Foiled!

Well blog-readers/loved ones, I've decided that instead of the haphazard Tuesday-Thursday blog posting, I'll try to post a small anecdote every day, keeping, of course, the longer updates with pictures for Tuesday and Thursday. I'm not journaling by hand so much any more, so I figure that this method will work well to preserve my experience and the small things that humor me. So here is today's anecdote.

This morning, Jarrod and I needed to visit an ATM to get our rent money for the month. We were going down in the elevator when suddenly, it just shuddered and came to a halt, right between two floors. Jarrod punched at the buttons. Nothing.

Elevators are different here than in the US. If you ever saw Titanic, maybe you'll know what I mean. Here, there are two metal grates that you pull open and shut. If you forget to close the elevator grates, the "In Use" button by the door lights up and no one else can use the elevator.

So we could clearly see that we were stuck. We had been warned before that there were sometimes power cuts during which the elevator wouldn't work, and I had thought that the chance of getting stuck in the elevator when the power was cut was fairly slim, yet here we were. Except that the elevator light was still on, and we could run the fan...

It was funny though. I felt like we had been caught trying to escape or something. I had no idea how long we would be in there. I had visions in my mind of people going up and down the steps and staring at us as they passed.

Luckily, Jarrod had his phone. We called Amit, our landlord, and told him we were stuck between two floors. The outer grate was locked, so we couldn't get out on our own and hop down; fortunately, he had a key to the grate, so he got the doorman to cut off the power to the elevator (because indeed, there had been no power cut) and let us out.

Amit said the elevator had been acting strange recently, and that it had probably just gotten off its track or something. He's going to call the elevator maintanance man; meanwhile, we'll be using the stairs for the next several days.

--Emily

P.S. The wedding last night was awesome, and I took a lot of pictures, bonus! So look forward to that.