Life Happens

February, 2006 - We had high hopes of writing a New Years letter to check in with everyone we don't get to talk to often and wish everyone well in the new year. Needless to say, it's practically March. It's probably safe to say that if we ever send out holiday cards, you can expect them around St. Patricks Day. But things are going well with us--work, school, house, and friends pretty much wraps it up. We've become proud home owners, and ever prouder dog owners. Most call is settling down, but we like to call in playing house. Exaclty a year ago we moved into our rowhouse in DC, 3 bedrooms, front porch, little garden and all. Within a few weeks dan was off to Kazakhstan on business and the heat decided it didn't feel like working anymore. No super, no landlord, no dan. Our first foray into home ownership. Since then we've remodeled the kitchen and two bathrooms, hired plumbers, electricians, painters, and contractors. We've made roughly 1,500,000 decisions. And dan has been able to live his Handyman dreams. Once we had a brand new kitchen complete with our tiles from Spain, a sink from Mexico, stainless steal appliances, and newly waxed floors we figured it would be a good idea to bring home a Coonhound mix, known for their long nails that are especially good for climbing up trees after racoons, and consequently, excellent at scratching our new floors. Anything for love. Molly is our baby. Getting her was my idea (dan insisted that he didn't care for dogs and was only getting one because he loved me) and he has since fallen head over heals. He sings to her when he leaves for work in the morning, lets her cuddle in bed with him and I've caught him more than once with the dog in his lap on a chair (she is far from lap dog). We spoil her silly.

Between house remodeling and scooping poop, I finished my Masters and found a job doing Monitoring and Evaluation for the Africa Education Initiative--right up my alley and so far it's been fun, hard, work.

Dan continues his MBA program and is still at ICF doing environmental economics. In the past year Dan's been to Burkina Faso, Poland and Belarus. In Burkina he woke up to an elephant outside his hut and in Belarus he was taken to a spa with the environmental minister (and 8 other Environmental Ministers from former soviet states--his boss thought that dan would enjpy it cause--after all--he's Swedish) and proceeded to down 9 shots of vodka at a dinner. That's my man. Together we went to Sweden in May with Dan's parents to visit (and meet) family and do some traveling on our own. It was everything that Dan always said it was--serene, and stylish; old fashioned and vibrant. Our summer was spent on the wedding circuit; we joined friends in Salt Lake City, Utah, North Hately, Canada, The North shore in MA, and the Cape; and family in Ithica New York. We sang hyms, and yelled mazeltov, danced the hora and the DDD (Scottish Folk Dance); visited the mormon taberancle and wine vinyards and boogied with the rabbi from Footloose.

In the last few months we've settled into a routine--both of us now working. About a mile down the road The President defends wiretapping and promises vistory in Iraq. Us 20 and 30 somethings working in domestic and international policy go to bars to watch the State of the Union where you buy a drink and write a word on your wrist...freedom and democracy got you wasted (a shot for every time the president utters your word).

January, 2005 -Happy New Year friends and family! In keeping with tradition, we decided to wait until it was almost February before sending any news of our 2004 escapades or well-wishes for the new year. We've actually both been so busy over the last several weeks that the first of 2005 just flew by. This week however, however, a dark and somber week, we both find ourselves unable to do much other than think about our friends, our family, and the rapidly diminishing number of reasons to stay in the country. Our very blue city has been invaded by cowboy boots, Texan-flag bow ties, and more fur than you have ever seen in your life. But even if our number of reasons to stay has decreased in quantity, each has certainly increased in size (and indebtedness). In case you haven't already heard, we recently became proud homeowners!!! We bought a 3 bedroom row house in the district (i.e., Washington, DC)!! We've gone from our Madrid days of keeping all our money in an envelope on the bookcase, having a two burner stove, no oven and our biggest weekly concern "what bars should we go to this weekend" to (sit down) researching appliances (who knew there were soooooooo many choices?!), thinking "color", learning about the oh-so-many styles of cabinetry, filling out mortgage applications, and talking "future." The best part: we're loving it.

