1st Week Impressions

As I sit here typing away, the sound of the call echoes off the hills and through the neighbourhood to where I am staying. Our 4^th floor ( which is really 5^th floor… depending on how you count) apartment has a wonderful view of the hills behind the city and I just love standing out on our small balcony at this time of the evening soaking in the atmosphere.

The view from our balcony

Its one week since we arrived in this crazy city where the cars drive through the night. What are my first impressions( well, “first week impressions”)? Well, people are indeed friendly as we were told, things are relatively expensive as we were also told ( although working in 2 currencies makes it hard to fully understand what is normal price and what is not!), traffic is also horrendous –again, we were told- but it is not as warm as I thought. True, days get up around 30-35C but actually, once the sun dips past the 3pm mark, things start to be nice… right now I’m guessing its about 27C and at about 7pm for me, that is just lovely.

And yes, the punctuality of the energy company is astounding… contrary to yesterday when the power went off at 2pm and came back on at 6pm, today, it seems we had power from 2pm until 6pm… so now, its sadly just our back up running. BUT on the dot ( and ironically just minutes after Martin proclaimed he was going to do a load of laundry), the power shuts off at 6pm. Perhaps there is some sort of pattern to it all, like every other day in 4 hour slots, but then, we have been told that as the weather gets cooler, there is less strain on the main grid, so, the cuts will be more infrequent. THAT is a good thing- although it doesn’t make too much difference when you spend most of the day out at meetings. That was the case today which is unfortunate as just as we arrive home we are without mains power. But C’est la vie I think here! Just get used to it ;)

I’ve managed to get some photos.. nothing too impressive but just a taste J