Kim and I were itching to have a day in the kitchen so we invited a group of new friends over for a big family dinner. As Kim created magic in the kitchen I ran back and forth to the store across the street retrieving different ingredients that were forgotten about on our big shopping trip. Music blaring, water boiling, and broom sweeping, we danced the day away in the kitchen. The evening was spent with a large group of our new friends sitting around the table enjoying every bite of Kim’s delicious feast. For most of them this was the first time having any sort of actual American food (or food from home as we like to call it) since arriving and it was beyond appreciated. The buffet was set with slice roasted pork, French style red wine braised beef, garlic mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, honey glazed carrots, potato salad, and fresh garden salad. As Nora Jones sang out from the speakers and wine filling our glasses the night drifted along at an easy pace. But this was nothing compared to what was happening right before they arrived.

About an hour before everyone was set to arrive I pulled out our table to the middle of the room and expanded it to ready it for the large crowd we had coming. No more than a few seconds later, there was a big drip of water that splashed all over the table. Shortly after, another one followed on the other end of the table. See we have two consistent drips in our kitchen ceiling which have been mildly annoying up until this point but we had been told that there was no use fixing it in rainy season. But tonight this would just not do. So I sent Kim down to the office to see if someone could come up and put some more packing tape over it (I would have gladly just done this myself if we had packing tape and a latter but alas). Surprisingly Kim came back a short while later followed by three workers. I say surprisingly because things almost never happen immediately here, it is always “Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow” aka sometime in the distant future after you have asked at least three more times –or- “Please wait for me” aka I will come at the most inconvenient time you could possibly imagine most likely in another month or two.

In they came, the three workers, and Kim got back to cooking as I attempted to ask them to put more tape over the cracks that were leaking. I thought they understood when they left only to return with a latter and three more people. As one of them took to looking at the ceiling the rest stood or sat around watching. Apparently here repairs are a spectator sport. Since we had so many extra helpers I decided to tell them about the leak in the spare bathroom coming from the shower area. Silly me to think that one of the extra people would work on it, instead they called down the guy who was working on the ceiling, off the latter and into the bathroom. After some more scurrying around the one worker person was compounding the bathroom tile as his audience watched idling around him.

With the bathroom now covered in compound (because it wasn’t enough just to put it over the leaky area – it had to cover the entire floor and toilet too), the one worker guy got back on the latter to inspect the ceiling some more. No sooner had he gotten up there were bits of plaster falling all over. He decided that he needed to get a good look at the situation and to do so meant pulling down all of the plaster that was put in place to “fix” the leak long ago.  I hastily grabbed the dinnerware from the table as chunks began dropping from the ceiling. He apparently felt satisfied in what he was seeing because he came back off the latter and went with a few of the helpers to retrieve some more tools. When they returned I stepped out of the bedroom with hopes that they had found some tape but what I saw instead was a handsaw about to go through my ceiling. I frantically screamed at them to stop and with wild hand gestures and muddled English tried to explain to them that I was having a dinner party and the guests were set to arrive in 15 minutes. Somehow I managed to finally get through that all I wanted for “now” was it to be taped and they can cut “tomorrow.” Relief came when they finally sent someone who returned with tape and patched up the drips with a temporary fix.

Of course tomorrow came and of course the workers did not. We gave them until Tuesday when Kim went down to the office and demanded someone to come up again. “Yes, yes. Very soon.” After returning the office hours later Kim stayed until someone followed her up to the apartment. Making sure they were all set she left to run to the grocery store. Returning a few hours later she saw the horrid sight of two gapping holes in our ceiling, but what was even worse was Kim’s knife sitting on the table now covered with plaster dust and bent at the tip. Yes, they had used one of her brand new professional chef’s knifes to cut a hole in the ceiling. Needless to say Kim was furious and rightly so. On top of everything they hadn’t even fixed the leaks! We can handle quite a lot with a good amount of grace and patience but this was one epic fail Myanmar.

It’s cobra birthing season. Who would have known? Twice this week they have found snakes on campus, in my building! Apparently they were just little baby snakes that can’t even open their mouths large enough to bite anyone but try telling that to Kim. Knowing her fear of snakes I decided to keep this information to myself, however Sharon spilled the beans and I was met at the apartment door on Tuesday with a bug-eyed Kim holding a knife and insisting I check all of my bags for snakes before I enter the house. This greeting kept consistent for the next couple days. Apparently this is a common thing here, last year they had a huge issue and were finding snakes in lockers and backpacks. They ended up closing school for a day or so to have a specialist come in. Good thing I don’t mind the little slithery creatures.

