Our Apartment

Our living room from the front entry way

Here are some snapshots around our apartment.  We are on the second floor (called 1st floor in India because the first floor is called the ground floor) of a 3-story gated complex.  Our apartment is about 1400 sq feet with 2 bedrooms, 1 & 1/2 baths.  The floors are all marble or tile and the ceiling is about 11 ft high.  There happens to be a bunch of built in cabinets.  Luckily, it came furnished with the basics.  We can't wait to get our shipment, though, as the mattresses here are like what you'd find in a college dorm.  Thick springy western beds are not the norm in India.

We have a large reverse osmosis with UV light water filter that makes good drinking water as the regular water would give us the runs.  There's a great big new fridge and a small washing machine which is also rare to have in India I am told.  We have an oven and a gas stove.  The gas is supplied by a large tank that is sitting in a cabinet.  Due to a large amount of power outages (we haven't had one yet), there are 6 heavy duty car like batteries that serve as our reserve power.  There are a ridiculous amount of lights around our place too, which may be why Delhi has so many power outages!  It takes about 15 seconds to turn on the proper light as there are about 12 switches grouped together for each room (a reason we are looking forward to getting our label maker in the shipment!).

There is no balcony or terrace, but the view from the large window in our living room is really pretty (nothing but green flowering tropical trees with parakeets and other pretty birds).  The landlord who lives on the ground floor said we can use their garden in front any time.  We might wait until mosquito season is over (should be about 3 more weeks when the temperature begins to drop).  Dengue fever is rampant this year due to the wettest monsoon season in 15+ years.  All the colorful designs in the stairwell are made of flower petals and the designs (called Rangoli) in our entryway are made of colored rice.  It is welcoming custom I believe.  Here are the pictures of our new home!