Apartment Hunting

Hello from Moscow!

I apologize to everyone for not keeping in touch frequently, but I still haven't moved into an apartment yet and hence, don't have easy access to personal email. I've started looking at apartments only this week. Moscow offers the biggest variety in apartment style and quality I have ever seen in any country I've lived in. Most apartments are furnished. I must confess that most of the times the style is not to my taste - I would say it is quite opposite than my taste! Additionally, one can find the strangest layouts and decorations.

Yesterday I saw a nicely furnished apartment, which had a study room with wood panels on the walls, green wall paper and decorations in between, Victorian style desk and book cases and a large iron safe! The apartment overall was very nice, but I was wondering who could use this room nowadays!

In any case, I decided to look for apartments in old buildings - called pre-revolutionary or early century (meaning 20th century of course). They usually have high ceilings, larger rooms, thick walls and wooden parquet floors. The window sills are so wide, that one can put cushions and create a little corner to sit and read.

I found 3-4 that are really nice and am thinking of renting one of them. Of course, one important factor is whether the apartment has enough space for my books and my kitchen utensils. The best one I saw so far is 5 minutes walk from my office, relally lovely but my books and kitchen stuff would not fit. I tried to think every possible way to fit in there, but today I decided that it is not big enough!

Anyway, I hope I'll get settled soon - it'll be after October 25th. Then I'll have internet, skype, email, etc... and I'll be fully on line!

On Monday I start Russian lessons!