New Digs

This year I'm in a new apartment. It's really a pretty nice place and I even moved a little closer to the school (it's about a 30 minute bus ride from my apartment). I like my new place, but there's just some strange things along with it:

1. Weird Junk

Most of the apartments that foreigners rent here come somewhat furnished already which is great, but what this also means is that you will have, literally, piles of weird junk that has accumulated from the last 10 occupants. In my apartment, we are packed to the gills with weird Russian junk. Below is a picture of doll collection and odd/unusable/commemorative crockery that occupies our foyer/hallway. There's also a large collection of Russian books that belong to the landlord. So, you never know what is junk left by the previous occupant and what is actually being stored there for when they come back.

2. Laundry (Pt. 1)

Below is a picture of my dryer. We were not fortunate enough to get a dryer in this apartment. But considering how our last dryer was deafeningly loud and actually made everything MORE wrinkly, I'm not complaining all the much.

3. Laundry (Pt. 2)

This is our bathroom. That hose you see coming from our washing machine empties into the tub. This can be weird if you are showering while doing a load of laundry. I'm sure there are people that do this in US, but I've never seen it. It's fairly common here, as most apartments were built without washers in mind; that's only for lazy Westerners.

3. WC

This is our toilet (which is in a separate room from the bathroom). The seat does not go up. It's not a huge problem, but it's just one more thing that I've noticed on several occasions here. The nice thing is that the previous occupants decorated our water closet up a bit.