5th tour is... Colombo!

 Next stop is Colombo, Sri Lanka!

Colombo is the executive and judicial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka by population. It's on the west coast of the island nation.

Sri Lanka is in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian peninsula by the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait. It shares a maritime border with the Maldives in the southwest and India in the northwest.

4th Tour is... Algiers!

Next stop is Algiers, Algeria!

Algeria is a country in the North Africa region. The similarly named Algiers is their coastal capital on the Mediterranean Sea. A flight north to Barcelona, Spain is just 1 hour and 20 minutes, so it's very close to Europe.

Algeria is the tenth-largest country in the world, and the largest by area in the African Union and the Arab world. It's the eighth-most populous country in Africa with over 44 million people. Algeria appears to be rich in history and culture, so we're looking forward to living there and exploring it for a couple of years.

3rd Tour is... Riga!

Next stop is Riga, Latvia!

I've been to Riga for a weekend but that barely scratched the surface for experiencing a place. I wasn't bidding completely blind since it already left a good first impression as a nice place to be. The earliest we can leave Caracas is August which should put us in Riga around September 2018.

2nd Tour is... Caracas!

I received an email from my Career Development Officer (CDO) announcing my 2nd tour. Next summer I'm heading to Caracas Venezuela!

This was #22 on my list of 42 choices. It was a medium choice out of the high, medium, and low categories we had to tag on the list. It's a 20% differential post with a COLA currently similar to Stockholm since the COLA here has been dropping. This means there's a 20% pay raise to offset the somewhat harder life there compared to the 0% differential Sweden. There's also 2 R&R trips with paid airline tickets to Miami (or equivalent pricing somewhere else) for the 2 years there so that'll provide some nice breaks.

First FS Post - 1 Year Later

I arrived in Stockholm a year ago and this is the halfway point for my first Foreign Service post. My bid list was submitted this week for next year's move. Everyone in the Summer 2016 Entry Level Specialist (ELSPEC) assignment cycle should find out by Thursday where our next directed tours will be. Our class has stayed in touch so there's a small group of us around the globe collectively holding our breath until those emails arrive.

I think I prefer getting an email instead of having a flag day ceremony. I'll get a private moment to digest the information instead of having it shared with everyone like some game show. "Come on down! Your next 2 years will be in exotic..." It was a memorable ceremony and I was happy with what I got but I think it was a little torturous to sit through. However, each work email this week might end up being torture too because any one of them will contain my fate for 2 years of my life. I guess it's game show time again!

Flag Day

Getting My Flag

Above is a blurry cell phone photo from way in the back but you can see the flag on the screen. We're moving to Stockholm Sweden at the end of June! Some classmates leave at the same time and others leave a month or so later. We were all presented little flags for the countries and my daughter promptly took possession of our flag when the ceremony was over.

Yes, this ended up being our first choice and surprisingly many in our class received their first choice or somewhere in their top 5 out of 22. I think there were a few that weren't so lucky and got something towards the bottom of their list but I'm sure it was impossible to give everyone their top choices.

We did get a lot of feedback during orientation from the people that have worked at various posts that those "third world" countries many of us put at the bottom ended up being the best and most rewarding places to serve. I'll get one of those "third world" opportunities next time since I have a "first world" post this time. The higher equity posts based on differential and hardship pay get higher priority for their second assignments.

First Bid List

Employee Blogging

I'll start by saying this blog is my own personal thing. This isn't the place I can or should reveal anything that isn't public knowledge about my employer. I don't see it as an unusual restriction or anything I've been specifically instructed about in orientation (so far). I'm just going to use common sense and only share personal things here about my life outside of work. Having said that, there will be some crossover and one thing that definitely impacts me is the "bid list" or my first list of possible assignments. I'm not going to share the specific list since I haven't seen a complete list on any other foreign service blog. I've seen a few general summaries so that's what I'll write. In the end, only one location on this internal list of openings will be mine and that's the specific location I know I can share in a future post.

map of diplomatic missions (wikipedia link)

The First Bid List

I will confirm for anyone interested in joining the Foreign Service that they really mean it right from the start when they say we must be worldwide qualified. Fortunately we have a large class of Information Management Specialists (23 now) so there's a lot of variety on my list. Every continent except Australia is represented. The list is somewhat evenly spread over South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. There is one North America opening and fortunately it isn't in the US since I didn't join to stay in DC. There will be opportunities later in my career to come back to DC or maybe even NYC supporting the UN for an assignment. Being in the Foreign Service does mean that I can't be in the US longer than 5 years if we do come back. The State Department has many Civil Service jobs here in DC if you want to just stay here instead of move around.