Fortunately our fire alarms in this house are hooked into the overall alarm system, and neither have the batteries go dead or keep going once you punch in the code. I note that there were standard fire alarms here once, but some previous occupant yanked them all down.
This still doesn't make up for the landlord's alarm that goes off whenever the power goes out. That's all it does; it's not hooked to anything else. What the purpose is, I don't know, but when it went off one night at 2:00 am, we yanked all the wires and life has been so much nicer. It's still loud in this apartment when it goes off in the rest of the building, but it doesn't make your ears bleed.
I'm so confused. I just got a call from the embassy saying we weren't supposed to pay the doctor or the midwife for the labor/delivery. The embassy pays for everything. The reason the hospital said we didn't owe anything and could just leave was because they were billing the embassy. Now, we've already submitted our claims and been reimbursed by the insurance, so we aren't out any money, but if the embassy was going to pay, shouldn't they have mentioned that to us at some point? And why did the OB/GYN ask us to pay her - she's been delivering embassy babies at a steady clip for the past few years. She didn't double-claim - that's how the embassy found out. They called to pay her and she said, No, I've already been paid. And the other people we talked to who've had babies here never said the embassy paid, they just said "Be sure to claim everything, as it's all covered."
This is the worst post I've ever been at for communication. I get to take Mal in tomorrow, along with all my receipts and paperwork, and spend a joyous afternoon in the med unit.