Since we moved here two and a half years ago, we wanted to go somewhere nearby for vacation, since we didn’t know how long we’d be living here.  We’re finally doing it.

We’ll be vacationing in Paris for the week of Thanksgiving.  Chickpea has already made a list of things we’ll be doing — visiting Madeline is one of them.  I hope she’s not disappointed.

Truth be told, we just knew we wanted to go somewhere.  We need to renew our visas around then, and Paris was the cheapest flight from our city.  And then we found very reasonably-priced housing — an apartment in the center of the city.  That means we won’t need to rent a car to do things, and we can cook two out of three meals from the kitchen.  Well, who are we kidding — we’ll probably eat pain au chocolat every morning for breakfast as we walk by the neighborhood patisserie.  We’ve been saving every last penny from the blog‘s income, so we now think we can do this frugally.

And since it’s late November, it’ll probably be cold and rainy.  But hey, Paris is Paris, right?  To thank the kids for seeing the Mona Lisa, hiking down the Champs Elysees, and pondering the thoughts of Rodin, we’ll probably end the trip by visiting Tinker Bell and spinning teacups.  It’s a tacky thing to do in France, but not when half of you is under four.

I seriously cannot wait.

Today is the first day of Ramadan, where Muslims worldwide begin 30 days of fasting from dawn until dusk.  You can learn more about it here — it’s an excellent site.

Ramadan (like all Muslim holidays) follows a lunar calendar, so the exact dates of the 30 days changes from year to year.  For the next few years, it will be during the summer, which has the longest days of the year and some pretty hot temps.

As we watch our neighbors abstain from food, drink, and tobacco, letting their bodies go into withdrawl from caffeine and cigarettes, I wonder how they do it.  It’s documented here that there are many more traffic accidents around 5 p.m. during Ramadan, when people are rushing to get home from work and break the fast.  I can’t imagine what it will be like this time of year, when the sun sets around 8:30.

Traditionally, there’s a man in each neighborhood that will go around, banging a (very) loud drum just before sunrise, encouraging people to wake up and take one last bite.  They’re officially illegal, and thankfully, our neighborhood has a tight reign on its prohibition.  We have other expat friends in the city, however, who have their own personal drummer right outside their window, waking them from a deep slumber.  At the end of the 30 days, he goes from door to door, asking for a tip. For the sleep deprivation.

Be thinking of 20% of the world for the next month.

It’s been well over 100 degrees this past week.  In fact, several days have hovered around the 109-110 range.  This means we’ve been running our two A/C units most of the day, and needing them to sleep at night.

When Garbanzo started getting heat rash just from sleeping at night, we felt guilty enough to start letting the kids sleep in our room.  It’s one of the two rooms that have an A/C, so we dragged Chickpea’s trundle mattress next to our bed, and set up the Pack-n-Play at the foot of our bed.  If you saw how tiny our master bedroom is, you’d laugh at the sight of this.  We’ll pretty much be having a giant slumber party the rest of the summer.  Or at least until the temp drops below 90.

Our bedroom, without the two extra beds.

So to add to the fun, our electricity went out today.  We opened the front door and saw that the building’s hall lights were on, so that meant it was just our place.  Great.  Kabob loaded up the kids, and the three of them headed to the electrical company.

It was Friday at noon.  Oops.  The offices are closed for break and for prayer.  So they puttered around until 1:30ish, when the offices opened again.

We have automatic payment from our local bank account here, but that’s the only thing we use this account for.  Every month, we transfer money from our American bank into this one, just enough to pay all our bills.  It’s never been a problem.  But this month, they decided to just not withdraw the money for the bill.

They gave us a notice in our mailbox that we hadn’t paid yet.  At the same time, they turned off the electricity.  Kabob saw the notice as he was leaving with the kids, so he knew exactly what was going on.

So he stood in line, paid the bill in cash to the lady at the window, while I stayed home and read while my feet were dipped in the kiddie pool.  Oddly, it was cooler outside, in the plus-100 degree heat, than it was inside.

About an hour ago, they turned the electric back on.  So no longer are we sweating just from sitting on the couch.

That’s today so far.  Wonder what else is around the corner?