The Eternal Quest?

Okay, so maybe that's me speaking a bit hyperbolically, but what can I say? It feels like we've been househunting for a long, long, long time. In reality, we've only been here a little over two weeks, and we didn't even see our first apartments until a few days after we arrived. It really hasn't been that long. I think we're just a bit disappointed in the dearth of options near the office where Jason is working. We'd really love for him to be able to walk to work, but we're not quite sure if that's going to happen.

There are two opposing viewpoints here. ONE: LIVE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CITY!!! Okay, so we could live in the middle of the south zone of the city, which has a neighborhood called San Miguel, whichis right next to Calacoto, where the office is. The benefit is that we would be close to everything. We could walk out of an apartment building and go a block to our favorite ice cream place, walk to get saltenas (my new favorite food - a slightly sweet, baked pastry dough filled with chicken or beef, potatoes, veggies, and spices), and basically have close access to everything. However, it would be like living in the middle of a city, constantly noisy, and we don't know if that would get old. On the flip side, we could live in the burbs, have less access to transportation (possibly having to take Jason to work every day or give him the car), and live in a tranquil setting, possibly with a view, and maybe even a house with a bit of green space. Oh, the dilemna. Oh wait: there's not much of a dilemna because there's NOTHING FOR US TO SEE! (We've had a few showings cancel on us.)

In reality, we have a good place to stay until we find where we want to move, and we can be here as long as we'd like to be, which takes the stress away. However, we're all ready to find a home, but we don't want to just move into something that's not going to good for us and we'll have to move out of a year later. So city or country? VOTE NOW!!!! (Not that we'll take into account your votes, but vote anyway!)

Micah is finally over his cold. He went on antibiotics to get rid of a cough, which was the only symptom of his cold. The cough wouldn't go away, so we spent 18 bucks on medicine. (Yikes, right?) The pricing thing is interesting here. TO give you a rundown of a few grocery store prices:

1 liter milk: $.90
1 pounf of chicken or beef: $3
1 box of Cheerios: $4
1 box of about a dozen small pastries of various types from Ketal, a grocery store here: $1 (These will be my downfall. They're bad, I tell you. BAD! But oh so good...)
six kiwis: $1 (this is at the grocery store; they're apparently a lot cheaper in the market, which I haven't been to yet)
1 saltena: $.65 (Now I want to go get these for lunch.)

Groceries aren't really cheaper for the most part, except for fruits and veggies. Some things are more expensive and we'll still buy sometimes (like CHeerios for the kids - I haven't found a generic version yet), but other things we'll give up completely. (I don't think I'll be buying any Nutella here.) Part of the experience though, right? One of the things that always cracks me up is when I'll see an import of something, like beverage sweetener, that in the states I woudl buy at the dollar store and here costs about four bucks. Always interesting, right?

Now let's review some of the differences:

1. I can take out my trash any day of the week. All I do is put in in a bag and take it to the curb outside of my house. How awesome is that?

2. There are no driving rules here. I mean, I know there ARE some rules, but there aren't many as far as I can tell. If you try to take a left turn, be prepared for cars to pull up on your left and your right and take the turn before you if you're not aggressive enough. I'm working on my agressive behavior. Honestly. Take THAT, PUNK DRIVERS! I'LL PASS YOU IF YOU'RE GOING SLOW!

3. They have this thing called your NIT, which took me a while to figure out. Whenever you buy something, you're supposed to either give your NIT number, which is your tax id number, or save your receipt. This is because sales tax isn't added, and the citizen is supposed to keep an account of all purchases so that they can pay the government the appropriate sales tax. I wonder how many people actually do this...

4. Milk comes in bags, just like in Managua. You can buy it in a box, but it's more expensive. It seems like I am constantly opening up bags of milk due to the two rugrats I have at home.

5. The dogs. The stupid, stupid dogs in our current neighborhood. I promise you it sounds like the beginning of a West Side Story rumble outside of our window at two in the morning. Maybe we can move somewhere without so many dogs that want to join gangs and disturb the peace of slumbering humans.

6. The playgrounds. When I asked Alexis what her favorite part of Bolivia was, she said school, and then she said playgrounds. Because almost everywhere you go out to eat, there's a playground. It's very nice for the adults.

7. The bathtubs. I know this isn't an across the board kind of thing, but every place that we've looked at (and some have been nice and some not so nice) had jacuzzi tubs in the bathrooms. Our hotel had it. Our current house has them. I never expected this to be a norm here considering Jason didn't even know if we were going to get a regular bathtub.

8. There's no sandwich bread. Not that there's any lunch meat or peanut butter anyway, but the sandwich bread that's available is all really tough. I have found some rolls that we're using for sandwiches and cooked a bunch of chicken and sliced it thinly for sandwiches, and I found some reasonable cheese. Put that on a roll with some avacado, and WALA! You have a sandwich.

Those are some of my observations thus far.

Jason is on his first trip to see one of the SP project locations. He'll be back tomorrow. While there's a lot involved (he is the "boss" after all), he's really enjoying his job so far, and the people are great. I'm trying to put myself out there with my Spanish and simply with trying to get stuff done, but I feel a bit in limbo until we get a home. The good news, though, is that there have been no problems with me working for Smarthinking while I've been here, so I can still continue with them. I'll have to figure out next semester's schedule soon, but it seems like it will still be a good fit. Especially if I can get Alex to always take an afternoon nap after school. (You're getting very sleepy, Alexis. You want to take a nap.)