A month ago we went our separate ways, but the week before that sad day we finished our time in Fayetteville with a quick weekend trip to Atlanta to see Becca.
There wasn't much left to see or do in Fayetteville, NC by the third week. We did walk down to the Airborne and Special Ops Museum which was pretty well designed if a little heavy on the military stuff. I know how that sounds, but it really was extremely dry text and map heavy, which is fine, but after the 20th battle explained in numbers and routes, they all start blending and it's hard to keep reading. The museum was light on first person narratives, which tend to hold my interest - maneuvers, wins, losses, from the creation of plane jumping are all good but I prefer them to fill out a story and not be the full story. Of course, I'm just one person and I still found it interesting, so if you're in the area it's definitely worth a couple hours.
We took a day to drive to Greensboro and have lunch with some very old friends, folks we hadn't seen since Ian's Daily Press days way back when the girls were infants. Yeah, it's been a while. We met up with them for a long leisurely lunch and are looking forward to when they make it up to DC for a visit. We drove from Greensboro to Raleigh in time for a Carolina Hurricanes game, which the Canes won and we could cheer OK because they weren't playing the Caps. The next time we're in the area we'd like to see a little more of the city, the arena is on the outskirts and when the game ended at 10pm, we drove the hour back to our airbnb.
For our weekend in Atlanta we stayed right downtown next to the the Olympic park, which was absolutely fantastic. Not only did we walk to CNN Center so Ian could see his old haunt (he worked there over Y2K), and the Civil Rights Museum (absolutely worth a visit), but the park was host to a fantastic replica of a German kriskindlmarkt. From the kartoffelpuffer to the currywurst, the chocolate tools and the quark doughnuts, and of course the trdlnks. Some of the huts were run by Germans. They even had a bona fide Kathe Wohlfahrt, which just made me smile like a fool. We were giddy, truly, to see mulled wine (though the delivery of the special mugs was delayed until after we left, bummer) and hot chocolate. It may have been 60 degrees outside but that really brought the holiday spirit home.
Along with our evening entertainment, of course - Rebecca had purchased tickets to the lights show at the botanical gardens. I never know what to expect from things like that. I see ads every year for "greatest light show" for walking through, driving through, etc but this show was really great, with an entire series of lights set to music. The rain stopped as we arrived and held off the entire visit.
Our time in Atlanta was done. Our time in Fayetteville was done. We'd visited with Rebecca, Nicholas, and Katherine and we were ready to head back north for Thanksgiving with my parents and to see Katherine again. But before Thanksgiving we had one more thing to do - finish signing the lease for our apartment. When we made the decision to pull out of my position in Baghdad, things moved quickly. We found a place for me to move into and set up, I applied for and got a job, and Ian started the wheels on getting our shipments. We received our U.S. storage as soon as we returned from North Carolina - 3000lbs we hadn't seen in 7 years and let me be honest, about half of it got thrown out already or is heading to a donation center soon. When you store items from a 4 bedroom, 3-floor house and move into something much (much) smaller, there is a definite sense of panic, amiright?
The panic isn't going away either. There are 5000lbs coming from Frankfurt. And 900lbs coming from Baghdad.
Help.
:)
We took a day to drive to Greensboro and have lunch with some very old friends, folks we hadn't seen since Ian's Daily Press days way back when the girls were infants. Yeah, it's been a while. We met up with them for a long leisurely lunch and are looking forward to when they make it up to DC for a visit. We drove from Greensboro to Raleigh in time for a Carolina Hurricanes game, which the Canes won and we could cheer OK because they weren't playing the Caps. The next time we're in the area we'd like to see a little more of the city, the arena is on the outskirts and when the game ended at 10pm, we drove the hour back to our airbnb.
For our weekend in Atlanta we stayed right downtown next to the the Olympic park, which was absolutely fantastic. Not only did we walk to CNN Center so Ian could see his old haunt (he worked there over Y2K), and the Civil Rights Museum (absolutely worth a visit), but the park was host to a fantastic replica of a German kriskindlmarkt. From the kartoffelpuffer to the currywurst, the chocolate tools and the quark doughnuts, and of course the trdlnks. Some of the huts were run by Germans. They even had a bona fide Kathe Wohlfahrt, which just made me smile like a fool. We were giddy, truly, to see mulled wine (though the delivery of the special mugs was delayed until after we left, bummer) and hot chocolate. It may have been 60 degrees outside but that really brought the holiday spirit home.
Along with our evening entertainment, of course - Rebecca had purchased tickets to the lights show at the botanical gardens. I never know what to expect from things like that. I see ads every year for "greatest light show" for walking through, driving through, etc but this show was really great, with an entire series of lights set to music. The rain stopped as we arrived and held off the entire visit.
Our time in Atlanta was done. Our time in Fayetteville was done. We'd visited with Rebecca, Nicholas, and Katherine and we were ready to head back north for Thanksgiving with my parents and to see Katherine again. But before Thanksgiving we had one more thing to do - finish signing the lease for our apartment. When we made the decision to pull out of my position in Baghdad, things moved quickly. We found a place for me to move into and set up, I applied for and got a job, and Ian started the wheels on getting our shipments. We received our U.S. storage as soon as we returned from North Carolina - 3000lbs we hadn't seen in 7 years and let me be honest, about half of it got thrown out already or is heading to a donation center soon. When you store items from a 4 bedroom, 3-floor house and move into something much (much) smaller, there is a definite sense of panic, amiright?
The panic isn't going away either. There are 5000lbs coming from Frankfurt. And 900lbs coming from Baghdad.
Help.
:)
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