O&T: Finished

It's just after midnight on Saturday (Friday Night) and I have come back to the hotel. After another long day of orientation and training that ended at 630, we went out for dinner at 645 - just enough time to bring stuff back to the room and go to the bathroom. We went to a restaurant down in Georgetown that was really nice. One of the staff people - the President I think - brought her husband with her to dinner. He was born in Russia and works now as a translator. We talked about the Russian language, ..and vodka. After dinner, which was great, a few of us stayed at the place and went downstairs to the bar. The Russian guy and myself had a few vodkas and he talked to me about the finer qualities and differences between vodkas. Not that I would consider myself an expert in vodka now, but I do know some of the key words to through out when I want to BS my way around the subject.

As I mentioned, this was the end of training. Three of the people in our group of 7 are gone as of tomorrow morning - 1 back home for a few days before heading to Mali, and two others back home while they await their visas for Angola. Of the remaining four of us, 2 will be leaving Sunday after visiting Mount Vernon - which I have found out is where George Washington lived or something.

I will be leaving on Thursday, but have meetings scheduled on Monday and Tuesday, and a few minor details, conference calls, ect on Wednesday (I think). Tomorrow I plan on sleeping in to ATLEAST 830. Strange how that is considered sleeping in now. Fortunately I don't have 9 hours of meetings and conferences to sit through tomorrow. I plan on getting breakfast, relaxing, and then going to the gym that has a partnership with the hotel. After that, I may go explore the city some. While I don't know exactly where yet, I know that tomorrow I will be somewhere by 845 to get a seat to watch the UFC match going on at night.

The computer that I got today is actually quite good. Its a Core 2 Duo, 2 gigs of ram, running XP, and weighs probably 5 to 6 pounds. I haven't looked to see what type of video card is on it but I assume it's an integrated 64 or 128 chip. At the moment I can't even install a simple program like Skype or iTunes on it because I don't have administrator privileges. Apparently we can get them (the password) if we call. Why someone would set it up that way is beyond me, but I assume its related to if someone steals the laptop abroad.

As I mentioned on the first day I got here, I really think it is worth mentioning the absolutely impressive dedication that the CDC/MBAEC staff shows to the work they do. It's an amazing thing to see, and I hope I can find a way to replicate some of their passion in my own work.

In the following week I plan on seeing some of the free museums in the city, meeting Obama, studying Russian, and googling the research plants I'll be dealing with so I know what exactly a micro bioflange geophysical research facility does. It should be a good and relaxing week before I start my year of world travel and work stuff. I'm looking forward to filling the remaining 11 empty spots in my passport and getting new pages put in it.

Also, yes mom, I really have taken care of the embassy stuff.