A Home at Last!

Well, you remember that "very non-decent apartment" in the "area I wouldn't want to spend a month in for safety reasons" that had been "deserted by the wealthy after being ravaged by yellow fever and other infectious diseases"? Funny how things work out.

As I mentioned, our second day hunting for an apartment yielded no results (actually we did visit several real estate offices and even saw one apartment, but lets just consider that "no results"). On our third day, we successfully juggled six visits with six different agencies/owners around the city but they were all either over $800/month and simply "decent" or were a bit less but for good reason. By the end of the day, as we scrambled to finish our daily translations before the internet cafe closed, I was tired and Joo was beyond tired. So we simply decided to call the second place from our first day of searching. It had been a bit pricey and without a computer, but it was clean, cute and in a good area. So after 30 minutes of debate and growing excitement about how the place was actually quite a beautiful apartment, I called Sandra (the agent for that place) who lamentably told me another person had already reserved it.

Things got a bit gnarly at this point, but I won't go into the gritty details. Neither of us really wanted to shell out a lot of money for an apartment we were only halfhearted about and so JooYeon told me to email a French guy about that previously mentioned non-decent apartment. If we weren´t going to find our dream apartment for a month or two, at least we would avoid financial regrets by securing a cheap base (Kristoffe's place is only $500 a month).

So, here we are, in our bohemian loft in the middle of San Telmo, Buenos Aires. It's all a matter of perspective. When we compare this to my Nakseongdae apartment I had while dating Joo in Seoul, it's a huge step up. Yes, it's a bit dusty but Nakseongdae had dust so thick and moist it had created a type of dust fudge. Sure, it may have just a bit of a funky smell (which incidentally I can't even smell, making me wonder if I AM the funky smell), but there was a sewage accumulation one floor below our bathroom in Nakseongdae whose odors seeped through the vents two weeks out of every month. And in terms of floor space, the 50 square meters completely dwarf the space of Nakseongdae (which was literally about 2 square meters after subtracting for the bed and toilet, our only furniture). As for the infectious diseases, the rats hopefully scurried away long ago!

In all actuality, it's quite a perfect resting spot for us for the next month. It came equipped with more than any other apartment we looked at - DVD, TV with cable, PC, jacuzi, sound system, coffee maker, patio, fridge, stove, heater (remember it's winter here), and everything else we could possibly need for the next month.

And it came just in time for our Paniversary! Pan means across in Greek (I think) and since September 12 was our first date and September 10 was our first marriage, September 11 is our paniversary :) I left the apartment early to get Joo a nice warm croissant breakfast, flowers and her favorite cafe con leche, and she slaved away in the evening, cooking me up a delicious curry dinner.

So, we´ve settled in... Joo´s first task was to arrange all the sugar packets...

And then we went shopping in Koreatown for Korean food, and the local Carefour for all our comfort food and cooking stuff, finished off by a neighborhood kiosk to pick up any local spices and vegetables. We've already had a couple translating jobs since we moved in, so our hope is that they will continue to roll in and help us cover our living costs for our month or two as portenos (residents of Buenos Aires). Ciao ciao!