Early in the week Kim had a small break out of eczema on her hand. For those of you who don’t know her, she has been fighting regular breakouts of sever hand eczema for over a dozen years not. During a break out her hands go through stages of itchy, uncomfortable, painful, dry, and much worse. I don’t want to be too graphic so I will leave it at that. Any who, although we have yet to find a cure or preventative for the eczema, sometimes if she gets to the doctors in time she can get medication to slow down the process. So on Wednesday afternoon we found ourselves headed down the road to Asia Pacific, the local clinic that was highly recommended to us by other ISM teachers. After waiting just under five minutes (as a walk in) we were escorted to the patient room where the doctor quickly arrived. As Kim explained the situation the doctor patiently listened and asked questions. After examining her hand the doctor brought back a few medications for her (anti-inflammatory, steroid cream, solution to sterilize the open wound, etc.) then insisted that we return in a few days if the hand wasn’t better.

The appointment took all of one hour including walking time. The total amount paid for the appointment was $15 usd and the medication was another $8. It was the easiest experience I have every had with a medical situation – no unnecessary tests or vitals, no irrelevant questions or fancy words, simply listening to the patient and providing the necessary care in a (much) timely fashion. We could get used to this. 

On Thursday Kim went to the Zoo with Sharon and the two kids, H & K. In Kim’s recount of it, the zoo was kind of depressing. The housing for the animals was very bleak with little vegetation. The animals themselves were few and not very exciting. The word is that when they moved the capital from Yangon to a no-ones town up north they took all the “good” and “interesting” animals with them to create a zoo up there. On the bright side it was a fun adventure especially for the little ones. I will have to go back with Kim sometime and have a look for myself. Kim only got a few pictures before the camera died unfortunately.

On Thursday evening I had an Open House at the High School. It was my first time interacting with any parents (aside from the lunch that the PTA held for us when we first arrived). The experience was kind of dull seeing as I only got 5 parent visitors in to see me, which is about average as the school tends to have very low turn outs at parent events like this. Although all of my students speak very good English from having been in this international school setting for so long, the majority of the parents do not speak any English. Luckily I had my assistant with me to translate but it was still a bit awkward to know what to talk about. Surprisingly most of the parents wanted to know about how to get their kids set up to take AP Art courses. More surprising is the fact that these kids are only in 9th grade right now. (Seniors, occasionally juniors, take AP courses as preparation for college) Students and parents at this school have somehow gotten the idea that the more AP classes the student takes, the better chance they have for getting into college. It is a crazy sort of epidemic that many of the teachers and administration here have a difficult time figuring out what to do with. 

Although I don't have any pictures from this night, here is a slideshow that I played for the parents throughout the evening of the students working so far this year:

We arrived in Yangon on a warm dark night. It didn't take us long to make it through customs and find our bags. To welcome us was the school’s director, Almber, my principal (of the High School), Randy, the middle school principal, Chloe, and the elementary school principal, Zoe. We piled into an ISM bus with all of our luggage and were off to our new apartment. Also in our building at Pearl lives Almber and Zoe (along with a number of other ISM employees). The two of them personally escorted us up to our new apartment to make sure we were happy and had everything we needed before leaving us for the night. They provided us with $100,000 kyats (about $100 USD) and a welcome basket that included:

-Tissues
-Toilet Paper
-Milk
-2 apples
-2 oranges
-2 bananas
-Tea
-Sugar
-Instant coffee
-Oreos
-Croissants
-Bread

To see our new apartment take a look at this post: Our Apartment. 

Our first full day in Myanmar was quite busy and really great! After a shower and unpacking just a few things we went downstairs to find something to eat. The first two floors of our condo are filled with businesses, mostly restaurants and stores. When we got to the bottom floor we ran into Almber who showed us around a bit. He brought us across the street to a little market called Asian Light which has a fair selection of groceries as well as household items. We poked around for a bit then went back to the condo to eat at the bakery. The Yangon Bakehouse is a social restaurant who’s mission is to help battered and beaten women get on their feet by teaching them how to cook/bake and work in a restaurant. We ordered a sandwich and some small quiche. It was quite a pricy place (our bill came to about $9 usd) but it was great food and for a great cause. 

