Now that the dust has settled over the last 48 hours, we thought we’d give you a few more details on Bern.

We will be leaving Bogota in October 2009, be taking about a month and a half of home leave (mandatory vacation), going to D.C. where we’ll study German, and then arriving in Bern in June 2010. It’s strange that we still won’t be leaving for 11 months, and we won’t arrive at our next post for 21 months. We’re definitely excited about where we’re going, but we keep reminding ourselves that we won’t be going anywhere for a while. There is a lot of life to occur before we breath the fresh air of Switzerland.

My job at the embassy will be another consular tour. It will be similar to what I’m doing now, except for it will be on a much, much smaller scale. Currently I work at one of the world’s largest non-immigrant visa (NIV) posts (tourist visas, student visas, work visas, etc) with about 18-20 officers. In Bern, I’ll be the only NIV officer. Meaning, I’ll be a chief of 1. I’ll also be back-up to all the other consular operations, including immigrant visas (green card holders) and American Citizen Services (American deaths, births, passports, etc). I’ll also be reporting directly to the Consul General. I’m guessing I’ll also have a small staff of Swiss employees who will be working for me.

Kristen’s looking forward to the chocolate factory and being able to get out and about easier. (Currently, Bogota has increased its restrictions on our mobility because of security reasons.) We’re both looking forward to the fresh air and beautiful scenery (although Bogota and the areas outside of the city we’ve been to have been amazing as well). And I think we’re both looking forward to living in a small town. Bern only has about 120,000 people. We are excited that we will be able to hop on a train and get almost anywhere in Europe. Kristen has requested that we spend our 5th Anniversary in Paris. We will see about that. We will have to start saving now for all of the traveling we are hoping to do.

We realized recently that during our “Where in the Word” game, Bern was actually the first clue we posted. Kristen said it was because she just felt like that would be where we ended up. (She says it’s kind of like how people say the first wedding dress a girl tries on is typically the one she gets).

So, to all who guessed on that clue (Aunt Susie, Mom/Dad, Jonathan, Paul, and David/Judy by phone), go ahead and send us your travel dates and we’ll pencil you in! You get first dibs! Everyone else of course is welcome too!