Good God, what has happened to that wild and crazy Vienna ID gang? What's all this talk of grandchildren and retirement? And who the hell said I was allowed to turn 50 a week from Saturday?! Where will it all end?

We are literally going in circles here. Since I last updated, we inventoried all of our belongings (this is not a pretty activity), flew to Washington DC (and were visited by exactly none of you, BTW), were sworn into the Foreign Service by Condi Rice (you may now address me as Madame Vice Consul), flew back to Frankfurt (thanks to having a German husband and speaking fluent German), moved across town (to live in a weird compound with 750 American families), and Frank continues to work for IBM in Frankfurt. I still sit at an interview counter 8 hours a day asking the same five questions over and over. I hand my applicants a visa instead of a boarding pass to travel to the U.S.A. With only six weeks of immigration law training you, too, can graduate from check-in agent at the airport to vice-consul at the U.S. Department of State. And it only took me fifty years to figure this out.

2007 is going to be our year for the great escape from central Europe. We'll find out this summer where we'll be heading next. We're hoping for India or China, both of which are high on Condi's "transformational diplomacy" list. Mostly we see them as opportunities for Frank to continue to be employed by IBM. He got his green card in April and is currently working on expedited U.S. citizenship. This gives him that all important diplomatic immunity as long as he's traveling under my assignment orders.

We made it up to Berlin over Christmas and had a mini-Vienna ID reunion: Mike Blake, Sara Taylor, the Cellars, and me. For me and Frank, it was another kind of special reunion. Sara is the one who introduced us at her infamous beach party in Montpellier in 1992. We hadn't seen her in too many years to even count. Suffice it to say, we were still celebrating single digit anniversaries the last time we met.

Frank and I are still hiking the soles off our boots. We go every weekend and are working on our 2,000 kilometer award. Too bad we're so far from Vienna. We'd love to meet up with Snappy once in a while. (If any of you talk to him, send him our regards.)

The clock is ticking on our time in Frankfurt. If you fly through the airport here, we live a ten-minute drive away and have a guest room. (They haven't installed the bugging devices yet, so you can still enjoy a measure of privacy.)

I miss you all. It's amazing how many times in a month I catch myself referring to the time in Vienna.

Stephanie

P.S. Rick, Norm St. Clair was busy planting a vineyard in San Antonio, Texas, the last I heard from him. Could be a niche market in Paris.