A foreigners stories during Ramadan, edition 2

So again Ramadan Kareem to everyone (meaning generous Ramadan....so I have no idea why they are using it, but why not :P) even to our cosmopolitan Karuna :P
(yeah, I'm reading comments and I appreciate each one of them!!! So keep on commenting).

This week turned out to be passing muuuuch slower than usual weeks did in the past three months. But in terms of things to consider it's been a busy week. Fasting for the first day was actually horrible, I was only not whining in order not to loose face (as only foreigners complain and I also approached Ramadan as a way of integration). Eftar was actually a relief on the first day (Eftar or Ftur is the dinner during Ramadan...dinner or THE meal - and the time to drink water and everything your find, hehe, again).

So I honestly started to think on what to change. Quiting was not an option (anyone who knows me also knows why it was not an option....simply I'm too proud sometimes to give it up, or you can also call it stubborn :P). So I rather tried to remember some practices from my era of active sports (that around 12 years of Kung-Fu) on how to handle high physical pressure, drop of blood sugar, lack of liquid. Well, old practices are not bad practices, so they are still working. And also the principle: if your physical stress times change, change your routine - has helped me. So after the first day of battle I became more conscious of how to handle the situation and it is working, the last two days are totally ok...I'm not meaning awesome, but definitely giving me the chance to enjoy, not just survive Ramadan. I don't know how much time now I have to write the blog post, so for sure now I give you a snapshot of my daily routine what I developed...and if not now then in the next posts I will tell how is the experience and how people change during Ramadan (because they do change a looot!). So this is how a day looks like (focusing on keeping work productivity, work life balance, and healthy food and drinking :P ):

1. Waking up at 9:30 - not eating, but having a shower, which helps to wake up and handle the situation and start working at 10 am
2. Finish work at 4 pm - meanwhile I have normally meetings and as any normal working day
3. Have a sleep from 4-6 pm - you are just simply getting tired, not necesseraly feeling bad...you just feel your brain slowing down
4. Eftar/Ftur - 7 pm - eat, as you did not eat the whole day (because you did not :P )
5. Work again from 9-11 or 12 pm - just to keep up the 8/9 hours working day (or if I skip it for a hang out or something)
6. Eat a breakfast type fo meal at midnight
7. Sleep from midnight till 4 am
8. 4 AM waking up to eat and drink, before sunrise....this is rather the usual dinner size meal, with around 1 liter of water pushed down my throat
9. Sleep from 5-9:30

So as you see my principles were not to give up life as it would be normal, just with different routine. And definitely keep drinking at least 2 liters or more a day (night) and also to eat 3 normal meals daily (nightly :P). With this it became truly manageable...and I'm actaully now complaining less than locals, and not because of hiding it :P

And how is it, not just the routine building, but how people change, how an Eftar look like? Let's leave topics for the next post (and ensure that I keep my audience waiting for the next post, hahhahaaaa).