The Birthday Present I DIDN'T Get and A Helpful Tip for Staying in New York City:

For some reason, I thought the Gods were going to shine down last week and force the housing person's hand in Brussels... to send an email to my husband... telling us where we are going to LIVE for the next two years. But, that didn't happen.

As I have done before, I am going to have to ask for a pass because I am naive and new to this whole process. I am just not accustomed to having so little control over my own life. I feel like I am a fish out of water... with no fishbowl in sight. Of all the things I anticipated being problematic for me, this one is proving to be the most so. I need something to hold onto, especially since I have completely lost patience with the Oakwood and I am really hoping that our next "home" is a nicer, roomier and less "under construction" kind of place.

There are things that those of us in the Foreign Service come to see as "acceptable" that people in the outside world would find impossible and astounding. I think not knowing where exactly you will be living until a few days before you arrive is one of those things. Yeargh. I am sure everything will be fine and that we will end up in a place that is completely adequate, but it's just plain weird to play a passive role in all of this. This is especially true for me-- someone who reads the Real Estate section of the newspaper with a microscope and fantasizes endlessly about the home I will someday own. Even when we've rented apartments in the past, I have taken such care to imagine where the furniture will go, what plants I will grow, how I will lay out the kitchen to its best advantage. I want desperately to be able to think about our new home in Brussels in this way.

I am hoping that writing this blog will spur some kind of celestial action...

Moving on, we went to the NYC area this weekend to celebrate my mother in law's birthday. We decided a month or so ago that given the size of our family, we needed to get a hotel room. The party being in Brooklyn, we tried first to find a hotel there, but were met with one figurative "no vacancy" sign after another. There was some event in Brooklyn that had claimed every room. Of course, Manhattan hotel rooms are completely out of reach for an entry-level Foreign Service family. Having moved to Falls Church, VA from suburban NJ (yet another fiscal compromise!), I had an idea: a brand new W Hotel opened in Hoboken last year and the room rates were reasonable and the proximity to the city unbeatable.

This was our view during the day:


And this was our view at night:


And this was the view of a local t-shirt shop:

I didn't say it was without compromise, but they were well worth it. We had an incredible suite with an incredible view (as evidenced above) and we were just minutes from Manhattan and Brooklyn. I highly recommend this route for anyone looking to stay in the area who isn't able to drop a thousand bucks a night or who is unwilling (or unable) to squeeze into a sardine can.