For the first time in a while, I have a break in travel and have been enjoying the routine of being at post for a bit. This month marks the beginning of the heavy transfer season that happens every summer in the Foreign Service. What this basically means is a large portion of the American
A reader recently reached out asking me if there was anything from my perspective as a trailing spouse that causes stress that I would not have necessarily experienced in my life before the Foreign Service. The answer is a BIG yes: Driving and the unknown. Right off the bat, I really hate driving or being
Paris is hard. There’s a common joke in the Foreign Service that people serving in Paris often complain about the difficulty of living there, only to be met by rolled eyes or a scornful look. After navigating the RER with some large pieces of luggage and two young kids, I can confirm, Paris is hard.
As I mentioned last week, the entirety of the State Department medical world descended on central Florida last month for a continuing education conference. Seeing as how they conveniently located us 10 minutes away from Disney World and my youngest sister lives 45 minutes away in Daytona, I seized the opportunity to take my family
Without a doubt, one of the coolest things the Bureau of Medical Services does for all its nurses and providers is run an annual continuing medical education conference (CME). Aside from the pandemic, it is always in person, and it typically rotates between a domestic location and a foreign one. Last month happened to be
Holy moly, has it really been a year? April 11th marks my 1 year anniversary of officially being sworn as a Medical Provider in the Foreign Service. Remember this photo I posted after I got sworn in? Oh you sweet prince, if only you knew then how much camel meat you’d be eating…. It’s funny
Jeez, it feels like every other week I am reporting on some sort of trip. My first 6 months in Mauritania I barely left Nouakchott, but my second 6 months has been jam packed with travel, both domestic and abroad. Honestly, I have been loving it. I took this job for a lot of reasons,
At this time of year, just about every employee in the Foreign Service is required to write up and submit an EER, short for Employee Evaluation Report. In simpler terms, every year we are all required to write a one page evaluation of ourselves, which in reality is an essay contest to see how good
This week is a short and sweet one: Mauritania is home to one of the longest trains in the world. Stretching to over 3 kilometers long, the “Train du Desert” runs daily to and from the port city of Nouâdhibou in Northern Mauritania to the iron ore mines of Zouérat, deep in the Sahara 704km
This week we will talk about promotions in the Foreign Service. After my post about the cost of living increases and awards, a reader sent me this question: It is cool to see the government typically gives annual cost of living raises, but how do promotions work if there are any at all? I want
