The long overdue blog post

so a long time ago I promised you a post about apartment hunting. Here it is:

"I´m sorry it has been so long since I have updated. I have not been particularly inspired, especially because I have been so very engrossed in my schoolwork. But now that I am so very close to being done with all of my work for this TEFL class, I guess I can spare some time to write. Plus, a lot of exciting things have happened lately.


First of all, I got a job! If you are friends with me on facebook you probably already know this. I was one of the strongest students in my class at both the being a student part (which I´ve always been pretty good at) and, amazingly, the teaching part! I didn’t start out a very strong teacher but I quickly improved and got hired at Maximo Nivel. I am officially an employee here now as I have signed the contract and everything!


So, that’s one very exciting thing. However, I had been completely stressing out about where to live because I have to leave my apartment early tomorrow morning. I had booked a hostel for Sunday night and hoped for the best (figuring I can always extend my hostel stay). Anyways, today two other girls (Valerie and Amanda) and I made a date to go apartment hunting. It was an exciting adventure. We started out by buying one of the classifieds newspapers here. Luckily, Valerie speaks very Spanish very well, so we delegated her as our speaker. First we hopped in a taxi and went to H-2 Los Sauces. Unfortunately, H-2 did not want to be found. We asked countless people and could not figure out how the street worked. Finally, we found the apartment. We walked in and we fell in love. Each wall was painted a different vibrant color, the rooms were spacious and a ton of closet space. Unfortunately, after walking around, we noticed that it was completely unfurnished. This meant: no beds and no couches. Of course, we actually noticed this right away. But in walking into the kitchen we found that this also could hardly be called a kitchen. There was no refrigerator, no oven, no stove. Nothing. So, sadly, we told them that we needed those things and could not get the apartment. But, on the upside, there were some one month old puppies outside that belonged to the neighbors and so we got to play with them for a while and had a pleasant conversation (in Spanish) to the woman who owned them. They were very cute.


Anyways, the adventure continued. So, we had passed an apartment building in our wanderings to find H-2 in which a man had said hello to us and told us there were apartments in his building available. However, he turned out to be an interesting character, who really just wanted to flirt with some cute gringas. So after venturing into his apartment and getting a tour we decided it was time to continue our search (his apartment smelled quite rank and we wanted out!). So, we called another ad from the newspaper and headed on over.


This apartment was quite spectacular. Everything in it was brand new, it was furnished with nicely, it was all freshly painted, in a nice gated building on a street muy tranquilla. However, this apartment turned out to be WAY out of our price range at $680 a month (yes, in dollars—our max was around 500 at the MOST). So, we called yet another person from the classifieds and headed on our way. As we headed out to grab a taxi the nice ladies who had just showed us the expensive apartment asked us where we were headed. Then they very generously offered to drive us there! Although on the way they told us it was in a dangerous neighborhood, not nearly as nice as their neighborhood (of course they would say that!).


Anyways, we got there and were not too fond of the street, however the apartment was in a nice gated community with a cute little courtyard that cute little Peruvian kids played in. We toured the apartment and Amanda and I were sold. The bedrooms were a bit small, but it was well furnished and definitely affordable. However, Valerie had her doubts. So, we told the friendly man that we had one more apartment to see and would get back to him later tonight.
So we headed off yet again. Amanda and I were feeling pretty set on the apartment and couldn’t imagine a better one. However, when we walked into the next apartment we were taken aback. It was totally adorable, a little bit smaller than the other one but absolutely beautiful! The furniture was wonderful, and the neighborhood was quite nice. This apartment was a tid bit more expensive but we were in love. The final push was when we asked if we could have a cat and the couple said “yes, of course!”. We then spent another good while discussing how long to sign the lease for (it was cheaper to sign it for 6 months, but we didn’t know if one of the girls would be staying that long). So after much debating we put down a deposit, told them we wanted it for 6 months and signed a contract (well, a preliminary contract that consisted of the landlord writing some stuff on a piece of paper and Valerie signing it).


And that was that. We have an apartment. We move in on Monday. We get a cat next Saturday. I start teachings 6 classes a day a week from Monday. I have a life in Cusco!
Oh, and we are naming our cat Emoticon. “Moti” for short."


Haha, this post is so old. Now our cat is named Tito. Well, technically his name is still Emoticat, but we Pretty much only call him Tito. And we also have a second cat! Tito´s brother, Blackie. Blackie was the runt of the litter so he is much smaller than Tito, and possibly even more adorable. But together they are the masters at being cute.