Mi Habitación, Mi Casa

For those of you who remember, I moved out of the hostel about three weeks ago (oh how time flies) and promised to post pictures of my neighborhood as clues in the new postcard offer (see above link).  Though I still haven’t gotten around to taking those pictures, I finally took some of my new home:

The eight bedrooms roughly center around this very cheerful courtyard and excepting me and my American friend who told me about the availability, all the residents here are Chileno, so I’ve had plenty of opportunities to practice my Castillano (and all accompanying gesticulations).

The house has two fridges, an oven, a stove, a microwave, a washing machine, a terrace for drying clothes, a grill, a TV, a wireless router, a living room that doubles as a dance floor, a communal bike and a lot of character. An added bouns: the homeowner is a wonderful woman and an ideal landlord – kind and funny as well as very relaxed and trusting toward her tenants.

The room itself is small (about 8′ x 6′) and though relatively spartan, still cozy:

The twin bed touches both the left and back walls (and that’s part of the other wall on the right), so what is pictured is pretty much the breadth of the room.

There’s a particleboard wall-shelf perched over the bed for my limited wardrobe, the wicker thingamajig (pictured above) by the door that holds my toiletries and miscellany, one metal stool (also pictured above) – presumably for my many visitors, and a large wood-and-glass contraption (not pictured) rarely used other than to hold laundry detergent and my stash of tea.  (And any backup jars of peanut butter I may have on hand.)  My jacket, towel, robe and (at last!) a mirror hang from the few randomly-placed nails in the wall.

Really, all that I lack is a heater.

Since the walls are solid, plastered concrete, the room is always cold. Always. I’d imagine this is a excellent feature during the summer, but I won’t be staying in Santiago long enough to find out.  I’ve put off buying an electric heater since I moved in because the weather keeps pretending to warm up, but last night was pretty trying. Though I’m very tempted to give in to this modern comfort, perhaps suffering through the cold will make my next winter bike trip easier to endure.  Either way, I’m delighted to have a such a great setting to call home.