Friday, January 28, 2005

Jack Frost's Cousins

We always thought it was a joke, that people brought the cold with them, but certain events here have led us to believe that it may in fact be true. To begin with the hot water heater in our new apartment died. That wasn’t our fault, it was old and having problems anyway and it needed to be repaired. We spent our evenings unpacking in the cold Tunisian winter weather. Now you Canadians out there who think I’m joking when I say cold and Tunisia in the same sentence, don’t be fooled. It drops to between 0 and 5 degrees in the winter and the buildings here have no insulation, none, not even a couple of sheets of newspaper, so the temperature outside is the temperature inside.

The joked that we brought the cold to the apartment and we joked that we would just eat some blubber and suck it up. It was so cold, though, that we needed to spend a couple more nights at our host’s place basking in the warmth of their hot water heaters.

A couple of days later, for the first time in remembered history, it snowed in Ettadamen (pronounced ‘tadamen) where Enda is headquartered. My coworkers flocked to the window and joked that I had brought them snow from Canada. When the excitement died down they went back to their workstations in their scarves and winter coats to work in the 0 degree offices as best they could.

The next night, though was the final coup. We returned to our host’s place to find one of their interior radiators leaking hot water and the heating tank loosing pressure. They told us it might get cold in the house but that they could have it fixed on the weekend.

That was the last straw. Now we’re wondering if cold runs in the blood of all Canadians or if our auras have a temperature issue.

3 Comments:

At 12:02 a.m., Blogger Aryn said...

That's pretty funny :D ...at least from my perspective. Let me know if it gets too dry and I'll bring some rain from the coast ;)

On the topic of insulation: it isn't just that the wood framed buildings there don't have any insulation - traditional masonry actually has poor insulative value too. Masonry is good at leveling out temperature swings (like from day to night) but poor at insulating. Fun facts from the building geek :D

 
At 2:42 a.m., Anonymous Anonymous said...

Blessed by SNOW! That is marvelous! At home in Vernon, we are sitting at 9 degrees celsius! Hee Hee!
Much warmer than where you are! As a matter of fact, I was walking around with just a fleece on, and the house is warm too!

Love you and miss you!
Mom

 
At 9:18 p.m., Blogger Lightfooted said...

oooh dear. too funny. I'm putting my money on your auras as this Canadian gal has been hoping for snow in London but to no avail.

keep up the good work.
Jodie

 

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