2004 was a first for us both in that we stayed put for an entire year, living in the same apartment and working the same jobs (and look what it did to us!!!). No around the world ticket, but we've managed some adventures this past year. I (Sarah) saw baby elephants (among many other animals, but baby elephants are what I went for) in Krueger National Park, South Africa, suffered through and thoroughly enjoyed 3 weeks of a bitter Johannesburg winter where I studied SA education policy, visited the source of the blue Nile in Ethiopia where I also learned how to count in Amharic, chew chat, and listen to girls tell their stories. I (Dan) spent some time wandering the streets of Warsaw and Krakow during days that I stole from my company while I was there attending a workshop. The jokes simply don't do Poland justice; it was full of history both beautiful and horrid, and thoroughly piqued my interest in Eastern Europe. As a result of that workshop (at which, I'll brag a little here, I was the only U.S. attendee), I've recently received (and accepted) the opportunity to be Chief Editor of an upcoming special journal issue AND a compilation of manuscripts that will be published as a book. Also through work, I'm heading to Burkina Faso (West Africa) next week, assessing World Bank and United Nations environmental projects' implementation.

Together this past year we hosted our first family holiday dinner in our apartment, protested against our president, gone door to door in hopes of change, perfected the art of pizza-making, climbed mountains in Yosemite, hugged redwoods, and held our close friends' 2 day old beautiful baby boy. We rang in the New Year in New Orleans with our dearest college friends (and some very welcomed new additions). We came home sore from dancing and hoarse from lack of sleep. Adventures aside, I (Sarah) am finishing my studies at UMD and working at one, two, sometimes even three jobs simultaneously (some things never change); and I (Dan) continue full-time at ICF and have just started a part-time MBA program at GW focusing on environmental management. We're stressed, we're learning, we're busy, we're happy.

We wish you all only the best in the new year; if we haven't been in touch with some of you since last year's tardy annual message, we love you all the same and look forward to catching up soon!!!
Much Love, Dan and Sarah (Sarah and Dan)

January, 2004 - As usual we're both a a few steps behind and a bit late in our New Year's well wishes. Of course an actual holiday card is a lot more personal, but there are never enough hours in the day (and, frankly, the idea of a holiday greeting card conjures images of a dog and kids in front of the fireplace, and that's just not in our picture - at least not for a while). Some of you we see often and others of you are just too damn far away. Since the new year is that quintessential "get-in-touch" time, we hope our e-greeting finds you all sound, happy and healthy. Our year has been incredibly full. I can't believe all the places we've been and all the things we've done. In the past year we've skied the alps, eaten huge quantities of seafood (and bull's tail, and pigs ears), drank even larger quantities of wine, perfected the art of teaching the present perfect verb tense (I think I still remember), protested against our president, exchanged wedding vows at the Cape house, camped out next to (or was it on?) an airport runway in Seville, danced Sevillanas (Flamenco) at 5:00AM, kayaked to our own little island in Maine, learned how to write a paper again and relive school stress (yes, both of us--Dan is Editor in Chief for everyone in school in DC [as a matter of fact, Dan is editing this letter as well as adding the odd dictum]), re-accustomed ourselves to buying coffee "to go", and taken several five-minute plane rides. It's been an exciting year to say the least. For almost all of it we have been incredibly happy and blissfully broke.

Although we miss Spain constantly DC is treating the married Sarah and Dan (i.e., Dan and Sarah) well. We're now used to saying the words husband and wife (but it still sounds very strange in Spanish), and we're all settled into our new apartment in what we think of as the burbs (almost rural) after living in Sol, but at least some people consider urban. After the center of Madrid, only New York actually feels like a city. Everything else feels like a large town. I've been working back at AIR about 25-30 hours a week and studying part-time. Of course God forbid I get to used to anything and actually develop a routine... I've decided to leave my current job and move to the university where I'll collect qualitative data for an education project and they will pay for tuition (yeah!). I'll pick up another class too with the idea that the more I suffer, the faster I'll be done. And I (Dan) am back at ICF full-time and enjoying it part-time. I'm doing some good work, though, and am taking math classes for the hell of it while motivating myself to apply to some grad program or another (SAIS if I get my act together quickly), and trying to hone in on my career goals. Two steps forward and .. .

We rang in the New Year in the town of Salisbury, Dominica (dahmenEEHkah) with Mom (Gertrud), Dad (Larry), Lars and Jonathan - aka the Lieberman Family - at a local bar called the Hot Pot. Reggae music, drunk and high locals who passed out well before the New Year, fried fish, a pair of Flemish guys, and us. The stars were brilliant, the music loud, the people friendly, and the rum incredibly cheap (and STRONG). So, in a nut shell, we're still living an exciting crash-and-burn lifestyle (Sarah - the stress-case in the relationship - more than Dan, but you all knew that already) and are enjoying the continuous risks, travels, hard work and love. We hope this letter finds you well and we wish you all a wonderful New Year filled with lots of laughter, good food, and happy memories. Drop us a line at home 301-654-0261 or an e-mail (dlieberman@alumni.brandeis.edu or sarahmushlin@hotmail.com or any other address you have!).

