The movers took all of our earthly belongings away today to be shipped to Saudi Arabia (we'll probably receive them in five or six months...). There were actually several more lift vans than these; this was just the first trip. I have moved house 13 times since my husband has been in the Foreign Service, and I still am not used to arriving at a new post, establishing a household and living there for three years -- making it our home -- only to have to pack up, sever all ties and move on to the next place. As I mentioned before, this is the hardest move I have ever had, perhaps because we lived in such a great place with such wonderful people.

Our household staff, who have been like family for the past three years, gave my husband and I T-shirts with the GPS coordinates of our home here printed on them. It was such a sweet thing to do, and naturally I started crying. I will never make it through the final goodbyes on Friday when we leave for the airport.