Winter Sports in Budapest

Last Saturday 16 degrees Celsius big sunshine, yesterday 3 degrees some rain. This morning I opened my curtains on a big blanket of snow – surprise! It had not been announced. I can already hear some lament that it is too cold here, getting colder, too grey, getting darker so early in the afternoon. This is snow and snow lifts my spirits. It is joyful and playful. When you say snow I think winter sports, ski, snowmen, snow ball battles, sledding, and ice skating. I think hot chocolate and roasted chestnuts. I love the warm fuzzy feeling when your body melts, feet first, once you come home after an hour outside in the snow.

So when I saw the snow this morning I knew it would be part of my day. Part of my dog Venus’ day too. Someone had given me dog booties and although my tiny Italian greyhound had showed adverse disposition with shoes before I thought that with snow on the ground I should try this new model. I had barely finished equipping her fourth paw that she had shaken off the first bootie. Then she looked miserable and refused to move so I took the booties off, put her coat on, and off we went.

Hungary is a flat country but Budapest is a hilly city. Half way up the Martin hill I thought that maybe if it continued snowing a few days there would be enough snow to go sledding. Then I reached Normafa – almost the highest point with asphalt, the hill which leads to János hegy, John’s hill, the ‘summit’ of Budapest at 528 meters. No need to wait for one more day of snow there. Suddenly in a few minutes it was like I had been transported back in the Alps in a winter station. Not only people had sleds, but skis, not only Nordic skis but alpine skis too! Some people even wore their full ski gear with flashy colors.

Multicolored flat plastic sleds and classical wooden sleds where competing on the hill, adults and kids alike were enjoying what could be labelled by many a sad cold grey day. Venus was not the only dog running fast and being all crazy about the snow but she was certainly the smallest and the fastest. I took plenty of photos just in case it would not last like last year when winter came for less than two weeks.

After strolling in the woods and meeting a few skiers we started our way back home. The GPS told me that it was at about 4.4 km and that it should take me 46 minutes walking. I chose a road that I didn’t know to avoid the major fare with too much traffic for my taste and Venus’ security. After ten minutes my GPS vanished because my phone was out of battery. Ha! Anywhere in the desert or even in New York if you want to go south, you go south, there will always be a straight way to get from point A to point B. Not in in the Budapest hills. Streets curve and a street which starts going south will then curve east and finally take you north. Some streets lead to dead ends or huge detours that are perhaps feasible with a car but not by foot, not if you wish to be home before dark. So I had to rely on instinct and a few foot prints to dare take snowy dirt ways until I finally reached Agnes, a street I knew.

Once home, the first thing I did was to drink a hot cup of chocolate.

No? You want the truth? Really? OK – the first thing I did was not watch my milk carefully and make a big spill all over the stove.  I did curse a bit but I am still happy I enjoyed the snow today and walked over 12 000 steps!

Logistics: use bus 21 or 21A to reach Normafa or legs or bike or chair lift (Libego) or – last resort – car (on days like this car parks were full). I count my steps with Withings.

Ode to Winter in Budapest

On this first day of December everybody complained all day. We have just entered real fall/winter weather after a mild month of November: temperature hovering just above freezing and it has been raining all day. Locals complain, expats complain, tourists complain – boohoohoo!

It should have been snowing – which is actually preferred by many – it is only raining, not even enough to provoke deadly inundations like in the south of France. It is not like nobody knows rain in Budapest but today everybody made it a big deal. Buses were absent or late, drivers could not drive anymore and even the biggest school in Budapest sent its 800 students back home because electricity did not work.

All our posts before Budapest were in warm countries, countries where even in winter the mercury does not go below 20 Celsius (68F). It is great to a certain extend. When do you get to show off your superb leather boots or crazy rain boots or cozy up in a warm angora sweater with a cashmere shawl? When do you light a fire in the fire place and glow, eyes half-closed sipping mulled wine and munching roasted chestnuts? People complain about the short – replace short by dark – days, but if it is not dark outside there is no reason to light candles and give the house a magic look.

