Home life

For some time I've been obsessed with small living spaces and I figured our time in Santiago would be a perfect time to get a feel for it.  The verdict is in:  it is fantastic!   We have about 800 sq ft here in the apartment and I don't think any of us have felt particularly cramped.  The girls and I did a really thorough cleaning of the whole house a few days ago, and it took us 12 minutes! The kitchen (although rather poorly equipped) has easily more storage space than our kitchen in Pittsburgh.

So in other words, if we actually lived here long-term I would certainly stock the kitchen with a few things that I miss, such as my big cast iron skillet, some baking dishes, a full set of silverware (rather than exactly 4 forks, 4 spoons, 4 knives), and you know--just turn it into a fully equipped kitchen.  The space for it is here--there's just no stuff.  Based on what was in the kitchen when we arrived, I think previous tenants of this apartment perhaps made pasta a few times, kept ice cream in the freezer, and made tea now and then.  Oh, and they could fry the occasional egg and make toast.  I'm way too cheapo to go out and stock this kitchen with things that we already own at home.  We are trying to just manage without, for the most part.   We did break down and buy a grater, a vegetable peeler, a paring knife, a potholder, and a few other things.  I think we've reached a sustainable level where we can conveniently cook at home and I can't complain, really.  I'm not one to use a ton of kitchen gadgets anyway.  Here are some pictures of our place.

My studio  (or would that be the dining room table?  or perhaps the office?)  OK, maybe in my dream house we'd have to include 10 extra sq. ft for the piano.  I do miss my lovely B.  My pianist friends will think it's funny--given how ridiculously low I typically sit at the piano--that I have to sit atop no fewer than FOUR pillows to be at the correct height to the keyboard on the table.  It's a rather pleasant setup, though--I have a great view out the picture window from my piano perch.

Or I could just get an upright piano and put it where the TV/entertainment center is, which we never use.  Excuse me, girls did watch cartoons in Spanish the other day.....

One end of the kitchen, plus our laundry area.  We have a nice washer, and the clothes go on the rack to dry. 

This is as much of the kitchen as would fit in the frame when I was standing in the laundry room.

In addition to the living spaces, we have two bedrooms (ours has a double bed, and the girls' has a single trundle bed), and one bathroom.

They must have some sort of miraculous sound proofing methods here because we have yet to hear any noises whatsoever coming from the apartments above, below, or next door to us.  Directly across the hall lives a couple with an infant and we can't hear the baby crying ever (or perhaps here in Santiago the babies just never cry).  :-)   We only know there's a baby there because we met them leaving the apartment once.   We do leave our windows open at all hours so we have plenty of street and neighborhood noise.  Although given that our street dead ends into San Cristobal mountain about 100 yards past our gate, this mostly consists of a particularly annoying car alarm that goes off several times a day, and stray dogs (of which there are MANY here) that bark a lot and get into fights.  We don't really have traffic noise, which is nice--we are in a quiet little pocket up against the mountain and the busy streets are about 2 blocks away.

Our gate is on the left, and you can see where the sidewalk dead-ends into the mountain just beyond.

We have been spending a lot of time here at the apartment since the girls and I do homeschool every morning.  It's been going very well--Bugs is cruising on her spelling and math, she's also learning how to type, and doing a ton of reading.  In the two weeks since we arrived, Bear has read the first two Harry Potter books and the better part of another book she just started yesterday.  She is coming close to mastering her times tables (which was our big math goal for our time here) and is writing a play.  In addition, together we are reading a historical novel about a young boy who works on the caravans on the Silk Road, and of course the girls are learning as much Spanish as they can, swimming for hours in the pool, practicing their instruments, and we are walking, walking, walking all the time, mostly for the purpose of obtaining food.

Bear working on her play

Bugs on keyboarding--she almost has the home row down pat.

Yesterday the girls took our Cardline game (each card features one animal and lists several characteristics of that animal: average weight, size, and lifespan) and organized the whole deck by the average life span, all the way from bees (60 days) up to the Great Blue Whale (82 years).  It was a pretty interesting project which they cooked up all on their own.  I'll let them explain it themselves.....

Watch the "Average Lifespan of Animals Project" on YouTube (1:16)

The windows of our house face towards the mountains, but if you walk into the stairwell just outside our front door, the balcony there overlooks the interior of the apartment complex and the swimming pool.  I think there are about 12 or 13 buildings in the complex with roughly about 30 apartments in each building.  Even so, the pool is never over-crowded.  It's quite pleasant and the girls also have a playground and grassy area there below, as well as access to some short trails in the woods (just behind the hedge on the righthand side in the picture below) that are fenced in as part of the property of the apartments.  The trails lead a short way up San Cristobal to an overlook that is just high enough that you can see out to the city skyline overtop of the apartment buildings.

Loving our place here so far!