Our New Apartemente

I don't know if I mentioned right after we moved here, but the folks making the arrangements for our apartment misunderstood the Church's guidelines for senior missionaries: the couple is responsible for up to $1400 for rent and utitlities, and anything over that will be covered by the Church.  This is a great policy to help those serving in NYC or London for instance, where it can be very expensive to live.  Well, the people in our office thought that the Church would cover up to $1400, and the missionary couple would cover the rest.  Needless to say, even though we have had a nice apartment (although lacking screens :-), it was $1200 a month plus utilities which was ridiculous and more than we wanted to pay.

So after five months, they were able to cancel the original lease, and we went apartment hunting.  After looking at 8 or so, we settled on a nice one for $800 a month about five minutes closer to our work.  We are now on the 7th floor and have a lovely view of the ocean.  It is smaller than our previous one and about fifteen years older, but plenty big for us.  We have had to work out a few leaking faucet issues, but, overall, this is going to be great.  Here are some photos:

 View outside one of our windows

Another view

 Some of the other apartments around us.

Our living room - I love the old fashioned furniture.

This is a fun painting that we bought -
it's called a Haitian Primitive and shows villagers harvesting their crops.. 

 Our little office area - there are French doors that can be closed.

 

 Our kitchen.  The great fridge is behind me - large and cold

(unlike our old apartment)

 Our bedroom

 The Maid's quarters - all apartments here have them, consisting of a room big enough for a bed and a little bathroom with a shower.  (We are storing stuff here, but just know that there's a place for you if you want to come wait on us :-)...

 Our dining room

 One of the paintings that came with the apartment -

it's a pretty fishing scene from Samana where we saw the whales (see March)

 A washer and dryer (which actually has knobs that work and doesn't just cook everything.  There are clotheslines in here as well.  There is only a metal gate to the outside from here,

so eveyrthing dries very quickly.

We can still see the Temple spire from here - we're just farther west than we were before

on the other side of the park which I showed you earlier.