel settled in a country for about six months.

It is fairly true, but I feel like I have gotten more than that out of Tallinn.

Living here is easy and pleasant. There is so little of what you need to live comfortably that you can't obtain really easily here that it makes it easy to just snuggle in quickly like I do with my flannel sheets (because it does get cold!).

I have loved my time here. I love my job, my staff, and this whole place. So I have postponed mentally moving on because I like it so much here. Through the bidding process and getting assigned to my onward post, I never checked out of Estonia.

And I am still not ready to leave, but as I approach my last five months in Tallinn, I admit I am beginning to feel unsettled. And it makes me sad.

On the Myers-Briggs scale, I am an ENTJ. And I think it is the J part that really REALLY likes to plan. I love lists. I love having a schedule. I love thinking about what I am doing next and organizing it in my head and on paper.

I have already started the process of getting my orders, already registered for training, already made plane reservations for us and the pets, already gotten a welcome cable from Kosovo. And while I have avoiding breaking out the pen and paper so far, in my head, I am already making lists.

What do I need to remember to put in my suitcase? Should I start packing it now (NO!)

What should I put in my UAB?  Should I set it aside in one of the rooms we seldom use (again, NO!).

Maybe I should just start my inventory. (Okay, maybe).

I am even making lists of things I want to do to our new place in Maryland and things I will want to put into our consumables shipment to Kosovo (dog food, cat food, bird food...and diet Mt. Dew).

One list I should make, but won't, is places I should visit before I leave.

I figure, if I miss something I wanted to see, I will just have to come back.

And I will want to come back. Because I don't want to leave.

Have Plates (and GPS), Will Travel

Diplomatic Plates: I has them.

I continue to be amazed at the efficiency of this country.

I have been here for 50 days. I got my UAB on about Day 6.

I got my HHE (AND my car!) nine days ago. The embassy arranged for the inspection two days later.

Today, they completed the registration process and gave me my tags. I could drive tonight if I wanted to.

That is just amazingly fast!

I know places where they don't get their UAB that fast!

Oh yeah, and tomorrow, GSO is coming to finish hanging my pictures in my house AND my office.

Stuff!

I has it.

Though not a lot of it.

My UAB arrived today.

The movers truly offended me...I was speaking to them in Estonian and he said, "You can speak in English." I continued in Estonian and he said, "They told me you didn't speak Estonian."

"That I didn't speak Estonian?" I asked in disbelief.

"Yes, that you did not know a single word of Estonian."

"I studied Estonian for almost a year," I said to him, in Estonian.

"Oh."

I didn't say much of anything else to him in English. Whoever "they" is, stop dissing my hard work!

Anyway, it is all already unpacked and put away. In retrospect, I am glad I packed more clothes, though I wish I had been more selective in choosing them. The two weeks worth of work clothes I stuffed into my suitcase would have gotten old pretty quickly. Especially since half my shirts were for warmer weather and half for cooler. Because you never know what you will get here...lately it has been warmer, and I was running low on short-sleeved shirts.

I am happiest to have my towels, my other pillow (I brought one with me, plus sheets, because I know how bad embassy bedding can be), and my clothes hamper. I am also really happy the pet food arrived. Given that I am waiting for my new credit card (I had to cancel the old one on THE DAY of my flight here because someone had attempted to use it fraudulently...props to USAA for catching it so quickly! The bad timing wasn't their fault), I can't order more pet food just yet and what I mailed would have run out before my HHE (with more pet food) arrived. So now the pets are covered. They do have Science Diet here, so I could just switch Noostie to that, but I don't want to switch Cayenne to a different bird food. I have kept her healthy for 15 years on this food...why mess with success?

Noostie, who has no idea that food runs out, is happiest with the arrival of some of her favorite toys (including the squeeky ball my wife hates...enjoy it while you can Noostie!).

I am sure I will be glad later that I brought my wii. Right now, I'm not, because I kind of wish I had some books and more decorations (my apartment is pretty barren).




I could have been more selective with my clothes and been able to fit those in. Live and learn. Plus, I expected to be able to buy more books for my kindle...not happening now until the new card arrives.

But it is just as well. I have plenty to do while the weather is so nice. I have even managed, in just six days in country, to double book myself for Saturday. Okay, it isn't really my fault. One is an event I signed up for (sailing) and one is a PA section sponsored event that I don't HAVE to attend but I'd kind of like to (Soap Box Derby).

The plan now is to go sailing and then head a little late to the derby. I should get some more interesting pictures out of it to show you.