moving up

hip hip hooray, i have an apartment for the next 2 months!

i met with my neighbor today. i went over to his apartment at noon. he had a checklist of things he wanted to speak about. not sure why, but i didn't think it would go well. however, to my 'luck' things went very well.

on february 27th i will move 5 floors up in my same building. the deal is, that i will 'share' the apartment with him and his wife. 'share' meaning that they will need to be in the apartment doing repairs, they won't actually be living there. the repairs that need to be done are: separating the A and B unit (one was his mothers and one was his fathers. they're two separate apartments, but they are now joined through one of the bedrooms and a hallway.), refinishing the hardwood floors, patching some minor ruff spots / pealing on the walls and removing some of the old furniture. he predicts that this work will take about 2 months. during this time i can live there for $300 in march and $350 in april. that is really an amazing price.

after april he predicts that the apartment will be in proper renting condition. at this time he wants to charge a normal rent. so, i can choose to get a roommate or find another place to live. rent would be somewhere around $500 each, for two people.

after our conversation he showed me the apartment; it's cute. it has old furniture and is a little grandma like, but it's not bad. it's also not bad to once again get my own apartment.... Now that is luck! the apartment has a balcony that is above the trees, so it gets a lot of sunlight. i imagine it would be quieter up there too?

i can't express how happy i am to stay in my neighborhood. i love the park next door, my empanada place near by, my sweet vegetable stand lady, my nice lavendaria lady and i love living so close to the subway and grocery store.