my home away from home

I'm going to save the Paris and Amsterdam posts for later when I feel like getting to it. Instead, I think I'll share some pictures of my new apartment!

As my new roommate, Annie, described it, it's "shabby chic."

So this is the main entrance. I took the picture at night (hopefully you can see kinda how creepy it is). These are also Tina and Heesun, 2 of my apartment-mates (they're also from Berkeley). We live on the third floor. There are no elevators in this building, and the stairs are steep, rough, uneven slabs of wood. So imagine me arriving on the first day with luggage :[ BUT I haven't fallen yet :] I'm pretty sure I will have calves of steel by the end of the summer.

And this is the inside look of our apartment's door. I don't think the picture captures its intensity. 

This is the living room. The couches are quite comfy and the windows provide lots of natural sunlight :]

Surprisingly enough, I haven't tried watching tv yet :]

This is a huge mirror in the hallway.

 First hallway after entering the apartment. This place has a bunch of hallways that connect together like a lightning bolt (it's pretty creepy at night). There's also a bunch of rooms with little locks on them which we don't have access to (which also creeps me out).

This is my room, a double. My roommate, Annie, and I share a huge glass table at the other end.
Our window faces the street so I constantly hear chitchat from the streets, cars honking, the garbage truck every night, and right now there's a protest.

This is our bathroom. 1 bathroom for 5 girls. We're managing, but it's pretty difficult. 

Another long, creepy hallway leading to another double room, some more padlocked rooms,

and the kitchen!

There's not enough chairs for all 5 of us to sit together, but it's fully stocked with pots, pans, dishes, cups, ice trays, etc. etc. (and even soy sauce!)

These wooden beams are certainly an eyesore, but we believe it's to reinforce the sagging ceiling.

There's a lot of storage space in this apartment. Connected to this "pantry" room is another dark, cold room.

I don't know why there's a fake fireplace in my room (which is on the 3rd floor in this building).

We visited another apartment of some people in our program, and hot dang, it's fancier than a hotel! Kinda unfair that 5 guys get 2 bathrooms and a pink apartment...