Out of all places where to spend a cold winter, Budapest is probably the best. Besides all the Christmas or Advents markets (Vörösmarty tér, Basilika, Gresham Palace) and street lights, this is the only city that I know boasting an entirely lit Christmas tram. For the 6^th year tram 2 in Pest and tram 19 in Buda, both running along the Danube, will be decorated with almost 40,000 LEDs starting on Saint Nicholas Day, December 6^th for about one month. Tramline 2 is one of the most famous tramlines running on the bank of the Danube, between Jászai Mari tér and Közvágóhíd (the bridge south of Petöfi), which means from the Parliament to the Great Market and beyond. It runs usually 4:00-8:00 pm on weekends and holidays. Personally I like Tram 19 better since it runs on the Buda bank of the Danube which means a much better view of the Parliament. It runs usually 4:00-9:00 pm on weekdays.

Winter is the perfect time for kürtőskalács, the famous ‘chimney cake’ baked over charcoal in front of your eyes after the dough has been worked into a fine strip spun around a wooden cone-shaped spit. It is covered in sugar which turns into caramel so that when it is golden, it is removed from the coals and you may add anything that will stick to it: coco, chocolate, cinnamon, crushed almonds, or plain additional sugar. Töki pompos is another very Hungarian treat when it is cold outside, it is the Hungarian version of a pizza, baked in an oven contrarily to the lángos, which could be assimilated to a fried pizza.

This winter Christmas will be even more fun in Budapest  with the first Santa Claus run, oufit and beard included! It will start at 3:00 pm on December 6^th from Fövam tér. More details (in Hungarian) on: http://www.futanet.hu/cikk/spuri-mikulasfutas.

And to not miss anything this holiday season in Budapest, check http://budapestchristmas.com/.

Now, let’s get ready for some snow!

A Perfect Weekend in Sine Saloum

Summary: 1 night in a baobab tree and 1 night in a refined B&B to discover Palmarin and Joal-Fadiouth, the heart of Sine Saloum.

Day 1 – leave at 6:00 am from Dakar. This little sacrifice ensures you arrive in Joal (75 miles – 120 km) in about 2 hours, instead of 4 or 5. The road is well paved and it is straight after Saly and Mbour.

After Joal, you are on a dirt road for 20 miles where 20 mph is about the maximum speed you want to submit your wheels to. Take the direction of Fadial and Samba Dia. About 5 miles after Joal is the oldest and biggest baobab in Senegal:  over 850 years. You can climb inside … to see the bats and the open sky. Note: on the photo is a ‘baby’ baobab, I don’t want to spoil the surprise of the biggest one in Senegal.

After Samba Dia, turn right (South) to reach Palmarin Ngallou. The Lodge des Collines de Niassam is well marked – sharp turn on the left and dirt road for less than a mile to reach the reception. They propose several types of accommodation and since we needed 3 rooms we tried them all: the baobab room (big bed), the Berber tent room (3 small beds), and the Laguna room (big bed) where your suite is on the water, on stilts. This place also has a small swimming pool and more details can be found on their beautiful bilingual website, www.niassam.com.

Tip: when you make reservation, be sure to let them know if you are a resident, since they have different prices.

After some rest, we drove to Djiffer, the end of the peninsula. There you can rent a pirogue to go up the Saloum river and into the mangrove. It is hard to get the price under 40,000 francs but it is for a tour of 2 to 3 hours for as many people as the pirogue can fit (10 comfortably). We reached the village of Falia where we took smaller pirogues to go into the mangrove. They rarely see “toubabs” (white people) in this village and were very excited and friendly.

There are only a few restaurants in Djiffer and they are extremely simple – you eat the take of the day basically. Between the hotel and Djiffer sits the Royal Lodge where you can indulge in Western comfort, if need be.

Day 2 – After exploring the small island in front of the hotel, reachable by foot or private pirogue, we left this charming place and went back to Joal.

