Our New Place

I know I promised everyone a tour of our new place- well, here it is! We still absolutely love it here. Ryan realized the other day that we called our last place ‘the apartment’- as in “when will you be back to the apartment?” or “I’m at the apartment, did you need something?”. We call our new place home. It’s just so much nicer than our last place in so many ways. It may cost more a month, but it is well worth it. It’s a wonderful place and we’re very happy here.

Moving out was a bit dramatic. Our last landlord seemed wonderful when we moved in, and was great right up until the time we said we would be moving out. They filled the apartment right away- so it wasn’t like they lost any money. But they stopped saying hi when we saw them (and they lived below us) and the maid stopped coming, which is frustrating because we were paying for the service (it’s required at most apartments) and because we didn’t really have any cleaning supplies of our own. We were also told that since someone was moving in on the 29th, we had to move out on the 28th, even though we’d paid for the full month of April. Luckily we were able to move out in time, so we didn’t have to fight them on that issue. We weren’t about to be thrown out onto the streets with no place to sleep!

The real issue was when we tried to get our security deposit back. Our landlord claimed that we’d left sneaker marks on the walls in the bedroom, and that he knew it had been us because he had painted the room right before we moved in. Now, we did not leave those marks on the wall. They’d been there when we moved it. Ryan tried to argue with the landlord by pointing out the stickers left on the wall by the last tenant- he or she must have stacked books along the wall, because there were labels such as ‘histology’, ‘anatamy’, and ‘biochemistry’. There’s no way you’d paint a room and the replace the stickers on the wall! But we didn’t manage to convince our landlord and ended up paying about $80 US to have the room repainted. I wish we knew who lived there now, I’m curious to see if the room was actually painted. I doubt it was, I bet our security deposit went towards a nice dinner for our landlord and his family!

The video explains a lot of what we love about our new place, but I will list some of that here. First impressions always count, and our new place just seems so much warmer and more welcoming. It doesn’t feel as cold and impersonal as our last place. The whole apartment is just brighter and has a lot more natural light.

There’s also a lovely breeze, since we are on the top floor. The breeze is really important because it makes such a difference is the temperature of the entire apartment. Many of our friends are using air conditioning at night in order to feel comfortable, while Ryan and I are still just using our fan- and there have been a few nights we’ve been too cold and had to turn the fan off! This will make a huge difference in our electricity bill. Electricity is very expensive here.

Our new place is HUGE compared to our last apartment. The kitchen is spacey and well laid out and the bedroom is absolutely massive. We also love that we have a living room of sorts, with a couch where we can sit and watch television! It’s great to have a bedroom, kitchen, and a living room! Having divided spaces just makes the whole place feel that much bigger than it would otherwise, and it helps me keep out of Ryan’s way while he’s studying. It’s also great that we can both get ready in the morning or cook together without running into each other constantly and stepping on one another’s toes.

We’ll also be able to entertain more, because our new place is so much larger and more open, and because we’re so much closer to everyone else. We joke that we live in ‘Spouse Central’. There are three spouses living in Green Homes (our building), two living across the street, one in the building next to us, one living two buildings up the hill, and one living in the building behind us. Being near other people is one reason we really wanted to move. It’s so much easier to see other people and do things when you’re not isolated from them. It’s also a much shorter walk to campus, which is nice for both of us.

I feel much safer on the walk home as well. Our last place was so isolated that it was a bit nerveracking to walk home at times. Even if it was the middle of the day, there were often men working or parked along the side of the road, and of course, they all had to hassle any girl that walked past. Many men here are perfectly friendly and respectable, but culturally, women are not as well respected here as they are in the States, and it isn’t uncommon to have them yell at you, talk to you, or hiss at you as you walk past. It’s kind of like walking past a construction site in NYC every single day. I quickly learned to ignore the guys who hassled me, but it was a bit scary to walk past them when there was no one else around. There was a long stretch of the road that had no buildings and since there weren’t many students living out there, it made me feel a bit vulnerable. There are still guys to yell things on the walk to our new place, but there are a LOT more people around, which just makes me feel safer.

The other great thing is that we have a generator! We never have to worry about power outages ever again. This is especially important as it gets hotter, and life grows more and more unbearable without a fan. Power outages rarely last more than a few hours here, but it can still be frustrating because you can’t check your email, you can’t run a fan, you can’t get hot water.... it’s wonderful that our life can still go on, even when the power goes out.

As for the rest of it, I’ll let you see it for yourself. We’re so happy here, I hope you all enjoy it!

Our New Place!