The week flew by. I’m still doing several one-on-one meetings with the consular staff, and it’s been fun to get to know new people and hear their background. We have a lot of work to do, but everyone seems to be pitching in. The embassy had some COVID cases this week, so that can impact our operations and makes me nervous.
John and I got the chance to see our permanent apartment – it’s really nice and we can’t wait to move in. It was very foggy, so we couldn’t see much of the view (it’s on a high floor), but I can tell it will be pretty amazing. It’s across from a public building that has green space and monuments around it, which is nice.
The week was pretty routine – just back and forth to work mostly and finding something to eat at night – our temporary apartment’s kitchen isn’t great for much more than scrambling eggs or reheating something in the toaster oven. We’ve found a few restaurants nearby that open before 8 PM, the normal time for places here to open for dinner – yikes.
I saw the capybaras walking to the embassy gym yesterday – they are resident in the local park. It’s a huge park that is very popular on the weekends – they look like they just live there and don’t appear to be in an enclosure. And they are really big – the largest rodent. But pretty cute!