And, for our wedding pictures or our recent adventures in Dominica, see it all up on the web! If you've already seen the wedding pictures up there, there are some new additions, so check it out!

Hugs and Kisses from DC,
Sarah and Dan

24 Mar, 03 - It's amazing how completely aginst war the entire country of Spain is. .

The big news today, on the political front, is that the ruling party, the PP, has blocked the unanimous congressional decision to prohibit the US's usage of Spanish bases and air space. Not only is the public demonstrating its discontent through both violent demonstrations and peaceful protests in the street (request gory details if you want them); the senate floor is also awash in the tattoo drum of "No a la guerra!" The sole political voice of concurrence with the American plans for war is unfortunately also that with veto power and the final word - President Aznar and his entourage.

Though I'm not personally witnessing the British populace's reaction to the outbreak of this war, it seems that this member of the triumvirate of war (the US, Britain, and Spain) is also by majority oppposed to it. I base this assumption on the largest manifestations in Britain's history having taken place in London recently, as well as on the fact that three ministers of Britih parliament resigned last week in portest at Mr. Blair's decision to follow the US-led war.

So this is the sentiment on the European side of the pond. How are things in the New World? "Old Europe," as I've heard it's been called by certain members of Mr. Bush's administration (regardless of apologies, you said it) is, from my perspective, looking more modern, more conscious, and less backward every despite the presence of bidets in the bathrooms. Can anyone put my mind at ease?

23 Jan, 03 - Life is simple in Spain. My previous e-mails, letters, notes, and rambles have all been about the late nights, the inebriated state in which I so often find myself on Saturday night / Sunday morning, usually in a gutter or drainage ditch, but now I'm pensive (a state often also induced by aforementioned stupification, though I'm perfectly sober).

Last night Sarah and I came in from a long day of work. We'd worked our usual 8am to 8.30pm Wednesday of teaching all over the metropolitan area - meaning an hour and a half of class followed by near the same amount of travel to get to another class. Usually I arrive a few minutes early and realize I'm in the wrong building or have mistaken the day. I then show up to the correct class (doubtless before the Spanish students even though I'm half an hour late) in time to ask them about their weekends before I pack up, ask them to sign a form (proving their attendance if not my own) and shuffle out the door to repeat the whole thing in getting to my next class. By the time the day is done I realize I've forgotten to eat again that day, and that my belt has run out of holes to offer me (meaning I've cinched it one notch smaller each week and now it's time for a smaller belt).

Through my loss of weight since I've arrived, I've managed to revive MC Hammer styles, though I still don't have the dance down right. My students like me, I found out today. I met another English teacher at the bus stop outside a bank at which I'm now teaching classes who remarked snidely, "Oh, you're Daniel." I didn't quite now how to respond to that, except to say that yes, I was. Apparently work had gotten around and filter not only through the employees but also the other English teachers that I was 'the good one'. I thought to myself that it wasn't that hard, considering all I do is sit down in an armchair and speak very slowly about mind-numbing topics for an hour and a half (having the same conversation, mind you, that I've been having with other groups for two or three days), but of course I didn't say this. "Huh," I managed to say.

Ah. . . about life being simple, because that was my point. . . upon coming home last night Sarah and I remarked how amazing it was that we had no sliced bread, no central heat, no microwave, no stereo, and (please sit down) no home theater. (A particular disturbing fact for many of you, I know!) As a matter of fact, we have none of these things in our apartment at all, which is not to say that they don't exist in Spain, because they do - even if only for a slight premium - but we've managed to get on quite well - even easily - without them. Oh yes, and no gas or oil. Our electric hot water heater holds 150 liters of hot water, all of which is depleted after I take a wonderfully steamy and relaxing 8 minute shower in the morning. I know this because Sarah takes very quick, cold showers after me in the morning. I have a feeling she's going to catch on soon, if for no other reason than that she will receive this e-mail.

Despite all the things missing from our lives, it seems the hole that the entertainment center used to fill in our lives in Washington, DC has been filled by a sense of completion received by absolutely nothing. Maybe it doesn't make sense, but the routine that we've fallen into here is comfortable in its simplicity. I think I remember what the 27-inch TV looked like, but I really don't miss it much. The lack of this makes going to the movies that much more special; not having a microwave means I cook more often (even if I eat less); and even though the aparment is freezing cold during these winter months with only one small, electric space heater, that place under the covers is so warm and comfortable to share - that is when I'm not playing tug-of-war with the sole blanket and pillow and fighting to remain on the mattress.

Well, I'm off to class (and I just realized I forgot to eat lunch. . . )