At Least The Cake Was Good.

Ah, another week approaches its end in Dushanbe. It was a bit of a dark start. On Monday, just after I woke up we lost power. Of course, the generator came on so I didn't think much of it. On the way to work, however, I noticed that all the lights were off. Street lights, traffic lights, you name it, off. Interestingly, people drive better here without traffic lights. Go figure. At work we learned that there had been a failure on a major transition line that caused all of the hydro plants to shutdown, leaving the whole country without power. Fortunately, they were much faster to fix that than my road and power was back on Monday night.

The weather didn't help with the darkness in the morning as it was still cloudy and rainy, but it did provide some interesting views as I could watch clouds pile up behind the hills across the road from the embassy and then spill over and down the slopes as fog. Pretty neat. Tuesday's weather was a complete opposite, with clear cold weather. I couldn't resist snapping a few more pictures from some other vantage points I've discovered. Now that the leaves are coming down, we can see the mountains pretty well from our house too. It's always a nice sight to see first thing in the morning.

On Tuesday night, unfortunately, I seem to have picked up some type of bug that kept me up most of the night and left me pretty exhausted on Wednesday, which fortunately was Veteran's Day so I was off. Wednesday was also Stephanie's birthday, so despite feeling pretty blah, I made Stephanie some chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. Steph was very understanding when I wasn't up to going for the walk we had planned. I tried to make up for it by spending plenty of QT, which is a very nice way to spend a birthday too. For dinner, I made salmon (we found it in the supermarket, vacuum packed and frozen!), spinach, and mashed potatoes. I was feeling a little better so I had some too. Then, after presents, I surprised her with the arrival of a group of our friends from the embassy who came over for cake and beer. We had a really good time and I think Stephanie had a great birthday.

Today seemed like a pretty good day. For one thing, my windshield didn't fog up on the way to work, (it does that in the morning since the defroster isn't currently working). Then, the second GSO arrived today, which will hopefully make work a lot more manageable. I was even feeling much better by the end of the day. But, as it so often happens, my day, which started out so well, didn't end that way.

Driving home, I went down the street where the president's house is because all of the normal ways are still blocked. I've been doing that every night with no problem. Well, there was a problem tonight. As I passed the house, some guards stepped out and pointed a gun at my car, so I erred on the side of caution and stopped and opened the door to talk. They explained that the road was forbidden. I feigned innocence. Apparently, I didn't show enough awe when they told me it was the president's house, because they tried to take my diplomatic credentials, which I didn't allow. Then we argued a bit as to whether I should continue on my way home (since I was already past the president's house), or if I should turn around and drive back past the house. Fortunately, someone with a wee bit more sense than the guards came out and told them to let me go ahead. Needless to say, it's no longer worth the hassle to go that route on the way home. That pretty much leaves driving over a sidewalk to get out of my neighborhood. But no one has pointed a gun at me for that yet so I suppose it will do.

Looking forward to a great weekend of car repair and the Marine Ball and of course, I'll tell you all about it.