mi casa es tu casa!

I was looking through my blogs and started to realize that I tell you about all these great places I go to about things I do, but I noticed I haven't even showed you where I live! About a year ago I posted a blog about my first apartment, but after last Christmas I moved to a new neighborhood and apartment, and haven't ever shown any pictures of that! So here goes...

I now live in Gros. Yes, you pronounce it like 'gross' but I promise it's not yucky! It was named after a particulary successful propieter (Tomas Gros) who lived in the area before it was booming. Originally the old part was all that the city consisted of, and eventually the population spread across the river to the now named Gros!

Here is a quick little map of San Sebastian. The green star is where I used to live in the Old Part the red star is where I live now, in the neighborhood of Gros. I originally moved here because a bunch of my friends last year lived near. Also, I wanted to live with Spanish-speaking people. Now I live with a German and 3 native speakers, so that was successful!

Here is my street view from my front door. We live next to the cathedral, and every day you can hear the bells chiming from my window. Also, every Sunday to signal the start of mass, they play a little bell-melody. That's great to hear when you are awake and cheerful, but not so pleasant when you are tired and still trying to sleep!

In the area, everything is within walking distance, and normally things aren't farther than about 3 blocks. It takes you about 5 minutes to walk anywhere in the burrough. The funny thing is that I became so used to the old part and the center of town, and now I never actually leave Gros unless I need something I can't find here. It becomes its own little community - here I have my school, my grocery stores, my favorites restaurants and bars, post offices, banks and stores. In the picture you probably see a bunch of partions that are painted blue and white...normally we have a glorious plaza here with playgrounds, benches and a little park, but since I have been back it has been under construction. Hopefully they finish that soon - because a jackhammer in the morning is much more annoying that ringing bells!

Anyways, I thought I would share a few pics of my apartment with you just so maybe when you read my blog or get a postcard from me, you can know where I wrote them from! The first are of the mail hallway of my house. You enter the front door and can either go in a bedroom or go right and go down a long hall. Off the hall is 2 bathrooms, 3 bedrooms and then at the end of the hall is my room! The door at the end with the door open is my place. As you can see our hall is littered with a drying rack, since we dont have a dryer, people's bikes, and a table for the mail. Sometimes it is like an obstacle course when you come home at night and can't see!

Two doors before my bedroom is our kitchen...which is nothing really special, but I will show you a pic anyways. For some reason we have photos of Betty Boop all over the apartment. They all look like they were part of a calendar, so I guess one day someone got bored and put up her monthly pics as the house decorations. Not really my style, but I have gotten pretty used to it! We don't have a microwave, but our kitchen does include a lovely washing machine.

My room is kind of a hodge-podge of other people's things. I have two sitting chairs that my boss is letting me use for the year, my blankets and comforters are from my Polish friends who lived in my apartment over the summer, and the regular furniture came with the room. Aside from that, I try to put my little spin on things to make it feel more like home. The first picture on the left is what my room looks like when you walk in the door. To the right is a huge wardrobe where I keep a wealth of clothes. Looking at it everyday, I often wonder how I am going to get even HALF of the clothes I have here home. Oh well...I'll worry about it later! In the photo on the right you can see that at the end of my bed is a huge desk. Well, it's not really a desk, more just like a peice of wood ontop of two stands! My little bulletin boards are filled with family/friend pics, cards people send me, fun things from my trips and of course my American flag! My room is pretty big...definitley big enough for one girl! It's nice to have friends over and watch movies and have slumber parties! From my window, I don't have the most amazing view. In Spain they build the apartments with a big opening in the middle between the buildings on one side of the street and the backs of the buildings from the other street. Every dries thier clothes off the balconies and has little porches, all with a view of nothing! It is nice to open the windows and let fresh air in all the time and to check the weather from the 5th floor window, but everytime I look at the view, it reminds me of what a Spanish apartment I live in!

Overall its a nice apartment. It's pretty sizeable and the people are nice, so I am a happy camper. Off to go have dinner with a friend, but will update soon! I know it wasn't the most exciting blog, but I wanted to give you a little perspective of where I live, so maybe you can imagine me sitting here at my laptop writing to you! And now, you also know what a building from the Spanish 1800s looks like!

Have a great day and a even better weekend!

Besos!

Amanda