Second Impressions

It feels like we've been here for ages longer than we actually have. Tonight is hopefully our last night in the hotel before we move to the house tomorrow. This means we won't have very easy access to email, but it also means that we will actually get to unpack, do laundry, and go grocery shopping. Right now, this seems like very good trade off. The house isn't 100% done, but it's mostly finishing touches and we're pretty tired of living out of our suitcases.

First Impressions

First impressions are good! DC the morning we left was incredibly hectic--I realized the night before that I had packed my glasses into the boxes that we weren't going to see for another three months. I could probably get glasses here, but the idea of spending the flights with my contacts in the whole time sounded miserable, so I spent the morning at Lenscrafters getting new glasses, which made it really hard to get the apartment cleaned up and be all packed up and ready to leave. At the airport, a United agent looked at the rabbit crate for 30 seconds (which we spent a lot of time researching the requirements for), said it was unsuitable, and walked away. We then waited in line for about 20 more minutes freaking out until someone else came over and judged everything ok and checked us in. We then had to take the rabbits out of the crate and hold them for about 5 minutes while the x-rayed the crate. Orion was alright, but Gillig tried to jump out a few times. I had terrible visions of him darting across the busy Dulles terminal never to be seen again, though Brad pointed out later that the floor was slick so he wouldn't have gotten very far.

In the Interim

Well, hello there. It's been awhile, so here's the last 8 months, in brief.

When we left off, we had just moved to Washington.

We did a number of things in Washington. We lived in Logan Circle, frequented a few bars and restaurants, camped twice in Shenandoah, started new jobs or variations on previous jobs, learned Swahili, prepared to move to Tanzania, make the playoffs on a kickball team and played on less successful but more fun softball team. We visited friends and family, family and friends visited us. In the winter, we were buried under the most snow Washington had ever seen, and in the summer we sweltered through one of the hottest on record. We went to museums and the zoo. I learned to cook, Brad learned to play keyboard and make V.O. Manhattans. We did a lot of online shopping. A lot.

To be honest, DC's not really our style, so we're bidding it a not-so-fond farewell and moving on. Next stop: two years in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.