We stayed at the romantic B&B Keur Seynabou, very well marked and on the beach with view on the ocean. The hostess offers 3 very well decorated big rooms (sleep 2 to 4) and a swimming pool surrounded by bougainvillea of all colors.

They organize trips in the mangrove, fishing trips, visit of Fadiouth, etc. In the afternoon we took a trip to the mangrove with their boat.

Day 3 – We went to Fadiouth (nice walk from the B&B). The catholic mass with djembe and chorus starts at 9h30. Even for non-Catholics it is a marvelous show. At the end of the mass you have hundreds of colorful people coming out, all with great dresses and assorted hats. This tiny island only accessible by a long wooden bridge or by boat boasts the tranquility of a no-car island where you walk on white seashells in the streets. We visited the market and went back to the B&B.

Then we headed back. After 25 miles, we were in Saly for lunch. The restaurant Chez Marie has an innovative menu with reasonable prices. On the main road to Saly it is before the roundabout, just after Bicis and a big karaoke disco, on the left.

You may do it differently but this is how we did it and enjoyed it tremendously. To explore more of Sine Saloum if you have more time you could also go to N’Dangane (East after Joal and Samba Dia) to reach Mar Lodge by boat.

Diplomatic Fair Budapest 2014

A very specific event that is usually unknown outside the diplomatic circle is the ‘diplomatic fair’ – although most of them are open to the public but generally poorly advertised outside this circle. Before joining the Foreign Service I had never heard of this type of event.

A Diplomatic Fair, as I had the pleasure to witness it four times already, is a fun giant bazaar recreating a mini world in one given place. It can take place in a big field in Africa or Mexico or a large venue in an international hotel. Imagine your school fair at the end of the year and multiply by 50 or 80 nationalities!

The association of the diplomatic spouses is the organizer of this event which is a fund raising event supporting one or several vetted charities among the ones that have more needs in a given country: children’s education, women shelters, orphanage or even a training center for dogs which will be placed with blind people.

These fairs have at least two components: national booths selling specialties from a given country and a food corner either common or again divided by countries. The Diplomatic Fair organized by the Diplomatic Spouses of Budapest is by far the most complete of the fairs I have witnessed so far since it adds many more components to please and entertain longer a more diverse public:

• All-day performances. Today it started by dances from India with four gracious ladies in colorful outfits; then there was a children’s choir; a folk dance from Europe; an energetic flamenco dance performed by mother and daughter; three muscular dancers from Nigeria who fired up the dance floor inviting people to dance with them at the tune of the drums; a folk dance from the Middle East which got everybody clapping; rock and roll and caroling from the United States (yes this was our team!) and many others that I missed because the place was extremely crowded
• There was an instant raffle where you knew immediately if you had won a small prize from about $5 to $30 and then at the end of the day there were the results for the big tombola with dozens of big prizes which value was considerably above $200 sometimes even $1,000.
• Second-hand corner. Used clothes, jewelry, DVDs, books, stuffed animals…
• Kid corner. This is a great idea both for the child and the parent. Kid doesn’t like to be dragged, parent likes to shop in peace – perfect win-win situation.

It was interesting to discover the empty room this morning at 7:00 AM. Some booths were entirely set up and decorated (which had to have occurred between 9:00 PM and 11:00 PM yesterday) and some were bare and some remained bare until 15 minutes prior to the grand opening. Different nationalities, different habits. Where it is truly a diplomatic event is that all countries exist, whether they have been recognized officially or not yet.

Soon the diplomatic spouses will gather and see who made the largest contribution. It is a matter of national pride to be among the top donors. I have a rather competitive spirit but for this occasion I would say: we all won because everyone who participated in this great even is already a winner, no need to count anything when it comes from the heart!

Climbing the highest mountain of Slovenia – Day 2

Comfort stops at our cozy bedroom. For 100 people, there are only three Turkish toilets in outdoor sheds and one of them is out of service. When it comes to running water, there is a really tiny sink with a stream of water so thin it takes more than a minute to fill a small glass. It is therefore hard to brush your teeth let alone wash anything else.

