El departamento

I am now officially tongue-tied. The Spanish translation of apartment that I have always used is apartamento, but in Argentina they call it a departamento. In the U.S., my fellow students and I tend to call the department of Romance Languages and Literatures el departamento. So now, when I'm speaking in English, I'm calling the apartment a department, in Spanish I'm calling the departamento an apartamento and trying to remember to call the "departamento" at Michigan a facultad.

Speaking of my departamento here in Mendoza, some of you have expressed interest in seeing what it looks like. It's a studio that is only occupied for a few weeks out of the year when Giselle's parents visit Mendoza, and is therefore a bit sparsely decorated. However, for me it has plenty of space and we have managed to make it a pretty comfortable home for the summer. I can't lie, though: my bed is not comfortable at all.

There is one big living area with 2 beds, a dining table & chairs, a large wardrobe, and the TV (on which movies and shows that are subtitled in Spanish, not dubbed, are completely forbidden).

There's a balcony on the other side of those french doors, but since it's been getting colder, I have not been spending any time out there. But those doors are probably my favorite part of the departamento---I really like the natural light that comes with having big windows.

Then there is a small kitchen and a bathroom on the other side of the "bedroom." Unfortunately, as I was cleaning the apartment the first day I arrived, the shower curtain rod fell and didn't want to go back up. So, the bathroom ends up pretty wet after each shower. Some day, we'll get a rod to replace the old one.

Next up: images of the outside of the building and the walk to school. It takes me longer to post pictures of this because I'm so self conscious about being noticed as a "tourist."