So to get everyone up to speed, here is this past weekend looked like:
1) Friday night was a jazz concert put on by the US Embassy. The Ryan Cohen Quartet (look them up!) This was again at TV21. It was a smaller event than the election party, not an open bar either, but was still a lot of fun and a nice dose of culture. I ended up meeting the Ambassador, and actually talking to her for a little bit this time. She has invited me to meet with her to discuss being an FSO! (I met with the Political FSO here, Bryan, who was a tremendous resource and a very nice guy) Hopefully between these meetings I will learn all I need to know to pass the test in February and get through to the next rounds of things.
2) Saturday, a two part series.
a) Saturday afternoon, I went with Michael to the Skena Up Festival. It was an international student film festival, all of them were shorts. Being here showcased a lot of great potentials, a positive future about the movie industry, and just generally good movies. It was free, relaxed, and fun.
b) Saturday night started with dinner at Andrea and Michael's flat. It was a pre-Pub Crawl dinner, so it was El Paso Tacos, chicken and veggie stir fry (over rice), cheesy bread, roasted cabbage, and loads of water. It was a nice base for our adventures that night. The Irish put on a 12 Pubs of Christmas pub crawl every single year (or at least this year and the previous one) and it is always quite the hit. While we didn't finish the crawl, we opted to skip a few places and head over to the Irish pub, there were still about 40 people out to have a great time. A great time was had by all. A rough morning was had by all as well. Still, I got to see a lot of places that I didn't know existed or rarely visited. Plus I met a lot of cool new people and just had a blast in general.
3) Sunday: Brunchday/Funday
My friend Dan is leaving tomorrow to go home (and get married 2 days later) so we went out to brunch on Sunday to this little place near my house. It was fair, though I think we didn't go about the menu correctly. The Bloody Mary (which came with the meal) was good, it was almost real! That night we met over at Dan's apartment as he gave us gifts, things from the KFOR PX and his leftovers, while we talked about our adventures here, watched Discovery channel, and enjoyed each other's company. Dan is a good man; he made my first few months here a lot more interesting. I would definitely call him a friend, and I hope that I will be able to make it out to DC to visit him and his soon-to-be wife!
On the same coin, I wanted to direct everyone's attention to some great things that my friends have done while they have been here. First off:
Jason, my co-worker's boyfriend who I has become one of my closest friends here, wrote a great Op-Ed for the Seattle Times. I would like everyone to take a second and read through it. I've also listed his blog, which is one of my favorites to read. He is a lawyer, so he uses big words. You've been warned.
1) Expat Diary (From here you can link to his other stuff)
2) In Prishtina
Pictures are en-route. I swear
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