Next Up: Atlanta

After three years with Peace Corps Panama, I'm finally back in the United States and excited for what's next... Moving to Atlanta!

While I was hoping to stay in the Southeast, where I moved post-Peace Corps depended completely on where I could find a great job.  I wanted to work in a pretty niche industry (marketing and business development for a direct trade, bean-to-bar chocolate maker), and I'm so, so happy to have found exactly that here in Atlanta.  

Starting in mid-September, I'll be the Marketing and Sales Coordinator for Xocolatl, a local bean-to-bar chocolate maker.  For the first few weeks I'll be getting to know all about their chocolates and chocolate making process by working in the first retail location in the Krog Street Market.  After that, I'm happy to put my marketing experience to use to help grow the business through restaurant and retail partnerships.  

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I really like working with the many different aspects of marketing and business development and enjoy being able to be productive with a variety of projects, so I'm especially looking forward to working in a small business environment.  To be able to have all of that AND within the exact niche market I was looking for means that I'm pretty much over-the-moon about this new job.  

Thanks to Facebook, I also found a pretty sweet house-sitting gig from now-the end of November.  So, in exchange for taking care of two sweet little cats, I have free rent for my first three months of Atlanta living.  

Those rent-free months will certainly come in handy as I have yet another big change- I bought a car! I had been debating on trading in my pre-Peace Corps car, but had yet to come to a decision when it was made for me- My car was totaled in a wreck a few weeks before I came home.  Though thankfully everyone is ok, the car was definitely not and I embarked on a uber-thorough internet search of safe, great-value cars.  The day after I arrived home from Panama my dad and I test drove the Subaru Forester and I fell in love.  

So, there you have it.  I'm home from Peace Corps and in a short few weeks my new Subaru will be taking me to Atlanta to start work at a chocolate shop!  I'm not yet certain about the long-term future of this blog, but since I enjoyed sporadic blogging before Peace Corps, I'll be continuing to write over the coming months.  I may not be able to post about my life in Panama anymore, but you can bet I still love to talk about Peace Corps, travel, chocolate, and my little Panamanian pup, Massy.