First Day

I have safely arrived and am still getting settled in the Apart´hotel, which is a small, three-storied apartment configured for mostly business clientele needing a place to live for more than a week but less than a couple months.

The first floor is a small kitchen/dining room. The second has a WC (water closet) with a toilet and sink (but only cold water) and the third has the bed and a bathroom with a sink and shower.

I took an initial trip to the market, successfully purchasing a prepaid wireless card and groceries.  The store was a madhouse before lunch but I went back in the afternoon and it was considerably less crowded.

Nice living area on the middle level with a couch and television.  

It never occurred to me to have a bathroom without a toilet, but that's exactly how this apartment is organized.  I met my co-worker Keith and his wife Elizabeth for dinner and they told me that bathrooms don't always make sense here.  They relayed the following story about another co-worker, Dan, as a case-in-point: 

Dan had problems with a toilet in his house and called the landlord.  An appointment with a plumber was scheduled and the plumber showed up and was able to fix the problem with the existing toilet.  However, the landlord had paid for a new toilet and the plumber had been paid for a certain number of hours of work and the fix job had gone quickly, so he had additional time.  The plumber noticed that there was a sewer line in the laundry shed adjacent to the house and figured that he had been paid for a new toilet and for working for X number of hours...and that is why there is now a toilet next to the washer and dryer in Dan's laundry shed.

No sink mind you...one has to go to the kitchen to wash up.

The bedroom is nice and has a small window which is great for releasing hot air up through the apartment. 

Overall, a great place to stay.  But this apartment is only available through the end of August, so I'm off to find a place to live for September and part of October.