Home Leave
Home leave is mandatory, but you won’t hear me complaining. It has been glorious.
Per the FAM (AKA the holy grail of all rules that pertain to DOS) it is mandatory to take at least 20 working days of home leave (in the United States). It is meant to re-orient you to the U.S. and usually occurs in between assignments. We accrue time off for this in a separate bank of hours, so you are paid for this time. Granted I lost my 30% hardship differential and 15% COLA- but still to be paid for hanging in my home state for one month has been amazing.
Now bouncing around with a ridiculous amount of suitcases was fairly exhausting. We packed out 2 weeks before leaving Burundi, and are anticipating we won’t get our first shipment for at least one month on arrival to Moldova, so we essentially had to pack enough stuff for 2 weeks left at post, one month of home leave, and our first month in Moldova (in the chilly fall).
We also added on a supplemental shipment from our home leave location in the bay area, and we get a consumables shipment again for this post. For our supplemental shipment we purchased bikes, a new TV, and a bit more furniture, and rugs (thank you Homegoods Pleasant hill- which had SO much good stuff). This post we want to add more of our own homey touch to the decor. For consumables we did the usual Costco, Safeway and Trader Joe runs.
Highlight of home leave: Seeing Alanis Morisette in Portland with my hermanas!!
San Francisco & Healdsburg
We spent time in our old neighborhood in SF, and were excited to check out a few new hot spots:
Elena’s Mexican food in west portal- make a reservation, this place was so busy, and a total vibe!
Presidio Tunnel Tops- Park and play area for kids, with a “Field Station” that is a fun little curiosity lab for kids. FREE!!!
Actually played tourist around Embarcadero and Pier 39- took driverless Waymo’s EVERYWHERE.
San Francisco is just as gorgeous as ever. Don’t listen to the negative hype- this city still has magic.
This month flew by, and we didn’t get to see everyone that we wanted to, so if we didn’t catch you on this visit please come visit us in Moldova!
