The good, the bad, and yes, sometimes a little ugly....

....of living in a non-insulated concrete block apartment.

I'm a positive person, so I'll start with the good. Of course, I had to think about it a little while. Oh, yes, there is some good. During the winter, when I'm baking, I don't have to wait very long at all for the food to cool after taking it out of the oven. And you can leave food out for a lot longer before it goes bad. Hmmm, what else? OK, when it's 70 degrees outside, but only 50 degrees or so inside, it forces us to open up all of our windows which then allows us to hear our cute neighbor kid singing and trying to play a guitar.

So then there's the bad. Brrrr! You must wear socks and slippers at all times in the winter (cold floors). When getting ready to go out, we sometimes bundle up quite a bit, only to realize once we are outside that it's not really that cold at all, it's just our apartment. When it rains, we get nice little leaks through the walls and the ceiling, which, if not dried out, leads to some serious mold.

There's really only one thing I can think of that makes it on the ugly list......freezing cold toilet seats. I think that says it all. Yikes.

We really do love our apartment and are so thankful for it! AND, we have lovely new heaters for the winter that really make a difference. So this year, maybe we won't have to see our breath in the air while cooking over the stove!

Payin' bills

I think I've mentioned earlier that people don't have mailboxes at their homes here. The government just recently (in the last year) began to put numbers to mark addresses on the buidlings! And of most of the friends here I ask, a lot will have a P.O. box but will rarely check it for mail. They mostly just receive bank statements now and then.

So how do we get all of our important mail like bills, and advertisements, and coupons??? On the front door of the building, of course! That little bundle of paper in the door in the picture above is a collection of electric bills for all of the apartments in our building. It comes faithfully every month and our landlord hand delivers the bills to us, commenting on how much our bill has increased or decreased over each period. She will also comment on the other tenants bills to us occasionally. Gossip is pretty much a part of life over here.

Oh, and don't worry about the other important documents. We get fliers and coupons galore littered around our door and entrance to our apartment building daily.

Welcome to the Third Grade

We recently started learning how to read and write in Arabic in our lessons. It is amazing how your brain can learn to pronounce words you don't fully understand from letters that are completely different from the letters you know and help you make sounds that you've never heard before. But it takes a lot of work. Thankfully, our language tutors are patient.

We started reading out of these children's school books to practice. We have recently graduated from the 2nd grade level to the 3rd. But I realize how painful it must be for out tutor to listen as we slowly and clumsily make our way through each sentence, butchering most of the words and their beautiful language. But hey, we're just happy that we can read a license plate now on the cars in front of us!

I know, the picture is sort of blurry, but this is what we can read now.

Chili's in the Middle East

Ahh, it's the little things in life and here in the ME that make us happy. Like the Chili's that opened this July. We were warned, "Go to eat there as much as you can the first 4-6 weeks it is opened, because it will only go down-hill after that."

So we went to Chili's a few times in July and August but we haven't been back since...until last night. We are trying to get some good date nights in before the arrival of Baby R and Daniel is always wanting to go to Chili's. We met up with a couple of friends and settled in for some chips and salsa (Chili's is the only place we've found that serves them in the city), some good burgers, and a familiar atmosphere.

I must say, when you walk in to the Chili's here, it looks like you could be at any Chili's in the states. It has the exact same artwork, pictures on the walls, everything is similar---except for the arabic writing in the menus. So it definitely makes us feel at home.

As soon as we settled in, our waiter came by to say hello and tell us what items would not be available that evening. He then proceeded to flip through all the pages of the menu and listed about half of each page as he went. Only a few appetizers were available, NO burgers or steaks (must be a cow shortage), only a couple of chicken items could be scrounged up, and of course, the famous molten chocolate cake was temporarily unavailable as well. Hmmm. I have a feeling that this wouldn't happen in Chili's across America.

The bad news didn't spoil our night, though. We happily munched on way too many chips with salsa, quesadillas, and the rest of the available appetizer menu. The date night was successful, we'll just have to go back another day for those burgers. Mmm.

FYI

Many people have asked us about the hospital where we're planning on having the baby. I thought it would be best to post some pictures so everyone could see what it looked like. I was afraid some people might be worried that we were going to be having this baby out in the desert with camels walking by. Our friend Shelly had a little girl this week so we had a perfect opportunity to take some shots of the rooms.

Most of the rooms have a second door going in to a parlor or receiving room so men and women can visit separately.

People go all out here when babies arrive. Just look what they can do with balloons! Most doors will also have a huge balloon arch in front of them. Oh, and then there's also the GIANT flower bouquets.
Daniel's favorite thing, the flat screen t.v. There is even one channel on the t.v. that allows you to watch your baby in the nursery.
Giant bathroom!!
The reception area. This is a specialty hospital for birthing and is one of the best of its kind in the Middle East. So, see, no camels, no desert. We're in good hands over here!