Home Un-Sweet Home

On Thursday evening, I got a phone call from the people I rented my apartment from, informing me that their mother was returning from Moscow and wanted her apartment back... by Monday. But not to fear, they said, it's only a couple days notice, but they worked that I could move to their husband's aunt's extra apartment. So Friday I came and looked at the place and Sunday I moved over here into the husband's aunt's extra apartment. Apparently this sort of thing is pretty common in Almaty and there are all sorts of horror stories going around about people getting kicked out of their apartments on very short notice.

To make a long story short, this other place is definitely not as nice as my last apartment and I'm a bit peeved about the situation. When I visited the place on Friday, it seemed fine. Very poorly decorated, for sure, but what can you do. Upon closer inspection, though, I realized that I overlooked certain key details. Perhaps my favorite one is that there is no sink in the bathroom. As you can hopefully see from the picture, there is a toilet, washing machine, and (old) shower. There is even a mirror above where a sink would be. But no sink. So all this leaves me brushing my teeth and washing my hands in the bathtub. Additionally, the refrigerator is horrendously old and runs so loudly that it kept me up last night. It sounds like a plane coming in for a landing and can be heard throughout the apartment. The stove doesn't appear to have a pilot light, so I apparently have to light it myself... the very thought of which freaks me out. To add insult to injury, the people who lived here last took the toilet paper with them, though they were nice enough to leave me some straws in the kitchen cabinets. I could go on, but I'll restrain myself ... Though if it matters, the bed is too small for me (I'm only 5'2"!) and really uncomfortable... Ok, really I'll stop now.

In the end, I never did figure out how to change the lightbulb in the last apartment. But as of this evening, I can't get the tv to work here, so my technology problems appear to be following me. Excuse me while I go check out the classified ads to look for a new place to live...