Mi Casa

So I realized when I was writing for this the other day that I have barely taken any photos. I suppose that is a good thing, I'm taking things in for myself instead of hiding behind my camera, but it also means I don't have lots of photos to share with you. So, yesterday when my family was all gone I creepily took pictures of the house I am living in for the next 3 months or so. Now you can have a more concrete picture of my life here, amiright?

This is the living room. It was pretty dark but you get the idea. Surprisingly, since my host mom owns a flower shop, we don't have that many flowers in our house. However, you can see that there are some flower arrangements here and there.

The living room and the dining room are one big room with a really high ceiling. They were in the process of house cleaning so normally there isn't an ironing board or pillows everywhere.

This is the kitchen where we eat almost all of our meals. They constantly have music playing a variety of music in spanish which my host mom says is normally from Argentina or Mexico or American music. It is bizarre to feel like I am listening to an American top 40 station while I'm here.

Here is my temporary bedroom. Right now I am living in the bedroom on the 1st floor but I am going to move to a different room on the second floor sometime this weekend or next week I think. Their son who lives in Germany was just visiting and I guess they had to clean out their upstairs before I could move there. This room is nice though and I do my best to keep it reasonably clean (often unsuccessfully as you can see)

This is the street I live on. The houses here are almost all gated in or have tall cement walls. It is kind of strange in a culture that is all about social relationships and bonding to have all the houses be so separated, but I guess it is for security reasons. 

This is my house. Because of the wall it is hard to see completely from the outside but you get the idea. I live in the northern part of the city where the mountains are so as you can sort of see my whole neighborhood is on a hill.

I hope these photos give you a better idea of where I am and what it is like here. I will do my best to take more photos of my school, the city center, etc. and post them whenever I can.