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"!