Some people have left before dawn to be able to see the sunrise from the summit. The plan of the day is to climb to the top then back down to Planika and continue on all the way down to the base. Depending on strength and people it takes one to two hours from Planika to the summit. In many places of the ascent there is only space for one person either going down or up.

Until Planika there are flowers of all sorts: ‘hairy’ cottony flowers, flowers in shades of intense purple or vibrant pink, simple daisies. Today the landscape is more lunar and arid.

We meet all sorts of characters along our ascent. The mountain tribe with solid shoes, thick wool socks, pants with pockets, Gore-Tex parka and their accessories: walkie-talkie, carabiners and rope. The urban tribe with glossy black skinny pants like cyclist, fluo tops, walking shoes with neon stripes and their accessories: bandanna and golden tan. The ‘hotel rat’ tribe dressed all in black from cap to slim shoes, more ready for stealth theft than rugged mountains. The hip hop style tribe with tight pants covered with floral underwear and plaid shirts. We even cross path with a crazy guy who is actually texting, nose on his cell phone while going down on slippery downhill gravel. Our son is part of a non-tribe. He does not walk any more slowly because he wears regular jeans and a normal tee shirt!

The climb is steep at over 35% and there are many via ferrata cables to help ascend. We do not have the equipment with carabiners and harnesses but they are not necessary. We can just grab the cable with a gloved hand and make sure our grip is tight.

The first step is to reach the Mali Triglav – Mali means small. We reach baby Triglav in an hour, then we walk for about 20 minutes on the crest of the mountain and finally during the last ten minutes we have to climb a pure vertical 90-degree slope.

We finally reach the summit of Mount Triglav where a fantastic weather welcomes us and we can see very far. The plateau at the top is very narrow which makes it quickly crowded. All sorts of people have made it all the way up: from 6 to 80 years old! Hundreds of photos per minute are shot here and then it is time to go back to our base.

Our return is slowed by a large group of young children. The queue piles up behind us but we cannot pass since the ridge is too narrow. People are starting to growl and finally the chaperons push the children safely aside to let adults pass them.

Back at Planika we nibble and continue our descent to the Vodnikova cabin where we have a late lunch. The menu could not be simpler: cabbage soup with or without sausage. No more pancakes for dessert. After the meal, the descent becomes more difficult because it is sometimes quite steep which taxes the knees and toes a lot but also the thighs. We are trying to avoid slipping on the gravel. Walking eight hours in extreme conditions is tiring but to do so after a six-hour day of walking and climbing is another matter.

Our electronic apps tell us that our average speed ranged from 2 to 9km/h. My Withings pedometer showed 24,000 steps the first day and although we added almost three hours of climbing today, it shows only 23,000 steps! It apparently does not record climbing softly nor slow descent because it is not a steady pace. We finally arrive at our apartment in Bled where a hot shower is all we need.

The next day a massive snow storm engulfed Mount Triglav!

Climbing the highest mountain of Slovenia – Day 1

Where is Slovenia? Between Italy, Austria, Hungary, Croatia and the Adriatic Sea. It is a very small and extremely beautiful country having it all: sea, mountains, sunshine, lakes, forests … Triglav National Park covers 84,000 hectares or just over 4% of Slovenia. The jewel is Mount Triglav, which at 2 864 meters (9,400 feet) is the highest point of the country. Reaching Mount Triglav is our primary purpose this weekend although we will also discover Bled and Ljubljana later, to rest!

Via friends known in Islamabad now posted in Sarajevo but previously in Slovenia we have a contact. Their former neighbor and friend Janez not only has proposed to brief us about the hike but to also accompany us. It is said that a Slovenian can only become a real Slovenian after he has climbed Triglav once in his life. At this rate Janez is at least 30 times a proven Slovenian!

Janez will be our guide in our reckless journey. I say reckless because we are not exactly sports fanatics, we do not exercise regularly and besides climbing easy hills in Pakistan for 2 hours every week we have no training for the mountains. Until 48 hours prior to the trip we did not even know if we could do it since the weather is a huge factor and changes fast all the time in these mountains.

