Now that it's sinking in....

OK, so we're off to Manila. Our mindset has totally shifted and we have a lot of reading to do, talking to those who have been to or are from the Philippines, and generally exploring our options for housing, schools and travel.

A few perks right off the bat. No malaria drugs (unless we travel far outside the city)! Woohoo! The Philippines are a series of islands so.. beaches! Snorkeling! Scuba Diving! Beaches! Warmth! Beaches! On our way to post, we'll have three days in Honolulu for some last minute training. I don't know if we'll be able to cope with that :) And midway through our tour we have an R&R scheduled. Sadly, the point is Sydney, Australia. Did I say sadly? I'm sorry, that was supposed to be Woohoo!

More to come as we learn the ups and downs of our new home.

And the country is....

...represented by this flag! In March 2003, I'll be the new vice consul in the capital of this country.

It was very much a surprise to us, but we're excited about it. Now we have to read about this place, and we have a ton of stuff to do.

Flag Day Coming!

Tomorrow, Tuesday, is Flag Day. That's when we get a little flag of the country we're going to. Everyone's pretty nervous about it. Even worse, we're spending the morning slogging around the muddy, snowy Mount Vernon in order to "take our mind off" it. Right.

Tomorrow it'll be a little more real. We'll know where we're going and when, so we can start thinking about what to buy, projects to finish before we leave, renting out the house..

There are a couple of contests among the class. One is who gets their lowest-most bid. Most of the class kicked in two dollars, so the lucky "winner" gets the pot. That's the pity pot.

Another is more of a March Madness sort of thing, where we guess where each person is going to. Whoever gets the most right wins. The best strategy for this, I think, is to throw darts. The same way the State Department chooses.

Stay tuned.. we're just as interested as you are to see where this takes us.

Our list...

OK, we think this is it. We're about 90 percent sure that this is our list. We had to pick 25 posts and rank them in order of preference. With our list, we're fairly sure we'll end up getting some job in our top five. The "TED" is Time of Estimated Departure, when we'll get there. So 903 is September 2003. If that's blank, then it's a new post and we'll go whenever our training is done. I also added a column that lists what country the city is in. I thought that might be useful. :) Feel free to give us feedback on it via e-mail!

Our List.

The Bid List!

Here's the list. It consists of the city name, the cone (POL=Political, CON=Consular, GSO=Admin, PAO=Public Information Officer, etc. Most of these make sense.), and the language requirement. (Two letters, many of these don't make sense, but you can figure them out.) The number/number code is the speaking/reading requirement on a scale of five. We're tested (for everything) in languages. But even if we don't have the language, they'll train us for that.

Here goes...

POST POSITION LANG
1 ALGIERS*  POL-ECON    FR 3/3
2 AMMAN CON/POL    AD 2/0
3 AMSTERDAM CON DU 3/3
4 ANKARA CON PF 2/2
5 ANTANANARIVO  APAO    FR 3/3
6 ASTANA GSO RU 2/2
7 BAMAKO CON FR 3/3
8 BANGKOK CON TH 2/2
9 BEIJING CON CM 2/0
10 BELIZE CON/POL
11 BISHKEK   CON   RU 2/2
12 BRASILIA CON/ECON PY 3/3
13 BRATISLAVA CON SK 2/2
14 BUCHAREST AGSO RQ 3/3
15 BUCHAREST CON RQ 3/3
16 BUCHAREST CON/ECON RQ 3/3
17 BUDAPEST ECON HU 2/2
18 CARACAS CON/POL QB 3/3
19 CHENNAI CON TC
20 CIUDAD JUAREZ CON QB 3/3
21 COLOMBO CON
22 CONAKRY GSO FR 3/3
23 DAR-ES-SALAAM APAO SW 3/3
24 DUSHANBE PAO-CON RU 2/2
25 GUADALAJARA CON QB 3/3
26 GUANGZHOU CON CM 2/0
27 HERMOSILLO  CON-ADM   QB 3/3
28 HO CHI MINH CON VS 2/2
29 ISLAMABAD* CON UR 2/2
30 ISTANBUL CON TU 2/2
31 JERUSALEM CON AD 2/1
32 JERUSALEM   CON/POL    HE 2/2
33 KIEV AIO UK/RU 2/2
34 KIEV   CON/POL    UK 2/2
35 KRAKOW CON PL 2/2
36 LAGOS CON
37 LUANDA CON/APAO PY 3/3
38 LUANDA ECON/CON   PY 3/3
39 MANAGUA   CON/ECON   QB 3/3
40 MANILA CON TA 2/2
41 MANILA CON TA 2/2
42 MANILA CON
43 MANILA CON
44 MAPUTO CON/P-E PY 3/3
45 MAPUTO   POL-ECON   PY 3/3
46 MEXICO D.F. CON QB 3/3
47 MEXICO D.F.  CON QB 3/3
48 MEXICO D.F. CON QB 3/3
49 MEXICO D.F. CON QB 3/3
50 MEXICO D.F. CON/HRO QB 3/3
51 MINSK   CON RU 2/2
52 MONROVIA CON-P-E
53 MONTERREY CON QB 3/3
54 MONTERREY   CON QB 3/3
55 MOSCOW   CON/POL   RU 2/2
56 MOSCOW   POL/CON   RU 2/2
57 NEW DELHI CON
58 NEW DELHI CON HJ 2/2
59 OSLO CON
60 OUGADOUGOU CON FR 3/3
61 PORT AU PRINCE CON FR 3/3;HC 2/2
62 PORT AU PRINCE CON/POL FR 3/3;HC 2/2
63 PORT LOUIS  POL-CON    FR 3/3
64 PRISTINA* APAO AB 3/3
65 RIGA CON LE 3/3
66 RIO DE JANEIRO  CON PY 3/3
67 RIYADH CON AD 2/1
68 SANAA   CON AD
69 SANTO DOMINGO CON/ECON QB 3/3
70 SANTO DOMINGO CON/POL QB 3/3
71 SARAJEVO CON BX 2/2
72 SEOUL CON KP 2/0
73 SEOUL   CON KP 2/0
74 SEOUL CON
75 SHANGHAI CON/ECON CM 2/0
76 SHENYANG CON CM 2/0
77 SOFIA CON BU 2/2
78 SOFIA IO BU 2/2
79 SOFIA POL-ECON BU 3/3
80 TBILISI APAO GG 2/2
81 TUNIS   ECON/COMM    FR 3/3
82 WARSAW CON/PD PL 2/2
83 YEREVAN ECON RE 2/2

New site

Here's the new site. Should be portable enough for our upcoming travels. Look for the list of open embassy jobs, coming next week.