As I alluded to in my last post, we’re off to DC for our next tour. We’ll both depart next summer, hopefully at the same time, but probably not. As is always the case with tandems, our bidding this year was difficult. Alex was really competitive in places I wasn’t. I got really encouraging feedback from places where a job for Alex didn’t materialize. Ultimately we realized that our best bet this time was back in DC. Fortunately, we don’t feel like we’ve settled. Alex has a great job as a course instructor and I’ll be working as an assignments officer. No, I won’t decide who goes where, but I will learn the ins and outs of assignments, which will undoubtedly help us both down the road.

After four years abroad with little time between tours, going back to DC will also be a good opportunity to enjoy the US. No matter how great a tour is, we inevitably find ourselves missing the little things about home (Trader Joe’s is not a little thing, Alex would argue). While making dinner the other night, I thought about how great it would be to not have to shred my own cheese. I can make pot pies without also making the pie crust from scratch. I’m looking forward to running trails and not judging the seasons based primarily on how much rain there is.

We still have lots of time left in India and we plan to make the most of it. This is a big country and we still don’t feel like we know it as well as we’d like. As we learned from our last tour, a year can fly by so fast, especially when you start looking ahead to what’s next. We’re trying to focus on our time here and enjoy all the sights and sounds, but we have to admit, after getting home from a long day of work, we sure do miss having some Trader Joe’s meals in our freezer.