As I (Evie) sit here typing, the sound of a horse drawn buggy comes to my ears and I envision it as it trots by the hotel and down the road to the square. There are many other sounds too, but this one always makes me want to go for a ride.
Even though it didn't seem like it at the time, today was a long day. I was shown 9 apartments in different parts of town ranging from really nice to not quite so nice and a few that weren't completely finished. All of them had (or would have when finished) furniture, major appliances, linens, at least one full size bathroom, a balcony or two and most had either a washer or a washer/dryer combo. I found out that until recently most people had washers, but not dryers. So my questions is "How many days does it take for jeans to dry outside on a clothesline in the middle of winter when it's below freezing?" I was pleasantly surprised to find out today that many of the apartments are now putting in the single units that do both. So I may never need an answer to my question.
Some of you reading this blog may have never had the experience of riding in a car in any country other than the US...believe me it is quite an adventure. The streets are not as wide nor as well kept up as those in the states. Think very skinny roads with thousands of cars weaving in between the buses and trams on tracks (they don't/can't move over for you) and thousand year-old buildings lining the streets. Luckily, most people own tiny vehicles made to fit this size of road. I did, however, notice one truck the size of the Dodge Ram we had, must have been a stubborn Texan or something. Oh, did I forget to mentioned the thousands of people on foot trying to cross these streets? Most of them do not use cross walks or wait for lights, because if they do they would never get across the street. So they just weave in and out of traffic because the drivers don't stop for pedestrians very often, it's look both ways on your mark, get set, go. These same people enter and exit the trams in the middle of the street so at one point you might have a sea of people surrounding your car only for a moment and then they are gone. It's really an amazing system to keep the street corners clear. Tomorrow I do this again to see more apartments.
Back to the apartments I saw today...if one of the unfinished ones had an earlier complete date than beginning to mid January, we might have gone with that one, but we don't really want to be in a hotel for a month or more. So we will probably choose the one our relocation agent emailed pictures of while we were still in Texas. If that's the one we choose we should know by Wednesday when we will be able to move in.
