Follow me to Beirut: Apartment

I moved into my own apartment last night after spending over five weeks in a hotel and a temporary accommodation studio.

My apartment isn't modern or beautiful, but it has (almost) everything I need. The apartment is a two-bedroom unit in the party neighbourhood of Mar Mikhael. It's set a little way back from the main street, down a residential back lane, so I don't have to deal with the noise of late night party animals and bars. I won't call it quiet though, as a busy highway runs behind my building so there's a fair amount of road noise (and dust - though I've found everywhere in Beirut dusty). Still, closing the windows blocks most of the noise out and it doesn't really bother me. I don't have a dining room, but I've set up a little plastic table (I think it's meant for the terrace/balcony) in my living room so I have a place to eat.

There are a few things I plan to buy - a clothes rack for my laundry, a pot and a frying pan (the existing ones are in such a sorry scratched state, they'll probably poison me with degrading teflon), a cutting board, maybe a spatula, another pillow (I have two good ones, an ok one and one so pathethicI'm not sure how anyone can call it a pillow), and a bathroom mat. Maybe some indoor slippers too so I don't have to clean the floor so often - dust really accummulates very quickly. If I can't feel dust under my feet, it's not there right? I miss our faithful robot vaccum cleaner in Malaysia. I'm unsure if such things exist here. Haven't seen any so far - maybe it's cheaper to get a maid/cleaner.

One of the things I have to get used to in Beirut is the general lack of privacy. The city is quite densely built, so people do live quite close to each other. My living room and kitchen windows look into a neighbour's kitchen. My bedroom windows face the living room windows of a neighbouring building. The picture on the right isn't from my apartment, but it shows how the terrace is overlooked by neighbours' windows.
It doesn't bother the Beirutis, but this is the first time I've really lived in this manner. It could be that I'm just too picky and self-conscious. I'm sure I'll get used to it soon enough.No biggie.

Anyway, the point of this post was to put up some photos of truly ugly apartments I saw in Beirut. There were some really nice ones that I viewed, but all were unsuitable for me - inconvenient location, single bedroom, too expensive, tricky contracts... I was left with a few choices of ok-ish apartments that were within budget. I settled for mine because it was all inclusive - electricity, water, building fees, internet - so it means no bills. Beirut rents are terribly expensive, but thankfully my employer pays (otherwise there is no way I would have come).

So here are some of the worse places I saw. Note that the rents charged for these places ranged from US$1800-2000, so they are by no means cheap. One would have thought that at these prices, landlords would deign to put in some decent furniture and halfway decent kitchens. These look like they haven't been touched since the 1970s (come to think of it, my kitchen looks pretty old/drab too). One kitchen I saw had ancient open shelves reminiscent of my student flat days instead of kitchen cabinets (unfortunately I don't have a photo of that).