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No sense in burying the lead, so... I've decided to take my talents to South...America. (Ode to Lebron...although I don't like him.) Our next post with the Foreign Service will be a "Pol/Econ" tour in Montevideo, Uruguay. We are extremely excited and satisfied with this assignment. In fact it was our #3 (out of 30) post.  It actually is kind of our #2 choice as the first two were both in Lisbon, just with different arrival dates. (Since Portuguese helped me land the job in the first place, I would really like to use it some day!.) Montevideo looks great for so many reasons. It is a "Pol/Econ" job, meaning it is in my "cone", or career track. I'm a political officer doing a consular job this tour, so I am anxious to do the work I was primarily hired to do. Plus, I think I'll learn a lot in an interesting region.  Also, after studying the lovely yet challenging Nepali language, I really look forward to (re?)learning Spanish, which will hopefully open up more great jobs in the future. Since it is such an international language, I foresee more tours in Latin America...perhaps. Elyse will get to study it with me as well. And the Momo may even use it as a second language from an early age. How cool is that?  It will be nice to have another applicable skill, for all of us. As for the city and country itself, what can I say?  It just looks fantastic. We are loving our time in Kathmandu. Yet for all it possesses, it lacks certain things. One is fresh, clean air. Another is infrastructure. A final one is green space. All of which Montevideo appears have in spades. Or at least it has sandy-beach space, with a long walking/biking trail alongside. There are ocean and city beaches mere blocks from housing and the Embassy itself. Even I, as a pigmentally challenged American and avowed shade-seeker, can appreciate that. And the weather seems just about perfect. It sits at 35 degrees south longitude, same as N. Carolina in the northern hemisphere. Summers average in the low 80s, winters in the high 50s. Even my Floridian family can handle that. But no place is perfect. What Uruguay definitely lacks is mountains, so there will be no climbing or extreme trekking as we've been able to do in Nepal (kind of). Yet that is the beauty of this career. If you don't have it now, you may have it next time, whether that is in reference to the job itself at the Embassy/Consulate, or the city/country in which you live. So do some research on Montevideo and start making travel plans now. We arrive around mid-2014! I promise we will have room for many visitors. Not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, not seven. (Nope, still don't like Lebron.)