We meet Janez near Lake Bled, one of the major tourist attractions of the country about three quarter of an hour from the capital, deposit our luggage in the rented apartment we will go back to the next day and follow Janez by car for about half an hour. We reach our base, leave the cars, gear up and off we go.

The base is at 1 360 meters, so there is 1 500 meters (5,000 feet) to climb under the sun with an ideal temperature of about twenty degrees (70F). We will actually not go all the way to the top today. It is possible for well trained and resistant people but it still would take them a good 10 to 12 hours.

The path starts in the forest and since it has rained yesterday the path is rather muddy and slippery. We also need to be careful about the slippery roots and branches. Eventually we emerge from the forest and discover Mount Tosc, the mountain we have to skirt around to see Mount Triglav.

So far the path climbs gently, sometimes a bit steeper but nothing too strenuous. The muddy path was soft for our soles but after two hours of walking the path becomes paved with sharp uncomfortable stones. When we finally see Mount Triglav, a cloud hides it partially. We pass a grassy plateau where friendly cows pasture peacefully. As we continue, the landscape becomes bare and rocky and some cables attached to the rocks help us get a better sense of security.

In six hours, including a picnic stop and drink breaks we reach the Planika rest cabin at 2 408 meters. Sheep and goats welcome us. Planika is one of the closest mountain cabins to the summit. It is also the most comfortable and caters for ‘only’ 100 people, the nearby cabin welcomes 300 people.

After a few minutes of rest, the boys go for a beer while I use tiger balm to massage my thighs in a vain attempt to prevent cramps.Then I join Janez, my husband and our son for dinner. Our dinner is fast because the choice is excessively simple: goulash with pasta or polenta or only goulash or only pasta or only polenta! You may buy bread by slices if you wish to complement this.

By eight o’clock we are all in bed!

 

Foreign Service – Expect the unexpected!

Life in the Foreign Service brings many unexpected moments and crazy memories and this is the way I like it.

Nobody told me I would …

• Pilot a Cessna over the Sine Saloum Delta in Senegal – I don’t even have a pilot’s license!
• Glide from baobab to baobab like Tarzan near the reserve of Bandia.
• Eat ‘yassa’ chicken with my hands, sitting on the floor in a tiny village near Joal.
• Take West African businessmen and women to a trade show in Las Vegas and be their nanny 24/7.
• Drive from Dakar to Bamako on the side of the road, in the sand, because it was safer than dealing with the potholes on the road.
• Meet Madeleine Albright at breakfast during an American Chamber of Commerce event in Mexico City.
• Take the kids to Acapulco and learn that, just near us, the narco-traffickers had chopped a dozen heads.
• Meet and kiss Margarita Zavala, a federal deputy, wife of then president of Mexico Felipe Calderón.
• Welcome musician and singer Seal at the consulate, chitchat and take photos.
• Enjoy a lucha libre show with its masked warriors. Lucha libre is a very well-choreographed wrestling competition with heroes and villains. The fun was also among the spectators, for example grandmothers gesturing and yelling chinga tu madre and all other kind of nondescript foul language.
• Meet and kiss vice-president Biden after his speech at the Embassy in Mexico City, and later receive a letter of appreciation in Pakistan, letter forwarded from Mexico even though it had a wrong address for the Embassy in Mexico.
• Be car-chased by a crazy man in Chiapas where hubby had to remember and apply all his classes of Crash & Bang defensive driving.
• Eat powdered ants in a wonderful Mexican dish.
• Participate and rank top 2 in the first ever triathlon of my life in Islamabad at an age when some of us are grandmothers.
• Climb the full size brass antelope in the Karachi airport on a dare given by my female boss – who did it too!
• Be called daughter by a toothless Pakistani villager, thankful that via USAID we brought her electricity.
• Hike the Margalla hills every week and befriend Pakistani girls in the mountains.
• Become a designer and invent many unique dresses and shirts thanks to the sewing skills of my Pakistani tailor.
• Plant my own tree to celebrate the end of a successful project. I was a drop in the ocean of that project but as a representative of USAID, I was treated like royalty.
• Feeling like a rock star or the Queen of England when I entered a classroom and was “showered” in rose petals Pakistani hosts had laid on the blades of the fan.
• Sleep on the floor of the hut of unknown Thai mountain villagers.
• Buy a beautiful and unique piece of embroidery in Thailand that the embroiderer consented to sell only because I was married.
• Eat in bamboo plates from bamboo dishes with bamboo chopsticks that had all been carved in front of my eyes a few minutes before the meal.
• Taste savory dishes of the curly-haired Mangalica pig during the Mangalica festival in Budapest.
• Celebrate Valentine’s day in Bosnia (usually more synonym of war than love, unfortunately).
• Visit an exhibition in total darkness, led by a blind guide and experience like a blind person what life is like, dinner included.
• Hike to the top of Mount Triglav, the highest mountain of Slovenia at 2864 meters (9,400 feet).
• Eat foie gras in a special ‘Magyar’ McDonald burger, the libamajjal, where liba means goose, maj liver and the –al suffix with.
• Climb a Via Ferrata for the first time in my life: the steep via Ferrata Hans-von-Haid-Steig trail to reach Mount Rax in Styria, Austria at 2 000 meters.
• Learn a few words of Chinese because I am working as a TDYer in Beijing, China, in the middle of the summer – yet the weather is not as hot as in Budapest or Paris.
• Three years after doing a TDY in Beijing, being assigned to Beijing and invited to model a qipao dress (also called cheongsam) at a fashion and culture show in the Silk Market.

