A Good Night's Sleep

I'm not sure I've had a full night's sleep since we arrived in Caracas.  This is of no real consequence, because I'm getting plenty of sleep and certainly plenty of rest.  We take cars to get nearly anywhere and I haven't joined a gym yet, so I'm hardly exhausted.  Still, 8 straight hours has been lacking for the past month or so.

At first, I simply couldn't get used to the bed.  The embassy furnishes our apartment, and also provides us with a "Welcome Kit" until our things arrive.  The bed is, well, not as comfy as my own bed.  And the sheets they provided, well, no one else in our family complained, but I thought they were scratchy.  Happily, my mom put some sheets in the mail and now I'm sleeping much better.

But last night was the picture of interrupted sleep.

4:00am - a buzzing in my ears
A mosquito has taken up residence in our home.  Or more likely, a mosquito has squatters rights in our home, probably having been here before we moved in.  For quite some time, poor Lilly would wake up covered in bug bights.  So we found a mosquito plug-in for her bedroom.  No more bug bites for Lilly.  But I awoke at 4:00am to a buzzing in my ears.  It took a few moments to realize that if I don't swat it, I'll awake later to bug bites all over my face.  Dave heard the buzzing, too, which is good because otherwise my mad thrashing at the pillow surrounding my face would have woken him.  The buzzing got quiet.  I got him, I thought.  Wide awake from the fight, I eventually fell back asleep.

4:45am - a buzzing in my ears
No way!  Wild thrashing.  This time, I woke up Dave.  The buzzing stopped, and didn't return.  Hopefully, the mosquito has been vanquished.

5:15am - loud squawking outside my window
We have wild parrots in our neighborhood.  If they ever get close enough, I'll snap a photo for you.  They squawk loudly every morning, but they seem to wake up just a bit after us so its no problem.  And parrots are interesting, so we don't mind.  But whatever was squawking at 5:15 was not nearly so interesting.  They was clearly a group of them, calling and responding to each other, following each other around so that their sounds would get louder and quieter.  They sounded like a dog's chew toy... a very, very loud chew toy.  And they went on for another 15 minutes or so.  During this time, I heard Annika crying.  They woke both Lilly and Sophia, but luckily they each went back to sleep.

6:20am - Dave's alarm goes off.
He goes back to sleep.

6:30am - My alarm goes off.
Dave gets up, so I go to wake up the girls.

8:00am - Everyone has left for the day. 
Annika is still sleeping and I'm hoping that I made this tea strong enough to get me through the morning.