Shortly after we finished we met up on the ground floor of the condo with the rest of the new teachers and the welcome staff. We took some time to change money at the money exchange on the ground level then wandered around in Pearl for a bit longer before boarding the bus. The ISM PTA was so kind to bring us all out to lunch at a lovely local restaurant. A few of the parents met us there to welcome us and show their support. It was a buffet style lunch in an old British house and included shrimp and fish skewers with sweet chili sauce, fried rice, thai chicken and vegetables, pork salad, cold sliced beef with tar tar sauce, and a green salad with cheese sauce. For dessert we were served mango mousse and a fruit salad. Lunch was excellent! We were surprised that there weren’t any Burmese dishes and are looking forward to trying true Burmese cuisine.  We enjoyed walking around the grounds of the estate and running back to the porch when it began down pouring. It is monsoon season here (May to October) which means that the sky is almost always overcast and it often lets out enormous amounts of water suddenly that floods the streets and everything else. 

Kim began talking with one of the PTA mothers who, after finding out Kim was a chef, mentioned that her sister just opened up what sounded like a café of sorts that served coffee and pastries. She said that her sister might be looking into expanding to include a wider menu and asked if she could contact Kim. Although this specific opportunity might not amount to anything, we are very excited to be right in our assumption that Kim will be able to find prospective jobs by just meeting different people. 

Back on the busses we were taken to get some household items. We went to Ocean View which is a type of department store with a variety of  household goods and groceries. We were told just to get the essentials and that we would have plenty of time to come back and get other goods. There we purchased:

-surge protector strip
-mop
-broom
-mop bucket
-dish soap
-laundry soap
-floor cleaner
-disinfectant 
-all purpose cleaner
-dish towels
-dish scrubby
-wall hanger for shower
-hangers
-lamp
-toilet paper
-trash bags
-silverware holder
-storage container

All of this came to $58,000 kyats (~$60 usd). The store itself was extremely busy and they only gave us an hour to grab things so it was very hectic and a bit stressful., but it was a good first trip all in all. This is a picture of Kim on the conveyer thing in the store. It is brilliant because it locks the shopping cart wheels so it doesn't roll.

When we got back to our apartment one of the workers from Eco (the business who service and maintains the apartments) came by with an inventory list. We had to go through the list item by item to say what was in the apartment and make sure that everything was in good shape. Our hosts warned us not to sign unless we checked every item. We are missing a few things like a bureau for Kim, a dish drainer, another garbage bin, etc. so hopefully they will bring those by in the next couple days. 

At this point we were still exhausted but we really wanted to try and stay awake so we could sleep through the night. We decided to go find some groceries and headed across the street to the Korean grocery store. This was an interesting experience. As soon as we walked in all six cashiers turned to us and bowed while saying what I assume was ‘welcome’ or ‘hello’ in Korean. As we began to wander around the store there were many more workers standing around who seemed to be only there to greet us (again with a bow). Everything was in Korean and there were many strange items. All of the products were very expensive (as it was a very nice store that was very clean and well lit) but we didn’t want to leave empty handed so I got a box of moon-pie like cakes that I had tried a sample of and Kim got a thing of soda. 

There are no crosswalks so we almost died multiple times crossing the street back. But Zoe said that the locals would get in A LOT of trouble if they were to hit a foreigner, so they might come very close but they would never actually hit you. It kind of reminded me of a game of frogger where you had to try and get to the next line on the road. 

So we went back to Asia Light to grab some things to eat. We grabbed:
-apple juice (~$2.00 usd)
-mandarin orange juice (~$2.00 usd)
-yogurt (~$0.70 usd)
-crackers (~$0.85 usd)
-chips (~$0.50 usd)
-milk (~$2.00 usd)
-chocolate cake snack (~$0.35 usd)
-creamhorn like snack (~$0.35 usd)
-clock (~$2.60 usd)
-2 adapter plugs (~$0.65 and $0.20 usd) 

When we returned we finally were able to get online! Yay! The internet is not quite as slow as I expected, it does take an extra few seconds to completely load a page but it is defiantly better than what I was prepared for. We took some time to Skype with Robin, Sonny, and Stan (and by we I mean me because Kim feel asleep while I was getting it set up. So that was our eventful first day in Myanmar. I am so happy that everything has been going smoothly and that ISM is so welcoming. 

