Happy Halloween!

Raising of Lazarus

I went into the city for church today so that I could go to the temple visitor's center with Aimee and a few other people.  I had no idea that the visitor's center was open on Sundays, but I guess it is.  Today was the last day for the art exhibit.  The theme of the exhibit the healing power of Christ.  My favorite piece was a sculpture about the raising of Lazarus from the dead.  It was beautiful.

In front of the temple

Mariya, a Russian girl that Aimee met a while ago, was there, too.  We walked around the temple talking in Russian.  She had a lot of questions about religion.  It was nice to be able to use my Russian again.

Rally to Restore Sanity and Run-Ins

I went to the Rally to Restore Sanity this morning.  I wasn't planning on going, but a friend of mine was in town for it, so I wanted to meet up with her.  It was insane!  The Rally to Restore Sanity created INSANITY on the DC metro system.  They obviously weren't prepared for the number of people going to the rally.
I walked to the metro with another friend of mine and we were shocked to see a line of people out the metro. 

Waiting at the Vienna station in a packed metro car with
masses of people waiting on the platform for the next train.

We cautiously approached, but were relieved to discover that the line was to buy tickets for the metro (we both have SmarTrip cards).  We by-passed all the people waiting in line, but were shocked to see a full train with many people still waiting on the platform.  If we had been smart, we would have turned around right then.  But we waited for another train, which actually arrived packed full!  After that, we decided to get in on the other side and go all the way out to Vienna before heading into DC.  That worked and as a result we actually had seats on the train, but something happened that caused our train to be stuck in Vienna for 20 min.  By the time the train was back at the place where we had started, over an hour had passed from the time we had first arrived.  It took another 45 min to get into DC.
The phones were down because there were so many people jammed into the mall, but somehow I managed to run into my friend!  If that hadn't happened, there is no way I would have been able to meet up with her.

This sign at the Air and Space Museum reminded me
of Uncle Sam, and a similar Russian recruitment
poster.  It made me wonder, who came up with the idea?

After the rally, we went into the Air and Space Museum for a couple hours.  Then we went out to try to find some dinner.  It was ridiculously hard to find an open restaurant on a Sat evening.  We ended up going into Georgetown and stopped at Subway so we wouldn't have to wait.  But it was fun.
Then I went to meet up with another friend to go to a Halloween dance.  There I learned that another friend was in town visiting a mutual friend of ours, and we ran into another mutual friend who is living in Winchester, VA.  What a small world!
Over all it was a really fun, but crazy day.

Immigration Law and Human Rights

I am not going to bore anyone with a description of immigration law, and I don't intend to start a heated debate about immigration law or reform.  But this has been one of the topics I've been learning about this past week.  I didn't have anything specific scheduled since Monday, so I set my own schedule.  I went to immigration court and observed some hearings, including an asylum hearing case.  At first, I felt very dumb because I don't have a background in law, but after a few hearings, I started to understand the jargon that was being used.
Despite what people may think, the government really does what it can to help immigrants, the government just has to abide by the law as it is written.
The other topic I've been learning about is human rights, but specifically with regards to Mexico.  I was able to sit in on some meetings with members of a couple different NGOs talking about human rights and the need for U.S. help in Mexico.  It was very interesting and I feel like after the past several days that I am beginning to understand the major topics of interest in Mexico, though I feel like I've only seen the tip of the ice burg.  Still, it's a start, and I don't feel overwhelmed.  Hopefully that will stay that way.
Yesterday there was a happy hour for fellow FSOs going to CJ.  Beforehand, I stopped at a Safeway to use the restroom.  It was the oddest thing.  You literally had to go far into the backroom to use the "public" restroom.  It didn't feel very public.  But, I guess I've seen stranger things.  The happy hour was good because I was able to meet three new people with whom I will be working in CJ, though they are all leaving much sooner than me.  I guess that is what happens when so many people already speak Spanish and I do not!

And the Training Begins!

I have officially been a diplomat now for three days.  Although orientation has been interesting, and at times even fun, I am glad to be done with that phase of my life.  Today I began the new phase of my life: training.
This week I have a security-oriented training.  It was really interesting, and I think the information will be helpful . . . as long as I don't become paranoid as a result! Just kidding, it's not going to make me paranoid.  In fact, I would hope that having this training would make me less paranoid because I would be better prepared to ensure my own safety and well-being overseas.
So here is what I learned: #1 Never run in a straight line, always zig zag #2 Everyone is watching you - Or is that the paranoia talking?  And my homework is to watch Burn Notice.  Just kidding.  But seriously, the information was very interesting (and if you didn't realize, both of the above things that I said I learned were jokes.  Sometimes people don't get my humor . . . :).  I'm looking forward to the rest of this training class.  I just hope that I will still remember everything I learn by the time I actually leave for post!

A Day at the Zoo

Today, Elizabeth and I went to the zoo.  My legs and feet are so tired from all the walking I've done this weekend.  But it was a lot of fun.  They had a large variety of animals, and some interesting exhibits/houses.  It seemed like they had a lot of repeat animals (meaning more than one enclosure for the same animal) but maybe that was in the hope that if you didn't see it in one, you'd see it in another.
We were lucky enough to see the feeding of a cuddle fish and nautilus as well as some large spiders.  It was interesting.  Most of the animals were out when we were at their enclosure.  Some even came out just after we arrived, so I guess we had good timing.  I was hoping that some of the animals would be a little more active, but perhaps it was too warm today for that.  Either that or they're tired of humans always staring at them . . .

Stingrays have kind of creepy eyes

Inside the Amazon Rainforest!

A gorilla mother and her baby shun the human crowd

A happy iguana sleeps

The bird enclosure allowed us to get really close to birds,
these ones were closer, but walked away before the
picture was taken, of course.

This bird was very territorial, it made noises whenever
anyone was near its rock