An International Affair

I sat down to write a post and came to me that I have not written about my living arrangements. What a thing to neglect! So here goes:

I live in a large, 12-floor apartment building in a neighborhood consisting primarily of apartment buildings, a school and a couple of grocery stores. There is a big, beautiful park nearby where people walk and run on nice days. There are bakeries on every corner - my favorite is close to the metro station. There are a lot of children in the neighborhood and I am often woken up by their screams, which have little trouble passing through my big windows even when they are closed. I have never lived in an apartment building as large as this one and it is quite the experience. There is constant noise through the too-thin walls and more than once I have been woken at 9 a.m. on a Saturday by sounds of construction on the floor above me. Basically, it is difficult to sleep and I am learning to ignore even the loudest noises.

My apartment is on the third floor. It is a tiny 3-bedroom apartment with a kitchen, bathroom and closet to share. Two of the bedrooms are so small they just barely fit 2 beds and 2 desks. The kitchen is so small that a max of two people can prepare dinner at one time, and that is a very tight fit. I was one of the first to move in, so I was lucky enough to get a bed in the biggest bedroom. It has three large patio doors which open onto a balcony, though the balcony is narrow and the view it provides is just one of the balconies of about 100 other apartments facing ours. I have been to the apartments of a variety of exchange students and we have, by far, the smallest apartment, but we also pay the lowest rent. It is tight quarters!

As to the people in my apartment: the six of us represent America, Serbia/Malta, Holland, China, Italy and Djbouti. Quite the mix of cultures! We do our best to get along and be sensitive to each other’s cultural histories, but stick 6 girls in one small apartment with one bathroom to share and you are going to have issues! But we work through them as they come up and things are going smoothly. We talk about the different experiences we have had in our home countries and share stories about our difficulties here. I am jealous of my Dutch roommate who will be going home next week for a big event in her hometown, but I appreciate my arrangement when I think of my Chinese roommate who is doing her whole bachelors here and will not be going home to China until next summer. She will even miss the Chinese New Year, which makes me feel a little less bad about missing Thanksgiving.

This weekend I am going on a school trip to Amsterdam. I’m so excited! It will be good for me to go on another trip – I am getting restless in the city. I will be gone through next Tuesday and on Thursday Nell will arrive from Poland to visit. Busy is good!

Interesting note: All of the Starbucks around have introduced their Christmas drinks and are now playing Christmas music. While I subscribe to the “No Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving” rule, I can’t say that I mind humming along to “I’ll be home for Christmas”…