Sunday began with our first trip to the wet market. There are many, many wet markets all around, Zoe led us to the one closest to our building. It was about a half a mile away. As we walked there Zoe shared little tidbits about the neighborhood and life in general. One thing she mentioned was about how they changed the import regulations for vehicles a year or two ago so now there are an extraordinary amount of cars and trucks on the roads making it difficult because the city was not designed for them. Another thing she mentioned was how they tried to fix up the city a bit when they hosted the South East Asian Games back in December. They made the sidewalks a bit nicer but you still have to be careful when you walk around to be sure you don’t step off into a crack or hole. 

We will be making a post all about the wet market very soon!

For lunch it was getting a tad muggy out so we decided to get take out and eat in our very cold air conditioned apartment. I went down to one of the restaurants in the Pearl complex (in the building next door) and ordered from a little shop there. I got two types of fried noodle dishes, one with larger noodles and one with small rice type noodles. Only one of the dishes was supposed to have seafood but they both ended up having an array of shrimp, squid, and fish in them. Although I will eat seafood every now and again I’m not a big fan so that was a little disappointing. We also got a chicken soup dish that was very tasty. I was surprised that there was no chicken in it but rather it was made with chicken broth that was thickened and creamy and served with the thin rice-type noodles. Lastly I grabbed some tea leaf salad. This was something we had read a lot about and was excited to try because it is one of the main dishes of Myanmar. It was a cold salad that had a mixture of things in it including pickled tea leafs, nuts, and seasonings. Each noodle dish was $2.00 usd, the soup was $0.50 usd, and the salad $0.85 usd. So we ate lunch (and had leftovers) for about $5.35 usd.

We met up with the rest of the new teachers and our hosts (the principals and director) to board the bus headed to Shwedagon Pagoda. See our whole Shwedagon experience on this post: Shwedagon Pagoda | The temple of all Myanmar temples

After the visit to Shwedagon everyone stopped at a hotpot place for dinner. Hotpot is where you have a large container of broth in the middle of the table to share with the group. Everyone goes to pick out ingredients to add to the broth, this ranges from seafood to tofu, from noodles to eggs, from vegetables to greens, and so much more. After letting the ingredients stew in the broth for a bit everyone enjoys a big bowl. It was a fun event for sure, the food was good and more filling than I had thought. Kim got a little stressed out when everyone began throwing random ingredients in that didn’t normally go together, perhaps next time we will set up a game plan first.

What a weekend! I can’t believe how much information we have received so far and how much we have learned in just this little time here. I am so glad that we are here for so much longer which will hopefully be enough time to see and do all the amazing things that Myanmar has to offer! But for now, bed, it is orientation first thing in the morning. 

First thing Monday morning I hopped on the ISM bus to school where I finally got to see where I would be teaching for the next two years. The High School has two buildings (one of which used to be the middle school) with a small outdoor space in between. We have one large art room that will be shared between me and the other new art teacher. I will also be teaching out of one of the computer labs for my digital media/ 2d design class. We have quite a bit of work to get the room ready for students next week. The tables and stools were recently purchased from the west and really make the art room. There is a range of supplies that need to be sorted and organized. There are also preparing a small adjoining room for us to use as well. This room needs to have carpets removed and furniture moved in as well as other projects done to ready it for the students.  I’m not sure how we are going to work everything exactly but we will know more when we see our schedules later in the week. (I'll do a post soon all about my school, with lots of photos I promise)

After a tour and a new teacher meeting we went over to the middle school where they hosted lunch for all of us. They prepared a variety of Myanmar dishes most of which were meat and/or vegetables in either a broth, sauce, or curry. They were served with rice and a clear-broth soup. Everything tasted very good and most were not spicy. 

We then had our first Myanmar culture lesson. Zoe started by showing us various maps of Myanmar and Yangon, explaining the different regions and ethnicities who live in each. We talked about different restaurants to go to, transportation, sites around the town, and other various city related advice. Auntie Amy then joined us to talk about Myanmar traditions; she showed us the traditional dress, explained Myanmar customs, and shared with us some Myanmar snacks.  She was so sweet to give us small gifts to go away with. We received one pair of owls figurines – a symbol of good luck in the Myanmar culture. She also gave us these two small dolls always land heads up no matter how you throw them – they are given to people who are down on their luck to show them that no matter what happens in life you can always get back on your feet. 

