Apartment One To Apartment Two

Well, we spent our first night in our new apartment. Here are some pictures.

This is our staircase. It goes up to the third floor (2e floor for the Europeans). There are no landings. It is very steep. If you slip, you have a long way down on hard tile stairs. If a person were to live here a long time, they would surely eventually fall and injure themselves quite badly. But for a short time, as long as we're very careful, it's OK.





Here is our view from some of the windows.









I can't wait to see the neighbor with the lacy undergarments. ;-)

Our kitchen.



Not much headroom upstairs.



Our sitting area.



Our TV.



Elena doing dishes.



We made our first meal--steak, green/red peppers and onions, cous-cous, tomato and cucumber salad, and Vieux Papes wine from Morocco. Yummy!!!



When we got here, the satellite receiver for the TV wasn't working. We just got the 2 Moroccan channels. We told the people who rented it and a guy came over and gave a new receiver. Now we get a bunch of channels off "hotbird". Most channels are pay and we can't see them, and most of the rest aren't in English. There is CCTV, the Chinese English language channel, the Pentagon Network, and a goofy new age Supreme Master-TV. But the remote for the satellite didn't work even after the guy changed the batteries, so we have no remote control and have to navigate the 250 odd channels with the "+" and "-" buttons.

We spent our first night and barely slept a wink. Inside, there 2 mosquitos. The first mosquitos we've encountered in Essaouira. Outside, there were dogs barking--including one that barked all night, birds fighting, cats howling, people knocking on doors, and--oh joy--another muezzin near by who did his thing in the middle of the night. Much of the fighting between birds and cats seems to go on just on our roof, just above our heads. Everytime I got to sleep, Elena would move and wake me up, then when she got to sleep, I'd move and wake her up. At one point she got up and tried to move to a couch, but the couches are extremely crowned and you can't really sleep on them, so she moved back. But while the light was on, I hunted and killed the mosquito, so I had an easier sleep and actually started sleeping well until the muezzin started and then when he finished, somebody decided to visit a neighbor and knocked for about 5 minutes.

Anyway, here is a comparison chart of our two apartments.

Aspect of the Apartment	First	Second
Cleanliness	Clean enogh for me but not for Elena	Clean enough for Elena
Hot Water	Only for shower Heated by butane but exhaust enters apartment instead of outside	Electric. Goes to shower, bathroom, kitchen taps.
Smell	Stinky. Butane exhaust or sewer gas? Not sure	No smell
Kitchen	Not so well stocked. Only one good pot and no good frying pans.	Well stocked.
Stove	Two burners inconveniently placed. Matched provided but no other means of ignition.	4 burners and an oven. There is a spark generator to light the burners.
Noise	Very quiet. Birds in the distance, but very quiet.	Very noisy. You can hear all neighbors and animals make noise all night.
Temperature	A bit humid but good for sleeping	A bit too hot for me
Couches	A bit low. A bit unconfortable	Crowned and hard. Not confortable at all.
Stairs To Place	Dark and windy. Landings.	Single steep climb with no landings. Literally deadly.
Location	Close to the medina	A bit further from the medina
Decoration	OK	Nice
Ceilings	Normal	Very low. A party with a member over 5'6" will not be able to stay here.
Bathrooms	Never seemed clean no matter how much Elena scrubbed	Clean and pleasant.
TV	Little TV far away from siting area. 2 channels.	Little TV close to sitting area. Satellite.
Windows	All hinges rusted to uselessness.	OK
Insect Life	Ants, fruit flies	Ants, fruit flies, flies, mosquitos
Terrace	Not great for sitting outside and enjoying the day	Not great for sitting outside and enjoying the day
Overall	Quiet but smelly. Propping the window open with a string by the butane heater helps--as long as the wind isn't blowing into the window.	Loud but no bad odors.