Tag: The Great Outdoors

Holiday in Hanoi, Part II

by pennypostcard • February 19, 2026 • 0 Comments

January found V and me on R&R in Vietnam, a country we had never visited before. Our first stop was Hanoi—the country’s vibrant capital. Its streets buzzed with the cacophony of commerce and the chaotic crush of cars and motorbikes. It felt so different from Rangoon—more optimistic, more productive, life moving in fast-forward motion. I had only been out of the hospital for a month after being hit by a truck eight weeks prior, and I was still using a walker. But I didn’t let that stop me from enjoying Hanoi as much as I could.

[This post is the second in a series. To read the post about the first half of the trip, please click on the link.]

Foreign Service, Travel

Holiday in Hanoi, Part I

by pennypostcard • February 6, 2026 • 3 Comments

After a short work trip to Singapore in mid-January, I returned to Burma for one night to repack and reorient before V and I left on our first R&R trip. Rangoon is a hardship posting; one year of service earns two airfare-paid R&Rs. Unlike a decade ago when I served in Tashkent, we can now use 10 days of administrative leave in lieu of annual leave to take R&R. (This is especially good for entry-level officers new to government service who haven’t yet accumulated much annual leave.)

Since we were approaching the halfway point of our Rangoon tour already and hadn’t used either R&R yet, while hospitalized in Bangkok in December I’d been busily sketching out a short vacation in Vietnam and Indonesia — two countries where neither of us had ever been before. Our first stop: Hanoi.

Foreign Service, Health, Leadership & Work Culture, Travel

Postcard from Singapore

by pennypostcard • January 26, 2026 • 3 Comments

A couple of weeks ago, I began 2026 with a work-related trip to Singapore to attend a consular leadership development course called the CLDC—it was my first CLDC and my first time ever in the country. It was also the first time since returning home to Burma from the hospital in Bangkok in December that I had traveled anywhere on my own; it felt not only like an exciting professional opportunity, but also a chance to road-test my healing body.

Burma, Foreign Service

Cooking Outdoors: Nangyithoke

by pennypostcard • August 30, 2025 • 0 Comments

Our second weekend in Rangoon, we attended a cooking class sponsored by the embassy’s Community Liaison Office (CLO) at a local organic farm. We were excited for a chance to learn how to cook Nangyithoke, a Burmese chicken thick noodle salad which originated in Mandalay.

The CLO warned us to bring insect repellant — and for good reason, as it turned out; the farm hosts its cooking classes in a beautiful outdoor kitchen.

Burma, Foreign Service

Breaking the Ice

by pennypostcard • August 25, 2025 • 0 Comments

In early August, our first weekend in Rangoon struck the perfect balance of downtime at the pool, making new friends, and exploring a few sights outside the embassy grounds. Thanks to the embassy’s hard-working Community Liaison Office (CLO), V and I were able to enjoy a guided shopping trip before we’d even figured out how to order a taxi on our own.

Burma, Foreign Service

Two Weeks of Monsoon Season

by pennypostcard • August 18, 2025 • 1 Comment

We moved to Burma (also known as Myanmar) two weeks ago, at the start of my fifth diplomatic assignment. It quickly became clear that we had traded summer in the United States for the height of Burma’s rainy season.

Foreign Service, U.S.

Wishing for Halcyon Days

by pennypostcard • August 10, 2025 • 0 Comments

In late July, after leaving Virginia and driving almost 2,800 miles by myself, I arrived in California. I think my friends and family used to be in disbelief when in 2022 I first started driving across the country alone to see them, but now my wild stunts have become almost expected.

My original plan had been to drive directly to the home of my nana in the San Francisco Bay Area. But when I’d looked at my route, I’d realized I would drive right by my mom’s in the Sierra Nevada Foothills on the way there. It made sense to stop at my mom’s to avoid arriving at my nana’s—about three hours farther away—at night. I got to my mom’s right around dinnertime, just as I’d planned.

Foreign Service, U.S.

Cannonball Run

by pennypostcard • August 8, 2025 • 0 Comments

After our grueling three-day packout ended late last month, I spent the following day preparing to drive across the United States by myself. Ideally I would have left first thing in the morning. But as the final day of our packout had stretched into the evening, I realized some tasks — like going to the bank and post office, returning newly purchased aerosols the movers wouldn’t pack, and making one last run to my private storage unit — would have to wait until the following morning. This would delay my departure until later in the day.

