Our Apartment!

Wahoo! We just got an email telling us that our apartment lease has been signed and will be ready for us when we get to Lima next month. The flat is in San Isidro, across from a golf course. We had originally hoped to be near the school so we wouldn't have to drive, but it turns out that taxis will be cheap in the morning, and there is a bus that takes teachers home in the afternoon. For now, since there's no need to drive, we'll skip the car and live a little further (15 minutes) from school.

San Isidro is quite a nice area of Lima. We are about 2 blocks from a wonderful street of shops and a huge variety of restaurants. We discovered that we could, if we wouldn't mind eating delicious sushi every day, get by on Japanese if our Spanish never takes off . Having 20 embassies within a mile means that the area is heavily secured. The side-effect (or positive externality says the economics teacher) is that walking around is really pleasant with wide sidewalks and loads of little parks and trees. It is really beautiful, and we can't wait to move in!

Even though our building is not going to win any awards for exterior
architecture, we love the inside. It is a brick building with a tiny lobby. When we first visited, the doorman escorted us up to the seventh floor in the mini-elevator (capacity - 4 people!). When the elevator doors opened, there was another closed door for which he had a key. That door opens right into our apartment. Pretty neat! It is a 2 bedroom flat with a living room, office/TV room, kitchen, and 2.5 bathrooms in the living area. Three of the rooms look out onto the Lima Golf Course - what a view! It's hard to believe we can look at that much green grass in a metropolitan area of 9 million people!

There is another bathroom and a small bedroom past the kitchen. This is Ana's area, who I mentioned in the last blog. She worked for another teaching couple for the past few years, and will cook, clean, do laundry and take care of grocery shopping on the days she is there. She'll work at the apartment of another teacher the other two days each week. We're expected to hire a helper so that we can contribute back to the economy. Unlike some of our US politicians, we will pay into the national retirement and healthcare system on her behalf.

We're in Phoenix for the next month, packing and selling our worldly possessions. We'll head back to Lima mid-July, so look for more posts then. Thanks for visiting our blog!