After school Regi, the other art teacher, and I joined Zoe to go meet Gail, the previous art teacher. She had invited us to her apartment so we could greet each other before she left for her retirement in Texas. Over a glass of wine she shared with us the Yangon art scene and all of the progress she has made with the art program over the years. It was lovely to be able to absorb some of the knowledge that she has about art at ISM and in Myanmar. 

Kim has been keeping busy this week organizing the household and finding her way around our neighborhood. Our new friends Steven and Sharon live right downstairs with their kids H & K; Steven is a Social Studies teacher with me at the high school. On Monday Sharon and Kim went to the wet market to get some groceries. She got 20 quail eggs for 600 kyat ($0.60 usd) unfortunately only about a dozen of them made it home. Pork was also purchased from a meat vendor which turned out to be very fatty and expensive, 8000 kyat for 1 kg ($8.00 usd for 2 lbs).  Being a foreigner that they don’t know they tend to jack up the prices of everything. We are working on developing our bartering skills. It was amazing to come home to all of the suitcases unpacked and the house in order! I am so lucky to have a wonderful partner!!

Although it was fairly late when I returned home I wanted to talk with my family because I hadn’t gotten the chance yet. Luckily I was able to Skype with Andrea, Sam, Zane, Dad, Drew, and Autumn, all at the same time! It was so nice to see everyone and get to share with them a bit of the adventure that I have had so far. Before long I had to say goodbye because I was so very tired! Long and exciting days!

Another orientation day started with the director of the school addressing the entire ISM faculty. He shared with us all about the school’s mission, the school’s directive plan, his philosophy, and what we were to expect in the next few months. Afterwards we headed back to the high school to have a school only meeting. For lunch some of the returning teachers took us out into the neighborhood to show us some good places to eat. Oddly enough many of the usual places were closed (we later found out there was some sort of holiday), so we all hopped in the bus and headed to a restaurant down town. There was a big group of us and unfortunately they only had two English menus, needless to say it took us quite a long time for everyone to order. After which we ended up waiting a while for our food to start arriving, when it did become coming it took about 45 minutes from the first plate to the last plate. I’m not sure if I mentioned it before but we quickly realized here that the concept of one person ordering their individual plate is very strange to them. In Myanmar culture (and many others) they eat by getting a variety of plates to share and all eat a bit of everything at the same time. For this reason they do not wait to serve everyone at once, rather they bring dishes out when they are ready. This happens very sporadically. It is strange and defiantly something we will need to get used to.  After lunch we returned to school where I only had a very short amount of time in my classroom before grabbing the bus back to Pearl.

Kim had been very busy during the day and I walked into an amazing smelling apartment. Kim had found her way to CityMart which is a more high end grocery store for the area that has a larger selection of goods with a variety of meats, frozen foods, cheeses, and a few aisles of dry goods. For dinner she made a delicious soup of carrots, eggplant, onion, pork, baby potatoes, with a chicken curry base.  We invited another new teacher over to enjoy the meal and Li Qi made great company.

The rest of the week continued with about the same routine; I went to school from 7:00 am to 4:00 pm returning home about 4:45 pm after days of meetings and getting my classroom prepared. It became pretty stressful and overwhelming with the amount of information I was presented with and the short amount of time I had to get ready for teaching the following week. But I made it through. I ate out at the stalls near school a couple times usually having a rice dish with a bit of protein and some veggies. Here is where I ate on Thursday:

Kim spent the rest of the week going on adventures with Sharon, H & K. They found the park to go for a walk in, went downtown for an indoor playground, tracked down the stationary store, and did lots of laundry. We have shared washing and drying machines in the building that only hold a very small amount of clothes at one time. Most people find easier to hand their clothes up in their house to dry. There are some very helpful housekeepers who have been hired to do laundry for other people in the building who have switched over our laundry on more than one occasion. They do it just to be kind and don’t expect anything in return. 

It was an intense first week. Everything of course still feels very foreign and new but mostly in an exciting, adventurous kind of way. It feels nice to be unpacked and getting to know the area. I'm looking forward to feeling more settled and for school to start on Monday. Here's to a weekend of rest and of course more adventuring.

