Earthquake!!

Today's 5.8 magnitude earthquake was my first (at least the first that I have been aware of).  I was sitting in my office at work and at first I thought that the maintenance guys were just making a lot of noise.  But when I realized they had been working on the ceiling, and yet my floor was shaking, I knew something was up.  Then someone else in the office who had lived in California said it was an earthquake.  You should be proud to know that I immediately got in a door frame away from windows (thanks to those elementary school earthquake drills!).  There hasn't been a lot of news yet, but it sounds like most of DC is just fine.  Evidently the National Cathedral sustained some damage, hopefully it won't take too long to repair.  The only noticeable difference for me was the slow metro ride home, a precautionary measure.

My job has been going well - at least, I don't think I've made any mistakes big enough to damage relations between the U.S. and the Benelux region (I set myself a high bar once I found out all that I would be responsible for on my bridge assignment!).  Whatever I may have believed in the past, I have NEVER worked in a bureaucracy as big as this.  I've spent the last couple days (in between responding to and forwarding a couple hundred emails) trying to figure out how to request appointments.  So far, I have deduced that I must draft a memo, ask roughly 10 people to 'clear' it, and then send it off to the higher ups and hope that someone gets back to me sometime.  Luckily, many of the folks around me are happy to give advice and suggestions on how best to craft these things.  Also, since I'm only working here until Labor Day, I can only give it my best shot and leave it to the next guy to make sure that we get an answer.  While I may sound like I'm complaining, this has been a great experience for me and I think that I'll do a better job at post now that I understand some of what goes on back here.

Speaking of post - we start language training in two weeks!  J also gets to take language, and lucky for us both, there is a good chance that we will not be in the same class! ;) 

Outside of work, we've been enjoying the milder weather the last week or two, going on long bike rides and playing volleyball with classmates when it's not raining.  We're looking forward to welcoming some of J's family next month and showing them around the city.