Whirlwind DC

Well, the conference blew by faster than I would have expected. It was very refreshing to be back in the U.S., even for just a week. Even riding the metro was a welcome change from the madness of Dushanbe streets.

I had a great time catching up with family and friends, as well as eating! Pizza, burgers, sweet potato fries, cookies, sushi, oysters, pork, baked pineapple, rice krispy treats, sausage, english muffins, waffles, bagels, cream cheese, BBQ, cheetos, fresh salad, you name it!

The conference itself was interesting from a professional standpoint, but certainly wouldn't make for good blogging. The only really funny thing was that there were a few people who were so obnoxious, that some of the rest of us wrote down their names so we could remember to try to avoid ever working with them.

On another bright note, I retested in Russian the day after we arrived and got a 3/3 - finally! It was a big accomplishment and really takes a load off my mind. Not only does it qualify me for language incentive pay, it also takes care of one of my major career requirement. Not bad considering my jet lag really kicked in toward the end of the test and I could barely keep my eyes open to read the articles.

Before I new it the week was over. Our conference ended on Friday with a winery tour in Virginia - kind of rushed since no one planned for the travel time it took to get there - and from there I met up with my family to hang out until it was time to head to the airport. I even got some QT with Xena.

Things went more or less smoothly on the way home. Only a small kerfluffle with the boarding process in DC (the lady said my ticket was bad and made me go stand in a line at the counter for 30 minutes, where they told me my ticket was fine), and in Frankfurt I think the Tajik airline we were flying was forgotten by the control tower. No one reported any delays but we sat there for a good two hours.

I finally arrived back in Dushanbe at 3:00am (two hours late), but fortunately got through customs quickly and got back home to my lovely wife. Funny enough - it took me almost the whole week in Washington to adjust to the time difference, but it seems to have been much easier coming back.

Yesterday, (Sunday), we went shopping but otherwise lazed around. One of the funny things was that in DC, the weather was pretty near freezing most of the time, but here in Dushanbe, it's been in the mid 60's and beautiful. Definitely not what I expected in Central Asia.

Monday was (blessedly) a holiday (National Women's Day - why we didn't get a day off for Men's Day is beyond me), and we spent mostly on car hunting and taxes. Not so much fun, but necessary. And there may be some car news in the not too distant future, but I'll wait until we're sure - don't want to jinx it.