A Look at the Apartment

Once again I find myself too slow to update the blog. Things happen, and a week later I still haven't written even the slightest thing about them. Like the time last week when I called my soon to be landlord company asking for a viewing of the apartment that I and my two friends had already payed the deposition for more than two weeks earlier. Because people were still living in the apartment halfway through October, there had been no posibility to actually see it before signing up for it. So it had been a bit of a gamble. The apartment seemed nice in theory, but who knew what it would actually turn out to be like?

I wanted to know. When I called the company though, I was told that they usually couldn't offer a viewing to people who had already paid the deposition.  That to me seems a bit backwards. Either way, using my intense charm, I managed to convince them to show me the apartment later that day. So I went there, bringing one of my soon to be cotenants with me.

As it turned out, the apartment was better than we could ever have wished for.  Fully furnished, with all the furniture feeling very fresh, it really put all of our potential fears at rest - not that we really had that many. There was even a TV at around 24" standing in the central dining room, as well as a wireless router, something we had definitely expected to having to buy ourselves. The only thing I felt was missing was a real oven. So I wont be able to start baking after all. (Sorry guys, but it seems there'll be no home baked ginger bread for Christmas.) On the other hand, the kitchen did have a gas stove - but most apartments here seem to have that, so that was pretty much expected. I wish the same would have been the case back home. Gas stoves are extremely rare in Sweden outside of restaurants, which is a shame given how much better they are than their electricity-using cousins.

All three bedrooms had real tatami floors - even though it for some reason was covered up by large, ugly mats in two of the rooms.  Apparently it was because they had been marketing those two rooms as somewhat more western or something like that, which I really can't understand the point of doing. Especially as the underlying tatami mats were considerably more attractive to look at, something which the guys showing us the apartment definitely agreed with. They then gave us full permisson to remove the "western" cover mats, as long as we returned them before moving out. So it was all good there as well.

Only one of the rooms actually have a bed. Neither me or Mikael - who was the one that was with me - picked that room. The problem with a bed is that it takes up way too much of a room's total area. Sleeping on a Japanese style futon that you can fold away during the day frees up a whole lot of space. It may be harder than sleeping in a bed - the beds at my current guesthouse being the large exception, as they are hard as stone, even with the double set of futons I am using - so I acually expect it will prove to be more comfortable sleeping on tatami floors.

Another problem with the room with the bed was the western style desk taking up even more of the precious area. The other two rooms had desks of the more traditional Japanese style, low things by which you have to sit on a cushion on the floor. And they looked much more exclusive than the western desk as well. To further help along my decision for the room I chose, I just got a very good feeling in that room. Maybe the feng shui of the room just felt good, maybe it was something else. Either way, I knew that I would have to be the one living in that room.

Linus, who still haven't seen the actual apartment, had originally set his mind on the same room after looking at the floor plan. But he didn't prove to hard to convince. When I mentioned that the bed was still not taken, the remaining resistance flew away pretty quickly.