Travel for fun

In my regional function, I get to do a lot of traveling but, it is not the kind of leisure travel one might think. With my 5 year old and bi-continental marriage where my husband is gone half the time, I delay my departure until the absolute last minute. What this means is sometimes I leave on the last flight or an a really early one. As soon as I arrive at my destination, I start work as soon as possible so, I can return ASAP. While there, I work till very late so, very little time to sight see. So, when people ask me how Abidjan or Geneva was, I shrug and tell them, the airports were great!

So, we have decided to try to take advantage of my travel schedule and try to do things together as a family. First trip is a real vacation (as in little to no checking of email!) to Peru in a few days-Machu Picchu of course and then, around Thanksgiving to Budapest...with my stepdaughter in school, mine and my husband's schedules, it is amazing that there just happened to be a work trip planned around the time that we all could go...now we just have to figure out how we will pay for it!

Rainy day mondays

It's rainy season again..there are 2 seasons here: kind of rainy not too humid and, really rainy, windy and very humid; we are in the latter. This means anything that needs to be done outside, should be done before noon because, after that, it generally rains so hard that some car alarms go off!

I have been doing a lot of traveling this year...first it was Geneva in March then Mexico in June and then Costa Rica in July. After almost 3 years with the UN, I feel like I can finally understand what I am supposed to do and how. I am finally in a rhythm, can speak up at meetings and actually have something useful to add! I think the UN or maybe just my specific agency could make this process easier but as I tell other newbies to the agency, "it is up to you how you learn your job"!

My attempt at being a better blogger

When I first started this blog, I fully intended on keeping up with it but alas, that hasn't been as easy as I thought.

I am about half way through my third year in my current position and it occurred to me that I might have to be applying for another post in a little over a year or so....scary! Prior to having kids and a family, the notion of living overseas and traveling was quite exciting. Now, I am realizing just how complicated life gets. For example, K will be halfway through the second grade when my time here is up; I hope I can extend at least through the end of his school year and, he will be starting up the third grade in a new school, in a new country and possible new country.

One benefit to putting him in the French school system is, wherever we go, as long as he is doing well in school, he is guaranteed acceptance in their french school no matter what time of the year. There are French schools in most capital cities in the world. As he gets older, I can see this moving possible being the hardest on him...or maybe not.

Changing gears, one thing I have spent hours doing is finding an acceptable way to watch all my favorite T shows. I thought the AppleTV gen 2 would be my answer so, I bought it during our home leave to the US this past September. Unfortunately, some shows can only be streamed in the US so, I am patiently waiting for a VPN option and in the main time, my search continues...

Bad, bad blogger

I have to admit I forgot I had this blog! It's been over a year since my last entry. Let's see..I was transferred to Panama in August 2009 and it is a tad easier to live here. Within 2 months, we had a gorgeous house, cars, cellphones and internet service. Things like cellphones aren't that easy to come by in CR.

My agency is building a new office so in the meantime, we are renting space from another UN agency. Only 3 more weeks!

K is in the french school..oui, oui! His Spanish is definitely the strongest of all his languages. I promise I will blog more about our sometimes tupsy-turvy life as expats!

Moving to Panama

So, I have been seriously remiss in keeping this up to date! Upon arrival here last year, I was informed that the entire regional unit would be transferred to Panama this summer-well, summer is just about here. When I signed up for this gig, I know rotation was a requirement but, I just didn't think it would happen this soon. On the positive side, regional offices of other UN agencies are located in Panama which will make coordination easier. Additionally, the cost of living in Panama is about 25% less than here so, more play money! It helps that K is still young in terms of changing schools so hopefully, his integration in a new one will not be too challenging.

We will miss our home here especially the wide space, the garden and the lack of neighbors peeking in over our fence. We hope to find something similar but in general, we're excited to move for additional reasons including the ease of living in Panama which has been a challenge here given the absolute monopoly on almost everything. For example: having only 1 state owned phone company means only residents/citizens can own a cell phone and, there is an 18 month waitlist. It took us 3 months to get our internet hooked up and we have weekly outages. Visiting here is great but living for long periods of time can be draining. I am sure Panama will have its issues but, still excited to move.

The moving agency comes in packs and loads their trucks-this makes it easier since all we have to do is point them towards the things. Still planning on recruiting my siblings to come help under the guise of seeing their favorite nephew!

