Home Sweet Home

Here's my new home for the next year.

My front door

Kitchen to the left of the door.  No oven though :(  I'm going to need to gather a collection of good stove top recipes.  If you have any good ones send them to me!

When you walk in the door the desk and closet are straight ahead.

Bedroom

 

Bathroom to the left of the bed.

Overall its a very nice apartment.  But it's small.  No living room and no where to sit except at the kitchen table or on my bed so I can't really ever have anyone over.

While the apartment is nice, I'm not a fan of the neighborhood.  The neighborhood is actually very nice too but it's crazy expensive!  Colombia is divided up into six different estratas, or levels.  Each neighborhood is classified as a particular level and the cost of housing and utilities go up according to the estrata that you are in.  So while you might find an apartment in an estrata three that looks remarkably similar to one in estrata five, the one in estrata five will cost much more.  The neighborhood I'm in is an estrata 5 or 6 - not exactly sure.  This means that all the shops and restaurants around my house are expensive!  The cost of living in this neighborhood is comparable to the cost of living in the US.  Problem is I'm making a bit less than half of what I made in the US, so I'm likely going to have to travel to other parts of the city to do a lot of my shopping. 

While some things like the fruit and vegetables are cheaper here, the things that are more expensive more than use up any savings you gained on those things.  I went out to buy a bottle of contact solution yesterday - $18.  Face wash - $8.  Basically anything related to personal hygiene is absurdly expensive.  When I come back home to visit this fall I will definitely be stocking up on all of that stuff and bringing it back with me!

Aside from the cost of my neighborhood, there is not really much here besides a lot of expensive clothing stores and restaurants.  There are no little restaurants where you can get a typical Colombian meal for about $3.  No cheap markets or grocery stores.  The vast majority of the dance studios and places to go out dancing are in the center of the city or just north of the city.  Basically, I will be taking about a half hour or more bus ride to get to most of the places I'm going to be spending a lot of time at outside of school.  And the buses stop running at 11 so when I go out dancing I have to take a cab home.  Cab prices are also comparable to in the US.

I asked the school if it was possible to move but they've got a year long lease on my apartment.  I was told that if they hire another teacher they could possibly take my apartment and I could move elsewhere.  I'd rather be close to where I'm going to be spending my free time.  I know how to get to school on the bus and I know the bus will always be running when I need to get to and from school.  Much easier than finding bus routes all over the city to any other place I want to go to besides school.  Their bus system is not simple!!!  So cross your fingers for me that they will hire a new teacher!