V spent the day cleaning the rental house where we had lived since early 2022, while I repacked all my suitcases at our temporary apartment. Once I finished, I loaded the car and ran a few last-minute errands before stopping by the house one final time to say goodbye. It was only a temporary goodbye to him, but a fond farewell to the only home we’ve known since we left Ciudad Juárez three and a half years ago.

Foreign Service, U.S.

A Message From Beyond, Part II

by pennypostcard • May 5, 2025 • 0 Comments

This post is the second half of a story from 2023 that I began to write last week. If you haven’t read the first half, I recommend you do so first so this post will make sense.

Foreign Service, U.S.

A Message From Beyond, Part I

by pennypostcard • April 27, 2025 • 3 Comments

I want to take a break from the intensity of Burmese study-related posts and tell a story I’ve been meaning to share since 2023. It’s an emotional story, sad, and long, but I think important, so I will tell it in two parts. This is the first part.

It’s fair to say I am the type of person who relies more on science than I do faith to explain what I experience in life. Most people who know me would probably describe me with words like serious, rational, skeptical, judicious, and methodical.

However, I have also long believed there are things we don’t understand about the human experience. In my opinion, sometimes things happen that we cannot simply explain (or explain away) with facts. Some things we simply feel, and intuitively believe to be true, even if we cannot prove it. This is a story about something like that. It’s a story about a message from beyond.

Foreign Service, U.S.

Changing Times: Learning Burmese, Weeks 32-33

by pennypostcard • April 19, 2025 • 0 Comments

We’ve now completed 75 percent of our Burmese training, and times they are a‑changin’. Half of our classmates have tested out with their scores and moved on, leaving only the two of us—as it was in the beginning. The seasons have shifted from summer to fall, then winter, and now spring. With about three months left before we depart for Post, the sense that we’re coming full circle grows ever stronger.

Foreign Service, U.S.

Earthquake and ချယ်ရီပန်ပွဲ (Cherry Blossom Festival): Learning Burmese, Weeks 30-31

by pennypostcard • April 6, 2025 • 0 Comments

Calendar year 2025 has continued to present a strange mix of hardship and beauty. Over the past two weeks of Burmese class, the cherry blossoms around Washington, DC’s Tidal Basin reached peak bloom—just as a devastating earthquake struck Burma, killing thousands.

Foreign Service, U.S.

Last Christmas Stateside, Until…?

by pennypostcard • January 25, 2025 • 0 Comments

As I prepared for my second Burmese language progress evaluation last month, I also was getting ready for a special Christmas at home in Virginia. The reasons it was special were twofold. One, my dad (and later my stepdaughters) were planning to visit from out of state; and two, it would be the last Christmas V and I would be in the United States, potentially for years.

Foreign Service, Travel, U.S.

Year in Review: 2024 Blog Stats and Recap

by pennypostcard • January 11, 2025 • 1 Comment

In 2024, when I wasn’t making the most of my time outdoors, I managed to publish 35 posts, conclude my fourth tour handling international parental child abductions in the Office of Children’s Issues, and begin long-term training for my next assignment at the U.S. Embassy in Rangoon, Burma.

I also wrote a series of posts chronicling Foreign Service-related topics, including the centennial anniversary of the Foreign Service, the machinations of retirement and sixth tour bidding planning, and my best tips for success during FSI language study.

Foreign Service, U.S.

Trail Quest, Part II: Collecting Pins

by pennypostcard • November 10, 2024 • 1 Comment

As I mentioned in the first post of my Trail Quest blog series, in 2020 I inadvertently started a bid to visit all of Virginia’s 43 (and counting) state parks with a pandemic isolation-era visit to Mason Neck State Park (MN). The site of friends’ kids’ birthday parties and impromptu weekend gatherings over the years, Mason Neck as our first state park was familiar, and probably – as the state park nearest our home – also the only Virginia state park we’d ever been to.

At that time, I was only peripherally aware of the state park system in Virginia. I didn’t realize how many parks existed, where they were, or how nice they were. We hiked outdoors in lots of places, but in retrospect they were northern Virginia’s abundant local parks or bigger-visit national parks. Occasionally I would see a sign for a state park off interstate 95 while we were on the way to somewhere else. But in 2023, I discovered Trail Quest.

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