La Luna de Miel Larga

We moved into our new apartment on Friday, December 7. The move turned out to be a lot less painless than we expected, because when we arrived in the morning to drop our stuff at our friend’s house (we have friends living in the same complex! Well, but they are leaving this Saturday…), our landlord was actually ready for us to move in. There were only a few things to be concerned about (an apparent leak in the ceiling, oven light not working, etc) and he was very responsive with saying he would fix everything on our schedule. We really like our new place! We have a big fridge and an oven with four gas burners (ovens are pretty rare in Cusco; most people just have a two-burner camp-stove deal), and lots of counter space in the kitchen. There are two large skylights in the roof, so because the apartment is loft style, the whole place gets plenty of light. The views from the upstairs are really good too (we are up in a district called Nueva Alta, so up on a hill above the city center, but only a five minute walk away from the main plaza). Although the furniture is all a little delicate, there is plenty of it so it’s easy to have people over. We had internet and a phone line installed, and we bought a bit of extra furniture (it was already furnished)—like a desk and an extra bookshelf for clothes—which makes it really comfortable for us to live and work in. We have two bedrooms, so we have an extra two beds for company (although Kathie and Silas can attest to our pillows not being the greatest!) and an office area separate from our bedroom. The shower actually has hot water (if you work it right), although it floods sometimes. The ceilings are really low upstairs, so that has been a bit of a problem (one week, Aviva hit her head five separate times, pretty hard), but mostly it has just taken some getting used to. We do describe our place as “delicate”…the first time we had more than 5 people in the kitchen (see next post about Cookies), a volunteer put a hole in the floor. But, generally it’s a great place, very conveniently located, and we are really happy here.

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