(Audrey) After 2 1/2 days of work, our apartment is the way we want it. Things are far from perfect, but we’re going for livable for 10-months, not my dream home. So without further ado, I give you a tour of our New Delhi flat—
We’re on the first floor, which is the 2nd floor in American parlance (here, the American 1st floor is ground floor) When you walk into our front door there is a sizable entry room. This room has five doors that lead (clockwise) into the second bedroom, guest bathroom, our bedroom, living room, and kitchen. Following the example of our landlords, we’ve made the entryway room into our dining room—
The kitchen table expands (the size panel flips up) so that it can seat up to 6. Next, our kitchen is probably the most questionable part of our new home but that’s kind of the nature of the beast here.
Next to the kitchen (through a different door) is our living room. This is the one with the *choice* picture that is now covered. All that’s missing is my hookah, which will be purchased imminently.
If you go through the living room, you come out on the terrace. Our terrace is really awesome. It’s twice as long as anybody else’s on the street and is lovely to sit out on at night and the mornings. It’s also where we dry our laundry and where our daily paper is tossed by the paper-wallah every morning (yes, in India there are still daily, physical newspapers!).
Going back through the living room, into the entry room, next up is the master bedroom, complete with a double bed (in America, we’d say a king-size bed)
The view going the other way in the bedroom.
Finally, the master bathroom. You can see the shower head up top—the water just runs on the floor and you squeegee the water into the drain when you’re done. Every bathroom I’ve ever seen in India (outside of 4-5 star hotels) works like this, and it’s really not a bad system. Behind the shower curtain is a bathtub that is better off covered, shall we say. (And don’t even ask why the shower doesn’t run into the bathtub… who knows)
That’s all for now. The second bedroom and other bathroom are being used for storage and laundry respectively… and I haven’t cleaned them yet.
The other aspect of living here, namely our neighbors, are great. Our landlords are fabulous—the wife, is going to teach me to cook Indian food and their eldest son is an excellent go-to person for all communication beyond what I can do in Hindi (he also speaks fluent English). And across the street we’ve got an absolutely adorable dog that I will get pictures of soon—he literally hangs off their balcony most of the day. More another time…