Some friends tell me ‘I didn’t know you were doing these kinds of thing’ and I answer ‘me neither’!

Pakistan – Islamabad Particularities: Green & Safe

I had read that Islamabad was the greenest city in Asia. Indeed, it almost felt like Northern Europe! Maybe it is one of the reasons I liked it so much there. I come from Paris which is a very green capital and France, also a very green country. In my street and all the streets of my neighborhood F7 there were trees and flowers. Less than a kilometer away there was the National Park of the Margalla Hills– we would hike every week in the hills and we still miss them a lot. I had never lived so close to nature and wilderness. We saw monkeys and boars besides beautiful birds in these rocky hills.

Islamabad has a very mathematical way of dividing its square neighborhoods because it is a very modern city, planned and built in the 1960s and settled only in the 1970s next to its much older sister city Rawalpindi. In the tiny village of Saidpur, between Islamabad and the hills, there is a very interesting photo exhibit showing Islamabad before it was developed. When Pakistan gained independence in 1947, Karachi was its capital. Planners have named the neighborhoods in Islamabad by letters from E to I – why not start by A is beyond me – and numbers from 5 to 18 – again, why not start at 1??? After 11 all the letters do not exist because it is still inhabited. Each square is divided into four smaller squares. When you gave your address it felt like playing naval battle: “I live in F7-2, one block from F8-3 … sunk!” Beyond Constitution Avenue, towards the north east, the area could be number 4, it comprises most of the public buildings: presidential palace, parliament, court of justice, etc. Beyond this, which could be number 3, is the diplomatic enclave, a little Fort Knox for embassies.

What is definitely a specificity of the Pakistani capital that I had never experienced before are the road blocks on every major roads: security check points that make cars zigzag and stop, show papers or car plate to a police officer, get approved and go on. It is like a permanent war and indeed when you think about it, the Taliban are definitely having a war. Someone had said something like ‘most countries have an army – the Pakistani army has a country’. While in Senegal everyone had diplomatic plates displayed where car plates are supposed to and Senegalese knew all the numbers by heart – number one for France, number eight for the United States and so on – here the plates are unmarked and it is not until arriving at a check point or entering the diplomatic enclave that the driver places the red diplomatic plate on the windshield, and promptly hides it again. Diplomats are targets.

