Dark Ages

In Taiwan very few people live in individual houses like they do in Canada. Most of us live in apartments or complexs of some sort. In the common area or entry way to each building there are often signs put up indicating events that may affect the people in the building. Sometimes it is a notice of community holiday activities, sometimes it's building maintenance info, sometimes it's a sheet where everyone must write down the number on their gas meter etc. The catch for us non-chinese people is that they are always in Chinese. And although I can read the odd character I can't really put together a whole note so we just ignore them. Well there was a note this week....it said something about March 3 and that was all I saw. No biggie, right? Wrong, we were out until 1 am and when we got home the buildings on our street seemed really dark. Sure enough there was no electricity. We held hands and let each other up the stairs, then we stumbled through our apartment and finally crawled in to bed in the pitch black. It was strange...I'm a tech junkie (TV, computer) and the usual blinking lights weren't flashing. I felt so lonely. I also usually stay up later that Nevada but since I had no TV, no Xbox, no internet....and no lights to even read...I had nothing to do but get to bed. I don't know how they did it in the olden days!