Despite the difficulty of getting an apartment in Bogota, we managed to get an amazing one. We are in a great neighborhood and a great building for very little money. The road that we are on is very quite but we are only a few blocks from some of the major roads in all directions so we can pretty much find anything we need within walking distance- which is key! Taxis aren't expensive but the fairs would add up if we had to use them to get everywhere. Our apartment is on the side of the building that isn't on the road so we look out at the back of another apartment and over our apartments back yard. The "yard" has a bunch of kids play ground stuff, a nice terrace, and a huge grill so its a nice view. Unfortunately across the street from our apartment are 2 construction projects- so depending on the work of the day we often get to wake up around 5 with the construction workers :) Bogota is an upwardly expanding city so there are building projects pretty much everywhere. 40 years ago where we live was farm land and single family homes but the city has expanded like crazy since then so now its all high rise buildings.
Although we at first thought we would have a lovely unfurnished apartment, we have managed to get everything we need. Juana gave us 2 matresses and her brother had a restuarant and they gave us a kitchen table and 4 chairs, which is amazing!! We were able to find a reasonably priced couch, which also folds out into a bed- its actually more comfortable as a bed but we are breaking it in. We went for about a week without a refridgerator but we managed to find one for a reasonable price by again heading south to the appliance district :) We wanted to just get a dorm size fridge but apparently they aren't very popular here because they cost almost the same as a fridge twice their size, so we have one that's about shoulder height- which is more than enough room here because we don't keep much of our food in the fridge. We keep most of the fruits and veggies out and no one refridgerates eggs here because its not hot enough so mainly we just needed it for meat and cheese. We were able to find kitchen sets for reasonable prices so we have dishes and pots and pans, etc. In the past week we also printed out a lot of pictures from home and decorated so its really starting to feel like home. The only thing we dont have is a TV but we are still debating as to whether that's a necessary expense since they're pretty expensive here and then we'd have to add cable to our list of monthly expenses. It is a great way to learn the language though so we're holding out on the decision. Now that we have everything in order we have taken pictures...
Although we at first thought we would have a lovely unfurnished apartment, we have managed to get everything we need. Juana gave us 2 matresses and her brother had a restuarant and they gave us a kitchen table and 4 chairs, which is amazing!! We were able to find a reasonably priced couch, which also folds out into a bed- its actually more comfortable as a bed but we are breaking it in. We went for about a week without a refridgerator but we managed to find one for a reasonable price by again heading south to the appliance district :) We wanted to just get a dorm size fridge but apparently they aren't very popular here because they cost almost the same as a fridge twice their size, so we have one that's about shoulder height- which is more than enough room here because we don't keep much of our food in the fridge. We keep most of the fruits and veggies out and no one refridgerates eggs here because its not hot enough so mainly we just needed it for meat and cheese. We were able to find kitchen sets for reasonable prices so we have dishes and pots and pans, etc. In the past week we also printed out a lot of pictures from home and decorated so its really starting to feel like home. The only thing we dont have is a TV but we are still debating as to whether that's a necessary expense since they're pretty expensive here and then we'd have to add cable to our list of monthly expenses. It is a great way to learn the language though so we're holding out on the decision. Now that we have everything in order we have taken pictures...
First is our entrance way, then the view from our hall. From the door our kitchen is to the right and then entrance to the bathroom and bedroom is on the left- ok when I actually uploaded the pictures they didn't upload in the order that I wanted but you can figure it out. The shower is amazing- its huge and the water is very hot assuming you remember to turn on the water heater otherwise you get frigid, frigid water. The first day we were here we didn't have time to let the water heat up and there was literally steam rising from our bodies because the water was soooo cold! Hopefully we wont have to repeat that too often. Our bedroom has an awesome walk in closet complete with shelving and drawers so we have lots of space. It is also such a treat to have everything organized because when we were living at Juana and Manolo's for the first 3 weeks we were living out of our suitcases which was very messy. In the living room we have our table and couch and our amazing tent. It's Linnea's tent for hiking so we needed to practice setting it up but mostly we just wanted something in our apartment for the first few days when we had no furniture. Then we got attached to it and now we watch movies in it :) We also have a lovely fireplace which currently has a Christmas tree, complete with lights, in it. Its not really very cold here so we might not ever have occasion to use it but it still looks very nice.
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