K and I were recently in Argentina and Uruguay. He got to meet my Peace Corps family and they took to each other instantly. I find it cool that before his 3rd birthday, he has been to 10 countries even though his "memory" of them may just be via pictures.

Rainy season is just about starting here which means all the bugs and stuff previously hidden (don't quite know where) are coming out of the wood works. K has taken to chasing the huge beetles around trying to catch them and well, mash them since that is what he sees us do. J is going to try to undo all that by teaching K a love of bugs.

I say to-may-to you say to-mah-to

It's been a while since my last post. I spent 10 days in Brazil for work (in the UN, they say on mission but that sounds like something Mormons do!) I travelled to San Paulo, Porto Alegre and of course Rio. I don't speak Portuguese and the folks we had meetings with didn't speak English nor Spanish although we could understand each other if we spoke slowly. This made for interesting conversations in fact during one particular site visit, neither the client nor his wife spoke Portuguese, his wife spoke French, he spoke a tad of English, the UN official with me only spoke Portuguese. With me so far? So, at some point when we had exhausted his English skills, I was speaking to his wife in my basic French, she was translating to her husband in Arabic, I was speaking slowly to the UN rep in Spanish and the meeting only took 2 hours! by the end of the trip, I realized I am too old to learn another language.

We had lunch with another client who has a strictly Muslim restaurant with stuffed Santa Claus's all over the place!










Then, I went to Mexico City and fell hard for.....Starbucks! There is no Starbucks where we live and I was just itching for a chai tea latte. Instead of spending my evening at the local park, I wnet to.....Walmart. With a toddler growing like a weed, can't beat walmart for prices and deals. It has been good to be home for a while though.

I am pledging allegiance….

This week heralded the birth of octuplets somewhere in California and my first thought was “traveling with all 8 by air would NOT be a fun prospect!” Given that my job is a regional one, I do a lot of travel in the region and every once in a while to Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa. Over the years, I have amassed over 2 million frequent flyer miles between two major airlines and although most of these miles have been earned on American Airlines, today January 29th 2009, I am formally withdrawing my allegiance from them and as for where I put it, who knows? Right now, I am leaning towards TACA who partners with United and Iberia so I will be covered practically to the places I travel most frequently. Why am I disgruntled with American Airlines? Well, briefly put, and in my humble opinion, they don’t seem to be all that concerned with keeping loyal customers and after many less than satisfactory experiences with them, I have decided it’s time to cut the cord. Most recently, I received an email from them inviting me to pay to extend my platinum status for a year but, upon clicking on the link, I was told I did not qualify. I then contacted them thinking that: a) since I was a Platinum Member and b) they had sent me the link that they would do the right thing and honor their initial invitation-mistake or not. Alas, that was not to be instead, I got the following response:

Dear Me,

The AAdvantage® Customer Service representative with whom you've been corresponding is not immediately available. Rather than keep you waiting, I'm pleased to assist you.We appreciate your sharing your feelings about the expiration of your AAdvantage Platinum® membership.

It is never easy to tell customers thatwe cannot extend the elite status they have enjoyed, even through an exception to the Retain for a Fee offer.Still, we are committed to the principle that members should earn elite status through their demonstrated loyalty. We believe in the importance of exclusivity and do not wish to dilute the benefits earned by members who have met the qualification criteria.

Please keep in mind that because premium fares earn 1.5 points per elite-qualifying mile flown, you can qualify for your desired elite membership even if you fly less than the required elite-qualifying miles. For more information about earning points, please visit our Web site at aa.com/aadvantage. Select 'AAdvantage Elite Status/QualificationRequirements.'I am truly sorry to disappoint you and hope you will be successful in earning the elite status you desire.

Please continue to favor us with your business.Again, thank you for giving me the opportunity to respond. I look forward to assisting you in the future.

Regards,
XXXXXX.
AAdvantage Customer ServiceAmerican Airlines

I thought about asking how my request “dilutes the benefit” for others seeing as I am Platinum and have been for many years but decided against it. Apparently, they are only willing to dilute the benefit by just a little bit but not too much.
The caveat is I am pretty close to having 1 million miles with them, which would guarantee me elite status for life so, while I will no longer go out of my way to fly American Airlines, if I have to fly them once in a while because that is what work dictates, then I will. I am not sure just how long my allegiance will last with other airlines but we will see.