Heat

by Amy

Brad is right...soon, I will post about our Christmas fun. But, I only have a few minutes now, so I wanted to tell you about our heater. We have radiators in every room that are 'turned on' on November 5 and 'turned' off sometime in March. This is the way it is in many homes all over our city. Now, if you know Brad and me very well, you know that we fairly warm natured, so not having control over our heat did not seem appealing. So, we talked to our apt. managers and told them we don't want heat this winter. They thought we were crazy! Our house-helper thought we were crazy, and our friends that translated for us also thought we were crazy.... We just couldn't see paying for heat, then opening the windows so it could escape. When it was all said and done, the apartment manager said we would have to pay 3000 local dollars if we wanted heat and 1000 if we didn't. Yes, you read that correctly....we still have to pay, even if we don't want it! That's crazy!

Well, having never lived here in the winter, and having so many tell us how cold it would be without heat, we decided to pay the 3000 local dollars. But, before we paid, we discovered the valve -- so we have the ability to turn our heat off and on. Most people do not have access to this valve in their home (so we've been told.) So, on Nov. 5 our heat cranked on, we quickly turned it off and opened the windows as it was a beautiful fall day. Since Nov. 5 the temperatures have easily fallen below freezing, but we have not turned our heat on ONCE. Our home is SOOO warm because we have 12 floors of heat cranking below us that we often have to open our windows to let their heat out. (Brad and I regularly sleep with our window open.) Even our house-helper and other locals have commented on how warm our home is. So, all this to say, we will save ourselves 2000 local dollars next winter!