My new house

I thought I would take some time to describe my new home. The set up of the house is similar to a townhouse, tall and skinny (three to one building)but deep. All the houses have a fence gate.

Once inside the gate there is a small court yard type place where people park their moto's, bikes, or cars. You take your shoes off as you enter the doors and all the doors and windows have metal bars covering them (which you will see from the pictures). I am trying not to think I am in prison but at times I wish they didn't cover everything. On the first floor is a living room, kitchen table with chairs, a bedroom and the kitchen.





Before the Kitchen are the stairs, narrow and very unforgiving if you miss a step (not that I have but I really hope I never do) Everything is cement, tile, metal, and glass. The furniture is mostly wicker (which I can't say I really enjoy sitting in for long periods of time) but I know I will adjust. This seems to be the land of the Papasan. Here are some pictures of my Bedroom. My room has a large window but it overlooks the first living room and the side window has a nice view of the house next door. I am hoping to get some better lighting to help brighten the place up.



The floor my room is on is called the mezzanine floor and another woman has a room across the stairs from me. On the second floor is the next living room, another bedroom, and an office type area. This is also where we go to hang out laundry outside to dry, and were we sit to use the Internet. In the picture of the living room look at the back right corner...that is where I sit when I am on-line.


The third floor is a copy of my floor with just two bedrooms and then the stairs lead to the roof. Ra showed me how to get up there and he has a chair up there to sit in sometimes. It gives a lovely view of the area and a wonderful breeze :)Our street is kind of noisy because it goes through to a main road and has become much busier, I have been told, in the last few months. I am only 7 blocks from my Office, 2 blocks from the market, and about 5 blocks from my language school. So I walk everywhere (yes alone :) it is safe during the day). But here the size of your mode of transportation is what matters so I have to watch all the time as I walk around. The Cambodians also keep coming up and saying, "tuk tuk?" or "Moto?" They don't walk anywhere and can't imagine that I would want to walk either :) This makes me smile as I walk knowing I seem like an odd duck to them.