Baiti (my house)

Ok, so the story of how exactly I arrived at finding a home is a bit too long and complicated to tell in a blog post. Also, It's 2:45am here and I'm a bit too tired. But as of tomorrow, I have a place to live. Now, I must tell you that it isn't the apartment I showed you earlier. It was close. In fact two others and I were at the apartment to sign the contract and the owner walked in and said that he didn't want to rent to students. So that one bombed. And I sulked for a day and a half because I really liked it. But then today we got a lead on a big four bedroom place in Garden City, just a few minutes walk from campus, and we met with the simsar and took a look. At first, I was not impressed. The lift going up to the place was quite old and had its quirks, but upon entering I was completely surprised. But let me speak of the downsides first. The place really hasn't been kept up. It is about two years late for a thorough cleaning. It needs new carpet, and a complete paint job. While one of the bathrooms is remodeled, the other one needs to be re-done. The kitchen needs light, and a more counterspace, and some of the furniture is simply ghastly. Also, the building is nothing special to look at from the outside. Ok, now the upsides: The place is simply the largest apartment I have ever seen. It is at least 3000 square feet on two levels! It's the penthouse unit at the top of a ten story building. It has four generous bedrooms (2 upstairs, 2 down), three bathrooms, a large living room, a full dining room (which we will rarely use) it has a marble stair case, upstairs there are two reception rooms and one big lounge with large windows overlooking the city on two sides and built in reclining cushions/couches that wrap around three sides, and lastly there are three large balconies that offer amazing views of the Nile, Midan Tahrir Square(the center of the city) and (I think) the Egyptian Museum. All of the bedrooms have french doors that open out onto the balconies. Currently I will be living there with Nicole, an American student from New York, and Marius, a Dutch student from Amsterdam. We will need one more student for the last bedroom and perhaps one more to room with me. The entire place is 5000LE per month (which is 1250LE/$220 each with four. If I find a room mate it would drop to $140 for my part) and we'll be there at least until June.

The next four days are going to be non-stop cleaning for everyone in the house. It is going to take some serious work to get the place up to shape, and unfortunately the land lord, while welcoming the improvements, isn't willing to help much--so we're on our own. And that's fine. I'm probably going to paint a few of the rooms, and we're going to buy area rugs for the common walkways. There is a bi-monthly garage sale in Ma'adi and we're going to try to get some dirt cheap desks and etc for one of the rooms that will be the study room. We'll also need some lamps and stuff to hang on the walls. Thankfully we're in Cairo and most of what we will need to spruce up the place can be found much cheaper than in the US.

So My battery will die soon, so I'll post a few pictures that I snapped earlier. They really only cover one corner of the place so I will have to snap a thorough tour tomorrow. And it is perfect timing too since I check out of my flat at the Clergy House tomorrow morning! Thank you God!

The Foyer looking into the first living room.


The living room from the dining room (the bowab and simsar are pictured)


Part of the first living room


View from one of the balconies


Another view from the same balcony


The Apartment Hunting Team