Country comes to town...

I consider myself a small town girl.  I spent my childhood in a small copper mining town and then moved to a small railroading town for high school.  College was in a slightly larger town, but still close to home.  It would be a rare weekend to go out and not run into someone you knew.  When we were first married, we lived at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  We were in a small 2 room cabin on the rim of the Canyon.  We didn't have internet or TV.  David taught me how to play cribbage and we went for walks, with the Grand Canyon as our view.  Some of my favorite evenings were spent playing volleyball and eating around a bonfire, fueled by Jet-A (courtesy of the fire crew).  Overall, I usually had space to play and knew my neighbors. City living was what I saw on Friends,  Mad About You and Seinfeld, ie. New York City. When I watched shows like Law and Order, I found myself watching the people on the street as much as the main characters.  Taxis instead of personal vehicles, corner stores instead of Costco and lots of hole-in-the-wall restaurants where you ate pizza made by a guy named Vinny and his brother Paulie.  I was stunned to find out that from a friend that grew up in NYC, that he never even bothered to learn how to drive, because it was so freaking expensive to own a car.  He spoke of searching for parking spots like the quest for the holy grail and introduced me to concept that a parking spot in a garage could be bought and sold as real estate, as well as willed to your children, just like a house.

Over the course of our marriage, we have lived in several larger metropolitan areas (Denver, Dallas, Phoenix), but always in the 'burbs.  Anytime we would drive into the city to eat or go to a concert or sports event, I would imagine how convenient it would be to live in one of the many apartments that existed above all the restaurants.  I could just walk out my door and not be stuck looking for a place to park with 1000 of my closest friends.  It seemed simple, no yard to take care of, a maintenance guy to fix anything that broke and walking distance to everything.  It seemed exotic and fun.  David thought it sounded like hell.  We would joke about our retirement years with half the year spent in the city and the other half in a cabin in the mountains.  Both ideas sounded like a dream life for totally different reasons.  I love wide open spaces and a little isolation never hurt anyone, but there's something to be said for convenience.

When we found out we would be moving to DC for a few months while David was in training, I was excited.  This was my chance to experience city living!   Because we moved from out of the local area, our time in DC is considered a TDY (Temporary Duty), which meant all our things were moved into storage and we would be staying in a furnished apartment.  It's way cheaper than a hotel and we get all the same perks (paid utilities and housekeeping), as well as a decreasing scale per diem.  The State Dept contracts with a couple of local management companies and so we were given a list of about a dozen apartment buildings to choose from.  I was able to research schools and apartment size and pick our top 3 choices.  This was my chance to finally see what it was like to live in one of those apartments and I couldn't wait.

We ended up getting our first choice, which is smack dab in Arlington, right on the metro line and just minutes from DC.  We have a lobby with the nicest staff. They plan movie nights and snowball fights and send out local information.  They greet us by name when we walk in and invite the kids to watch movies in the theater downstairs. There's a fitness center, a pool and even a game room.  It feels so much like living in a hotel, that it took us a week to remember to lock the door with the key when we left, instead of letting the door lock behind us as we walked out.  Trader Joe's is a block away, while Whole Foods is only 5 blocks.  I found a dentist and eye doctor right across the street.  We've eaten Irish, Persian, NY style pizza, Mexico City Mexican food and have had the most amazing Peruvian style chicken at the restaurant Anthony Bourdain featured on his show.  The girls have learned how to use the Metro and I am confident that if we got separated they would be able to get home again without any trouble.  The only time we use the car is to visit friends in the surrounding areas and to go to our church activities. I found out that we live within walking distance of the belly dancing studio, where I start classes tomorrow (Woohoo!) and the nail salon downstairs.  We have taken the girls to see monuments and museums and cultural events that we could never have been able to do before.

I am so incredibly grateful for this opportunity; I am loving this experience and feel very blessed and fortunate to be here.  However, as I listen to horns honking and sirens blaring I realize that I do miss quiet moments.  I miss talking to neighbors in the front yard and having friends come over to play.   I imagine that Dakar will have more of those opportunities, as well as the open spaces that I crave.  David is still missing his running trail where he met coyotes and rattlesnakes and looked at the Rocky Mountains while he endured his daily torture run.  Once in Senegal, he will be able to stop mumbling to himself about the lack of mountains and embrace the ocean as his new running scenery.  Dakar will be completely different from anything we have known.   However you look at it, we are lucky or blessed or both and I love that we get to keep trying new and different ways to experience this crazy roller coaster of a life.