Another very Pakistani specialty is the No Objection Certificate (NOC). Whenever we wanted to go anywhere outside the city boundaries, past I18, we had to receive a NOC first. The government had to issue a certificate stating that it did not object to our visit somewhere. We had to fill a bunch of papers explaining where we wanted to go and how, whether it was for a tourist or business purpose. If we rented a car we had to list the plate number and if we had a driver he had to give copy of his papers as well so if you had to fill the papers a month before the trip and he got sick, you were out of luck! Or if the listed car got in an accident prior to your rental and the rental company changed it … Indeed where it got complicated is that there were a NOC for ‘open’ places and a NOC for ‘closed’ places. The ruins of Taxila are ‘open’ so the NOC needed to be requested only 48 hours in advance; however the Murree brewery is a ‘closed’ place, so the NOC papers had to be processed at least 15 days in advance.

And yes there is a brewery which makes beer in a Muslim country, and whiskey, vodka, gin, etc.

Hotel Rant

Where to sleep in Pécs?

We love travels. We love travelling. We are not difficult. We can sleep in a hut if the type of travel mandates it – for example an eco-trekking we did in Thailand in 2012 (I’ll have to come back on this because it was fantastic).  We slept on the floor, just like our hosts. On a same trip in the same country we can go from hut to high luxury and hut again, it just depends on what is right at that time and what we intend to do: for example, meet local people in villages (Chang Mai region) or visit museums and palaces (Vienna).

Sometimes we find that the best fit for our family, when the four of us travel, is to rent an apartment. Actually sometimes we are five if we count our tiny Italian greyhound and more apartment owners accept dogs than hotels.  Since we like to cook it is also very practical to have your own kitchen. It also helps control the quality of the ingredients and the amount of fat that go in your plate.

As much as we look for practicality I always have an eye on aesthetics. I don’t like ugly, especially if the prices don’t match ugly. When we were on ‘home leave’– a specificity of the Foreign Service describing the extended ‘re-learning Americana holiday’ we take between two missions overseas – I was trying to get across the country for as cheap as possible. Every FS family will tell you that it can be costly to be in the U.S. for two months = 60 (even 61) days with no roof of your own. With a cheap hotel like $100 a night for four, this is already a whopping $6,000 – on only one salary. Not every FS employee has a house available, either because they are too young to have purchased one, or it is rented. Not every FS employee has parents with a mansion that can accommodate a long stay. Home leave can be nine weeks you know since the employee gains three weeks per year abroad. Some colleagues would argue that ‘yeah, but it’s impossible to take that long’. You can do it. We did it. Just negotiate!

Back on the notion of ‘acceptable ugly’. If I choose Motel 6 and Super 8 because I want to travel to major cities to show our kids the United States in all its grandeur, from Maine to California (Home leave 2013), and I don’t want to break the bank, I accept savorless hotels where we will barely spend a night. But when a hotel pretends to be ‘charming’ or ‘boutique’ with higher pricing associated with such adjectives, I really don’t appreciate that they look like having supplied their rooms with IKEA-like furniture (and at least this would have a clean feel to it), or worse that they are using old cheap 1950s furniture with a carpet so worn that you can’t tell which color it is, much less which color it was. The bed cover can also be repulsive and it is a much cheaper investment to make to improve a room.

So why am I all excited about this topic today? Well, I am planning for a trip to Pécs which is supposed to be the most beautiful city in Hungary after Budapest. I’ve asked my Hungarian colleagues and teacher about which cities not to miss and they all agree. Pécs comes first. Then there is a tie between Debrecen and Sopron. While I am dutifully making my research on Booking.com and Tripadvisor to cross-reference opinions I could only find abominable hotels in the loveliest city of the country!!! Some hotels might look good from the façade to the reception desk and dining hall, the rooms are still very mediocre. The one that dares call itself ‘boutique’ is among the ugliest one. At this point I looked for Bed & Breakfasts and they were all ugly as well.

My conclusion is if you are an entrepreneur: go open a real boutique hotel in Pécs because lovely city means romantic and romantic needs a proper nest!

