the sound of green

The windows of the apartment next to ours are covered with foil. Initially there was one piece of aluminum covering the gap between two perpendicular venetian blinds, something that while semi-amusing, wasn’t all that out of the ordinary or explainable. Today however, the entire inside of the windows is covered with foil. It’s pressed right up against every single edge, right into the corners, and smoothed against the glass. All light from inside is blocked from spilling out; all light from outside is stopped from entering the room.

Seeing this, our curiosity is piqued. Discussing what it could be, we have a few laughs about the possibilities. Nothing more is thought about it, however, and we head down to the pool for an evening swim before dinner. The water is brilliantly warm, and it’s not long before the water is warmer than the breeze coming in off the water. Beth jumps out, having had enough of the water, and heads up to the apartment before returning with a laugh.

It turns out that the guests in the apartment next to us are visiting from the UK. The lady from that apartment met Beth outside the doors, wanting to explain the slightly weird use of foil. They’re a film crew for a television show back in Britain, a show that airs during the day there. They’ve been crossing live to the crew next door to us during the show, which due to the time differences turns out to be in the middle of the night our time. The foil, as the lady explains, is so that they can sleep during the day to be awake on London time for the show. There’s something to be said for traveling and working in such a manner. For starters, there would be no requirement to adjust yourself to the local time zone and enduring jet lag. No struggling to sleep, or struggling to wake up at odd and ridiculous hours. No return jet lag once you got home either. The only issue with that would be being able to isolate yourself enough from the local time zone, so that your body wouldn’t start adjusting by itself. You’d have to completely block out all outside light sources, and restrict yourself to only going outside in such a way that would be in fitting with the time zone you are continuing to exist in, even though you are on the other side of the world.

Turns out, covering your windows with aluminum foil and speaking to your neighbours after dark isn’t such a stupid idea after all.