Survey Says!!!

Yes, after a lot of anticipation and researching where we would like to go and checking out schools, we finally received our "unofficial" notice of where our next duty station will be.  And I got to say we maintain an open invitation to any one that wants to come visit.  Now that we have our assignment, we are looking closer at the school options for Crystal and the working opportunities for Jolene.  This is a much smaller post than Moscow, that is one of the main things the assignment officer tries to do.  If you were at a big post most likely, you next with be small and vice-verse.  Though not always the case as we have one friend that is going from a small post in Chengdu, China to a small embassy in Suva.  Suva you ask?  Fiji islands in the middle of the Pacific.  I think he's willing to take in visitors too.  (We might have to go visit him there.)

Hard to believe that this time next year we'll probably already be back in the States on home leave and a few short weeks after that in training in DC then off to. . .  Wow I guess I have said where we are going yet.  I know some of my colleagues already know.  You know I'm not sure who's taking my slot here, though I don't know who all the bidders are, some of us are keep each other up on our assignments through an online spreadsheet.  Pretty handy actually, it was really interesting to see where people were wanting to go and what they were planning on bidding on.

Okay, I'm done rambling, back to our posting . . . Well here are some pictures, scroll down slowly and see if you can figure it out before  you get to the bottom.

So a city by water

and a city by the desert

with some resorts

and some restrictions on 

what women can wear

SCUBA

more SCUBA.  

We all plan on getting certified to dive while here

Got it yet?

Long Time No See

So about a year ago when I found out we were going to Moscow for our first assignment, I posted on Facebook that fact and put out an invitation for anyone to come visit.  We had some half hearted interest by some, but one said she would definately be here.  Well Connie was true to her word and came out last week.
We started with a bang on the 4th of July.  After a bite to eat and a walk down the pedesterian Old Arbat Street.  From there we met up with Jolene and wound up at an after party at some cafe and from there we took a cab to some other bar that was decorated in Red, White and Blue for our Independence day.  Needless to say it was a VERY long day for Connie, but she hung in there.  We also met another American visiting from Turkey (I think).  He tagged along and came out with us.

We were up the next morning (not to early) site-seeing over the next couple of days, taking in all the touristy sites and some off the beating path.  I took her to see the Changing of the Guard at the Eternal Flame, Red Square area, the Armoury and the GYM (pronounced GOOM) mall.  We also made it out to Gorky Park and the nearby Statue Park.  The embassy community had an Independence Day picnic and I think Connie had fun there too, as you can see.

Unfortunately the first couple of days, Jolene had to work, but on Friday night, she was able to head out with us.  We made it to one of our favorite cafes SIM-SIM, for dinner.  

All in all, I think Connie had a good time and it was nice to see her again after 21 years... yeah we hadn't seen each other since high school.  It was nice to catch up and hear about everyone.  And thanks again to Jolene for being such a good sport too!

So hopefully in the next week or two we will be finding out what our next posting will be and the offer will be out there again, anyone wanting to visit and see the country we are in, just let us know!

Vacation to Italy

Finally a family vacation.  It's been a while since we've gone so we tried to make the best of it.  We took a trip to Italy.  We started by flying to Venice, then trained to Florence, to a train over to Pisa for the day then back to wandering around Florence.  From there we trained down to Rome.  From Rome we took a day trip to Mt. Vesuvius and Pompeii, and we also toured the Vatican Museum and the four Basilicas in Rome, St. Peter's, St. Paul's, St. John's, and St. Mary Major.  We had a great time and here are some of the pictures we took.  You can find the full collection of our pictures on the the web album.  (Click on the picture of St. Basil's in the upper right corner).


So starting off in Venice we wandered around the city...

Some of the alley ways were a bit narrow...

And we saw the levitating woman.  Can you figure out how she does it?  Post your thoughts in the comments section at the end.

We had snacks

We wandered with the masses.

We bought hats

While in Venice we took a tour to the islands of Murano and Burano.  Murano is known for their glass blowing and Burano is known for their hand-made lace.

 Burano also has a leaning tower, actually there are several in Venice just because of the high water table.

Burano is also a fishing village.  They paint their houses bright colors that match their boats.  When arriving back from see they can spot their houses from a long distance off.

Demonstrating the painstaking method of hand-making lace.

 And of course since we were in Venice we had to take a Gondola ride down the canal.

And we passed Marco Polo's house (yes the explorer) and a bit further down we passed Casanova's home.

And that is the highlights from Venice.  We only spent a couple of days here, but I think we saw most of what Venice has to offer.  It is a very beautiful city and being a popular tourist destination, very expensive.  From here we took a water taxi to the train station and were off to Florence...  Here are the rest of our Venice Pictures

The Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore (St. Mary of the Flower) is the main church in Florence.  We climbed to the top of the dome and got a great view of Florence and the surrounding area.  A must do for anyone going to Florence.

 The inside of the dome is painted with scenes of Hell and Heaven.

This was a private church built by the Medici family back in the 16th century.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medici_Chapel

 This is the view down

 And that is were we were on the Dome.

While in Florence you have to see Michelangelo's David.  Though they did not allow pictures of the original there are a couple of replicas out around the city.  Here is one at the museum.

And here are some other sculptures from around the city...

And you gotta love a bit of modern art/graffiti.

While in Florence, we caught a train to Pisa to see the leaning tower and the Basilica there.  We didn't get there early enough to get timely tickets to climb the tower, but it was hot enough and just being there was pretty cool.  And our Florence Pictures

Of course we had to do the standard touristy poses...

 Inside the Basilica it was huge, and filled with art work.

In the foreground is the Baptismal, then the Basilica, and finally the Leaning Tower

And the rest of the Pisa Pictures

After Pisa we spent one more night in Florence before taking the high speed train down to Rome.  I have to say there's a lot of old stuff in Rome, go figure....  Even walking through we seems to be a modern part of the city, you stumble on an old wall or ruins.  It's pretty cool to know you are walking on some of the same cobble stone streets that they used thousands of years ago.  

In parts of Rome especially around the Forum area, they found ruins of older civilization dating back to over 700 BC.  From Rome, we took an all day trip to Mount Vesuvius and the ruins of Pompeii.  Here's a taste of that.  We've got a ton of pictures on the web album at: Pompeii Pictures

 At the bottom of this next picture you can see 3 large stones in the street.  This was a crosswalk.  Back in the day, the streets were the drainage system so you needed elevated crosswalks to keep your feet dry.  You can also see grooves in the road, these are from the wagons. The wagons had a standard 4'6" axle length and the wooden wheels were covered with iron.  After a lot of use, the wheels wore grooves into the stone.

It was a hot day, and fortunately there were many fountains around that we could use to fill up our water bottles.

And finally through the streets of Rome.  In Rome we didn't get to see everything, we would need a full two weeks to take it all in.  But we did see a lot of the touristy stuff... like the Colosseum

and fountains

and ruins at the Forum

and more ruins,

 and more ruins,

and Saint Peter's Basilica

 and other basilicas

and obelisks

and we ate and drank.... we were merry too

and street perfomers

and dead Popes

and souvenir shops

and our last day in Rome well we didn't stay in Rome, we went to the beach!

Well that is our vacation is short, well kinda short.  Here is the link to the hundreds of Rome Pictures.  We had a great time.  And now we are back in Moscow, enjoying the summer time and loonnnggg days.  Though we've passed the summer solstice, the days are still 16+ hours long.