Pakistan – Discovering our New Home in Islamabad

Choosing the Foreign Service, especially after a first career in the private sector usually means earning much less money – especially for the non-diplomat spouse. However you need to account for all elements of your earnings and they are not all cash in your pocket but cash you don’t need to take out of your pocket. For example children’s education in private international schools, some medical acts and interventions, or housing. Let’s focus on housing today.

When we are sent overseas housing is provided to us, usually in the best and safest area of the capital – or large cities in case of consultates. Depending on the country there is a choice between an apartment or a house, usually fairly large. Of course it all depends. In Africa or the Middle East your house will be, in general, much larger than in Europe. If you are a single person, you will usually be in an over sized apartment or house, if you have a family of four or six, depending on the country, you might be a bit cramped.

The motto of the Foreign Service – almost a mantra – is “it depends”. Despite the fact that the Foreign Service is governed by many rules summarized in the Foreign Affairs Manual and the Foreign Affairs Handbook, known respectively as the FAM and the FAH, in many areas when you ask a question, the answer is the ominous and predictable “it depends”. This is one of the very first thing to learn, the second being “it shall pass” to overcome any difficult or uncomfortable situation.

We had a large house in Senegal (four bedrooms, an office, a family room, a huge living room and a dining room) with a nice garden in an area near the school and the Embassy club with a swimming pool. The commute was under half an hour. Some colleagues were in large apartments on the third floor without elevator of a modern building with a much longer commute and no garden – not as nice.

We had a much smaller apartment in Mexico City (only three bedrooms which meant none for guests since we have two children, no office) but it was a trade-off for our children to have a 10-minute walk to school and us a half-an-hour commute versus having a house with a one-hour commute for parents and children alike.

The situation in Pakistan is diverse: live on the Embassy compound or outside and if outside live alone in a house or share a house between two or three families. It depends on your job, your rank, a bit of luck and especially your date of arrival.

We discovered our new house in Islamabad in the wee hours of the night – or very early morning since it was about 3:00 am. Even if not completely awake, we could tell it was a very large house with a garden, and it was all for us! A large lobby with marble floors and checkerboard patterns in the center leading to living room, dining room, kitchen, master bedroom and bathroom, and stairs up and down. The railing of the staircase was made of black wrought iron and golden oak leaves. Downstairs there was a large L-shaped room, unfurnished but tiled, perfect for parties. Upstairs there were three bedrooms and their respective bathrooms, all different: grey, beige, blue.

Let’s go back to the ground floor. The kitchen had a triangular shape and all cupboards were salmon pink – all 26 of them! Sounds obvious? Not so much since in Senegal we had three different styles (white plastic, clear wood, dark wood) in the kitchen. 26 cupboards and not a single drawer. I thought it was a Pakistani specialty but all our colleagues had drawers in their kitchen so it was only our landlord who didn’t think about it. And there was no shelves in the lower cupboards so pots would be de facto on the floor. The higher cupboards were mounted so high that I could not see inside (and I’m 5’6), I had to touch and recognize if it was a knife or a fork…remember no drawers so where do you place your silverware?

From the kitchen we could go to the back garden after opening four bolts, one lock and a locked mosquito door. The tiny window of the kitchen was decorated with bars and the view from it was barbed wire… Next to it was the master bedroom but our colleague explained that we could not use it! This is Pakistan and it was not safe to sleep on the ground floor, we had to adopt the bedroom upstairs which had been transformed into Fort Knox with an armored door, zillion bolts, bars and locks and we had to keep at all times two massive water containers in case we had to find refuge in our bedroom for a lapse of time. The interior was lovely, cream-eggshell walls with white moldings on the high ceiling.

As a side note for those of you not in the Foreign Service, we usually have all our walls painted ONLY white. If you wish to paint them just cream, not even purple, you do so at your own expense (until then why not) but then you have to re-paint them white before your departure – even if the colleague after you would love to inherit cream instead of white!

The fourth level of the house was very small inside; it is where they had installed the washing machine and the dryer. This room gave access to the flat roof-terrace from which we had fantastic views on the Margalla hills.