Our New Apartment in Bogotá

We have been in our apartment a week now.  We moved in last Friday with all our suitcases.  Our air freight and internet connection came on Monday.  We are still in a state of mild chaos, but we are beginning to make it a home.  We have several pieces of furniture we want to return to the embassy, and several more pieces that we've requested.  We're also longing for our sea freight with all our rugs and pictures that will make everything cozier.  But, with all those caveats, here's a quick tour of the apartment, which has the potential to be an incredible home for us.

One of the things we're still getting used to is that the elevator comes right up to our apartment.  There are two apartments per floor, and two elevators, one for each side of the building.  You need a special key to get the elevator to come up to your floor, both from inside the apartment and from inside the elevator.

When you're inside the elevator, the elevator doors open to a closed wooden door with a deadbolt lock and a regular lock, so getting into the apartment means struggling with two sets of keys while hoping that you don't drop them in the crack between the elevator and the floor.  Also, you have to make sure you "turn off" your floor, otherwise other people can get there.  We're getting used to all this.  We've seen several other apartments with this feature, so it's not unusual for Bogotá.

We're actually quite lucky, because we have a little entry area, before our next door, which is mostly decorative.

We've put a chair there, and ordered a coat rack, so we're hoping to make it a nice entry area.  Once you go through the decorative door, you're looking into the living room.

Again, there's a lot we want to do with the furniture, but at least they have nice, dark brown furniture here, rather than the mustard yellow that was in most houses in Bangkok.  We appropriated some of the living room furniture for the study, which we've decided to make a TV room.  It's off to the right.

We're not allowed to use the fire places, and they have these huge ugly signs glued to them saying they're only for decorative use, so we decided to just put the TV in front.  We got the TV at Price Smart, which is Costco in disguise with a few local touches.  For example, they sell machetes.

The study area also has tons of built in bookshelves, so our books will have a nice home once they get here.

To the left of the living room, is the dining room.

The door on the left in that picture leads to the kitchen, which is narrow, but very big.

There's an open area at the end near the window where we'd like to put a little table and some chairs.  Off the kitchen is the laundry room and the "maid's" room.

The "maid's" room is actually Mom's room right now, because she's staying with us to help take care of the girls until school starts.

All the doors are a little confusing.  There's also a bathroom between the kitchen and the entrance to the bedroom "wing", and we are still having trouble going in the correct door.  The bedroom area has its own decorative door which opens into a little foyer.

We've requested a small desk to put there, so that Vivian has a homework area that's not completely removed from the rest of the house.  Our bedroom is right off the foyer.

There's space in there for a desk for me, and we also have a huge master bathroom and walk in closet.  The girls' rooms are down a little hall.

There's a space between the two rooms that we've turned into a play area, much to Elena's delight.

We got a rug at Price Smart too, just to make it a nicer play area.  Vivian's room is to the right.

Elena's room is to the left.

Elena is on an air mattress for now, because we've put her mattress in Mom's room.  Both girls have bathrooms and built in closets.  

The apartment has good security and a few amenities like a lap pool and a small gym.  We're very happy with the location and the layout.  Now, we just need to make it home.