Apartment Hunting...

This apartment hunting is tough going, like trudging through slog or swimming in mud. There are some issues with foreigners renting, normally they want some type of guarantee, which means a person from Mendoza has to sign on your behalf. But if you don't have this person, you have to leave a deposit equivalent to 2-3 months rent. Since we're only renting for 4 months, that's pretty much double what we need for the rent itself. Very annoying. The best part is that I sat Erin down and tried to lower her expectations. What are you thinking we're going to be seeing? Perhaps a nice, cute, well-decorated apartment with a full kitchen, complete with new sheets and towels? Not on our budget. Think dungeons and ratty, threadbare linens. We will live in a windowless apartment with a bare mattress thrown on the floor. She didn't appreciate that very much, but I think her expectations came down a bit. But not quite enough, as you'll see.

So yesterday we spent our time walking around, trying to call each and every real estate agent, walk into each office and ask for apartments, etc. We had a meeting setup for 4:30pm yesterday to see an apartment, but when we turned up, they said it had already been rented. That is not a good way to start. We were supposed to meet another guy at 6pm, so we waited around and then walked to the area where we were supposed to meet. But when we called to see when he was going to open the apartment for us, he said that he couldn't do it, maybe tomorrow. Another failure. Not good. We were getting a little disappointed, but still persevering, so we called another number that we saw on the side of the building. Amazingly, the man picked up and told us to come up to his office, he had some apartments we could see! Wow! Finally.

After talking with him for awhile, figuring out exactly what it was that we were looking for, we went to look at an apartment. It was a 9th floor studio. Very small. I would actually say it was a room with a bed and a small bathroom. The best part is that when we asked where the kitchen was, they opened up a small closet with a two-burner hotplate in it, right below the water heater. Classy. Very classy. Erin was shaking her head at me, giving me the signal that there was no way she would ever agree to live in this hovel. My standards are pretty low, but I think that might have been below even my standards. This one was 1000 pesos a month.

The next apartment was much better, but I think that's only because we saw the scum at the bottom of the barrel, and it was 600 pesos more a month. Still, it had the same two burner setup, but it was gas this time. It was another studio apartment, but it has access to a large terrace, common to the whole apartment building. This is our current front runner, but we're slated to see a few more apartments. One of these is the expensive one on our list, so it should be nice, it just depends on how much nicer it is, maybe it's worth it, maybe not. We'll see and let you know. Once we find our apartment, we'll take some pictures and put a little square in the side so that all our friends know that there is a space reserved for them when they visit!