criplomats

Bidding season officially opened this past Monday, and I’ve been consumed by thinking about it. I keep looking at the list, watching the bid count on the jobs I want go up (meaning my competition increases), re-reading job descriptions, contacting people in DC who can lobby for me – it’s nerve-wracking! I went to the office yesterday to send information to the folks in staffing in Consular Affairs to rank order my five bids, and I used the quiet time to go through each position and write up why I want that particular job and what I can bring to the table on it. It was time that I needed just to focus. Next week I have my first telephone interview, so wish me luck!

John, of course, is also bidding. It’s more difficult for him at the moment since he’s on a TDY in Suriname and is spending most of his time at the new embassy building and getting the move going. But, they successfully moved into the new space last week and hopefully he’ll have some time to concentrate on bidding, too.

The easy part is that we know we want to go back to DC. We love being out in the field, but common wisdom is that you really need to go to DC for career purposes – so off we go! As much as I have resisted going back to the U.S., I know it’s the right thing to do and I am excited at the thought of being in such a lovely city and being closer to friends and family.

I returned to Guadalajara from Puerto Vallarta on Tuesday. I really enjoyed my time down there and got a lot done. I was back in the office on Wednesday, but then took off again Thursday morning, this time to meet David and Alison in Destin, Florida.

I don’t think I’ve been to Destin before – the beach is so pretty! The white, powdery sand is incredible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

David and Alison rented a lovely condo right on the beach…just walk off the deck into the sand. We generally just goofed off and had fun together. Thursday night we grilled burgers on the deck. Friday we took a long drive and stopped in several little villages to shop and poke around. We had a great lunch at the Red Bar, and we fantasized about which of the fabulous homes on the beach we’d buy. Saturday it was a bit rainy, so Alison and I took the obligatory trip to Wal-mart and to another store, then we took a long walk on the beach to scope out condos for the next vacation!

We all left at oh-dark-thirty this morning – they hit the road for Hot Springs and I went to the airport. I had a nice trip back, good connections and a quick breakfast at the new Centurion Club in Houston – and before I knew it, I was back home!

Here are a few photos from my travels this week.

I was lucky to get to come back to Puerto Vallarta to work this past week – always fun to get down here. In an amazing coincidence, Mike and Wayne were here, too, so I flew in a day early on Labor Day to see them. We met up at Allyn and Scotty’s cool condo overlooking the ocean where they rolled out the red carpet for us, then we all went to a fun restaurant where they like to flambe lots of things – plus another beautiful view. It was a great evening, and so relaxing to be with good friends!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Work here at the agency has been busy. We get a mix of tourists who lost passports, folks who moved down here years ago who need to renew passports, and Mexican parents who need to get U.S. passports for their U.S.-born children. It’s a small office and I love the coziness of it – plus the three local staff are just wonderful. We’ve had several sad cases where U.S. citizens needs assistance, including several deaths.

It’s wonderfully quiet here at the hotel and I’m sleeping great. My days are pretty routing – breakfast with a view of the ocean, walk to work, then a nice long walk along the beach after work. Not too shabby!

John left early Labor Day morning to work for a few weeks in Suriname. They’re opening a new Embassy building there and needed some help. It’s a nice change of pace for him and a good chance to check out another country. There’s only 300,000 people in the whole country; John says it’s super-pour and can get hot. It’s located on the shoulder of South America, by Venezuela, and has a Caribbean feel – but it was a Dutch colony, so there’s also a lot of Dutch influence.

Here are a few beach shots!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve found a little salon down here that I like. It’s not a Ouidad salon, but for little trim and a color touch-up, Miriam does a good job! I’ll leave you with a selfie that I sent to John!

Foreign Service promotion lists came out this week, and John and I were happy to see many names of friends on the list! Congrats to them! I was especially glad to see that my boss was promoted – we had a non-alcoholic toast and pastries to celebrate the next morning. Also, many other friends from around the world. (John and I weren’t eligible to be promoted since we’ve been promoted within the last three years.)

The nice thing this year it that the promotion panels made their decisions pretty early, so now everyone knows what level of jobs they need to bid on later this month. For example, my boss knows he can bid on higher level jobs, now that he was promoted to FS-01.

Speaking of bidding, we’re still planning to bid on DC jobs. We’ve started the process of asking co-workers to send in references for us. Next week, I’ll start sending letters of interest to my top choices. Then you start trying to read tea leaves to see if you’re getting any bites. This is really our first time in the regular bidding pool, since we went to Pakistan in 2012 and then used that equity to get the jobs in Guadalajara, so it’s all a bit new (and scary!) to us!

We had a nice dinner out on Friday night with our friends Chris and Monica – we went to our favorite restaurant for a delicious steak.

I hate to admit that we’ve been watching a lot of TV, but darn there are some good shows out. We finished the wonderful series, “The Night Of,” with John Tuturro. We watched a campy, wonderful old Nicole Kidman movie, “To Die For.” Yesterday we watched a very entertaining Norwegian movie (billed as the Norwegian “Fargo”), “In Order of Disappearance.”