Kabul

I got a different feeling today when I heard the news about the attacks on our Embassy in Kabul.  I was sitting behind bullet proof glass, assisting an American who had had her passport stolen and needed an emergency replacement to get  back to the US.  Beside me was a Foreign Service Officer who had spent the previous year in Kabul.  She has volunteered to go back to Kabul for her next assignment and the Department has taken her up on her willingness to serve there.  Somebody comes up to her and whispers in her ear.  I hear a gasp, turn and look at her computer which now displays the news.  My thoughts go immediately to a man who was in my Consular General class at FSI this summer.  After we graduated he was taking leave because his second child was due in a week.  Sometime in September he was scheduled to head to Kabul.  I don't know if he is there or not.  But I do know that he volunteered for that assignment.

I'm not headed to a danger post.  My Temporary Duty Assignments are not meant to be in hardship posts.  Unless I make the switch and try to join the Foreign Service, I won't be serving in those places that today are considered danger posts.  But I am surrounded by people who have been and will be assigned or will volunteer to serve in those places.  My admiration for them has only increased these weeks that I have been in a pretty hardship-free post.

Anyway, the day was somber with folks asking, "have you heard..."  The diplomatic community is small and somebody will know somebody who was  there and might be affected.  My thoughts and prayers so out to the families of our military and diplomats who serve our great country -- no matter who is President, or what their individual political leanings might be.  They have answered the call to serve.
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Off my soap box...Yesterday after work I decided to take one more of the London Walks.  This one was called Old Westminster by Gaslight.  I got on bus #159 at Marble Arch, just a few blocks from the Embassy.  The route took me to Oxford Circus, down Regent Street to Piccadilly Circus, Haymarket, Trafalgar Square and the Horse Guards to Westminster.  I arrived 45 minutes before the tour started.  Around the Horse Guards stop I had seen a block looking statue in the median so I went to explore.  I found my favorite statue/memorial yet -- the Women of World War II Memorial. 

The concept is brilliant and the execution is stunning.  It is evocative of women, and all the roles that they played/lived during the War.   I love the welder's helmet figure.  And I appreciated that there aren't any eyes.  Sometimes looking at the eyes on statues creeps me out because they seem so vacant to me.  This had the benefit of not having any facial features at all.  I walked back and forth on both sides of the road, trying to get every silhouette and take it in.  If I have time,  I will go back, just to see it one more time.

Also, I had enough time to circle around Parliament Square and get a look at the buildings -- Whitehall, the Methodist Church, a modern building whose name and function I can't remember, but was the location for all the media during the wedding in April of Will and Kate, the Supreme Court, Westminster Abbey, Church of St. Margaret and the Palace of Westminster including Big Ben.  The inside of the Square is under repair, so you can't get a look at all the statues.  But I did see Lincoln, Mandela, Peel, and Churchill.

We met up at 7:00 at the Westminster tube stop, exit 4.  From there we walked past the Palace of Westminster to Westminster Abbey.  We couldn't go inside as it was after visiting hours, but we got a chance to look at the outside and hear about the construction of the main buildings that make up the Square.  We continued on around the Abbey, by Dean's Yard, around to the other side of the Yard, and then up some streets where the original early 1700 row houses still stand.

By this time, it was quite dark and the gas lamps were lit, fulfilling that part of the tour advertisement.  We got to St. John's and then turned back to the main street, pass the Jewel Tower.  That marked the end of the tour.  This walk didn't cover as much ground as the others, but the guide knew so much about the history of the buildings that we lingered at every stop we made.  I'm glad I didn't wait another week to take the tour, as it was, the last 45 minutes were pretty dark.  We could see the features our guide pointed out, but the finer building details were lost due to the lack of light.

For those who wanted, our guide escorted folks into the Parliament so that they could see the government in action.  By then I was tired, a bit cold from the whipping wind, and wasn't up for going through security.  I skipped out and took bus #453 back to Baker Street.

If I had had a tripod, this last shot of the night would have been really nice, I think.  Instead they are a little blurry.  The full moon is a little hard to make out. But the night time lights made the buildings seem magical to me.