New Apartment!

We can hardly believe we're now living in our very own apartment!  It's on the 4th (top) floor of a small building with only 7 other apartments.  It's within walking distance to the church, 3 other families on our team, the office, grocery stores, and a bakery.  We spent the night for the first time last Friday and the boxes we shipped from the U.S. arrived the following day (much earlier than we expected)!  I would compare opening the boxes to Christmas morning.

We went to an apartment meeting last week - entirely in Portuguese.  Our neighbors spent close to 45 minutes explaining that recyclable items go in a special bin in the garage.  We have some interesting, not-so-brazilian names in our building too.  One of our neighbors is Gladstone and another Jackie.  Ironically Gladstone is the person and Jackie is the dog.  When I commented that "Jackie" is an American name, his owner said "Oh yes, Jackie Bauer... from 24!"  Mark and I loved to watch 24 before we moved here.  We feel much safer knowing that Jack Bauer lives next door.  

These are the "before" pictures of our apartment.  We've cleaned and organized for the past 4 days.  It looks so much better now.  We plan to have "after" pictures and/or video footage to share soon!

1. Mark humored me by carrying me over the threshold

2. View from the front door of the living room and office

3. Kitchen

4. Putting together our TV stand

5. Hanging laundry to dry