Our new home is located in one of the buildings that makes up the Pearl Complex. ISM provides our housing and hosts their teachers in two different buildings, Pearl and Diamond. They are about a 20 minute taxi ride apart (depending on the traffic of course). Almost all of the new teachers are in Diamond because they have more apartments there, it is the more modern of the two buildings. We, however, were given an apartment in Pearl because they are the only of the two that accepts dogs and we were originally planning on bringing Ms. Ellie May.  Pearl is where all of the teachers with families live. It works out nicely because Kim has made friends with Sharon, one of the other "trailing spouses" in the building and they enjoy going on adventures together. 

The Pearl Complex has 5 or 6 buildings with a few levels of shops and restaurants on the first few floors and condominiums (apartments) above. Given the option to change to an apartment at Diamond, the neighborhood and close vicinity to food and stores were one of the main reasons we decided to stay put. There is a chandelier store, a pharmacy, a few restaurants with mini-plastic furniture spilling out into the street, a Samson electronics store, a Korean version of McDonalds, a fancy French bakery, a fancy european soaps and fragrance shop, and so many more. Here are some of the places we frequent:

Asia Light, a small grocery store where we get food and household goods

The Golden Pearl, a simple restaurant with very low prices that delivers right to our door (when we can get our phone to work to order)

The Yangon Bakehouse, a pricy but delicious bakery with fantastic bread and quiche

The Indonesian Restaurant, okay - that is not really it's name but it is packed full with Indonesian fair, nice, clean, tasty food at a medium price

The Money Exchange, just as it sounds - where we go to exchange our USDollars to Kyats

Pa Pa's Pizza, medium priced, thin crust only, fresh pizza served with a side of blaring techno music

Another nice perks to Pearl is the workout room and the pool! They call it a gym, but to me it is a workout room as it is pretty limited with equipment - on the bright side it almost never has people in it, so the one piece of each workout equipment is enough to go around most of the time. It has a treadmill, a bike, a few weights, and one of those all-in-one weight machines. The pool has been closed for a couple month, I was told that it is closed during rainy season, but it is opening tomorrow! It is not super fancy but it looks decent enough to me. The water is clean and cool and the surroundings are nice. The pool itself is located on the top level of one of the Pearl buildings which means that it is an open air environment. The floor below the pool also has a pool hall - we haven't been yet but hope to go check it out soon

Our apartment is on the second floor of building E (it is actually the third level but all of the buildings here go by the european way of naming the first floor "ground level"). We have a two bedroom apartment with two bathrooms, a living room, and a "eat-in" kitchen. I am especially fond of the high ceilings with moldings, the great lighting, and the "windows" between the rooms. Kim is very happy to have an air conditioner in each room. Our apartment came furnished so we have a full set for the living room including a small couch and chair, a coffee table, an entertainment stand, a small TV and a phone. 

Both bedrooms have a queen size bed with sheets, pillows, and blankets - these get changed once a week from housekeeping. We also each have a bureau for our clothing and one night side table. 

One bathroom is off of the kitchen and one is off of one of the bedrooms. Each bathroom has an open shower - this means that it is not inclosed at all, the water drains into the corner of the room. The showers have an instant hot water heater which works fairly well, I wouldn't mind it being a bit hotter but it's alright. There is also a bidet with each toilette - very European. 

Lastly, the kitchen! We have a small fridge, not a mini one but about 4 feet tall. We were concerned about it not being big enough at first (we usually have a very full fridge) but it has been working out just fine so far. We have the usual sink, cupboards, countertop, vent, etc. What we don't have is an oven or a stove. We do have a gas range with two burners - originally we had an electric range but Kim sweet-talked the office ladies and got herself a gas one. We were also supplied with a microwave and a rice-cooker. A handful of cooking utensils were also supplied (2 knifes, a spatula, and a ladle). 

As I mentioned, it is an eat-in-kitchen meaning that the dining table is placed in the kitchen. It is a really nice table that has sleeves to pullout to accommodate more people. We also have a set of four chairs as well as four plates, bowls, mini bowls, cups, teacups, saucers, forks, spoons, mini forks, mini spoons, and Chinese spoon. 

I knew it would be hard to make such a foreign place feel like home, so before we left I printed off about a hundred different photos for us to take with us. We were able to create multiple photo collages around the apartment which quickly became our favorite feature. 

So that is it! Our home away from home! Hope you enjoyed to tour!