Ramadan 2015, Day 4 – A Typical Ramadan Day

First I’d like to note that, I’m guessing because of Ramadan, the post “Varieties of Dates” is currently #1 on my blog. I guess a lot of people have been doing internet searches on date varieties trying to figure out what types of dates are good. Coincidentally I found another variety of date to try – Sukkary. I've updated the “Varieties of Dates” post for the new review.

Second, the 21st was the longest day of the year, which means it was the longest fasting day in the entire year. Glad to have made it through. It’ll only get easier from here (by a minute every day or so).

Thirdly, here’s a cool picture I took of the Moon with two planets, the brighter one is Venus, and just above the Moon is Jupiter. Just wanted to get that in here. Because of the dust, haze and light pollution it's difficult to see stars so I knew something was up when I could see two "stars" near the Moon. Credit to the Star Walk app for showing me what they were, it’s a cool app if you’re into astronomy.

Okay let’s move on from posts talking about me being tired and hungry. Some people have asked me how different Ramadan is from usual days. I suppose if you're not a fasting Muslim it is not a huge change. Not being able to eat or drink in public during the day, and having all of the restaurants closed during the day, is probably the biggest shift. Some would also point out that the traffic timings are a change as well. There’s a rush hour now around 2pm and traffic is pretty bad well into the wee hours. You also need to be careful driving on the roads close to iftar time as the roads can be full of many drivers in a rush to get back home to break the fast -- drivers who are probably very tired and who have not had anything to eat or drink all day, which can make the roads more erratic than crazy than usual.

Though I’m fasting it’s not all excitement, here’s what my day was like yesterday:

12:30-1:00am -- go to bed
2:45am -- wake up and eat sohour
3:10am -- back to bed (zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz)
7:50am -- get up (this can take up to 20 minutes), shower and go to work
9:00am – arrive at work
2:00pm – leave work
3-ish pm – nap time
5 pm -- wake up, do some chores at home or use the internet (such as for daily blog posts)
6:00 pm – prepare/cook iftar
6:25 pm – iftar
7:30 pm -- stop by a friend’s place to take care of their cat while they're away on vacation
8:30 pm – head to City Centre Mall for some grocery shopping and a snack.

I'll take this time to point out that Hamad Medical Centre has set up a number of mobile clinics in malls or various health screenings, sign-ups for organ donation, and in some cases might have blood donation facilities. Do check it out if you see one.

11:00 pm -- time for some exercise so I decided to walk down to the Souq. How crowded is it after 11 on a weekday?

Yep, pretty crowded.

And that's a typical day, I wouldn't be home for my walk till maybe 12:30 am, at which point I get my sohour ready and go to bed.


Nothing wild, the sleep times are a bit off the norm but for the most part a fairly typical day.