Wintertime

So, it's winter now. Or so I've been told. I was informed of this fact several times last week. First when trying to get a bus home from Sidon. Here is a snippet of our conversation, translated for the benefit of my 2 readers.

"We need to get on the bus to Tyre. Where is it?"

"Bus to Tyre? There are no more buses to Tyre. It's 8.30 at night!"

"I know it's 8.30. That's why there should be buses still going. I've taken a bus from here at 10.00 at night. Why did the buses stop so early?"

"Because it's wintertime! In the winter, we stop the buses at 6.00."

Instead of a bus, we ended up catching a taxi home, which cost way more, but we were mildly entertained by the Elvis figurine hanging from the rear view mirror. Apparently, according to my very wise taxi driver, Elvis died of AIDS. I'm sure if I'd given him the chance, he would have told me how the Jews managed to infect him with the disease and cover it up so that no one could find out, but we made it home before he could get to that part of the story. Amazing how we did it without snow chains on the tires!

The other time I was told of the new season, was by friends of mine when I invited them to come swim with us at the beach. Their response: "WHAT?! You're swimming now? We never swim during October! You will catch a cold and DIE! Don't you know that it's winter now?"

Now I admit that I am not the world's expert on winter, having grown up on a tropical island that is as close to paradise as many people will ever get. But I did think that 25 degrees Celsius (the temperature seen on an outside thermometer) and 86 degrees Fahrenheit (the temperature on our car thermometer) still counted as pleasant weather. I mean, I get cold when I eat ice cream, and at this point I am only in need of a jacket when I get in the car with Scott and Emily. Their way of dealing with culture shock is to make the inside of the car resemble the climate of Alaska (their adopted home state) as much as possible. Usually, when I start being able to see my breath in the car, I politely ask them to turn down the air conditioning. But, in spite of my Emily Post approved etiquette, Scott always thinks it's hilarious to turn the air conditioning colder (I turned it down! Hahaha.). But if I ask him to turn it off, I get the same response. So, I think I'll just leave a blanket in the car from now on. It's always a good idea to have blankets in the car during the winter anyway.