I take the lift to my flat...

It's official... I am living in Budapest! I just rented an apartment (I mean my "flat") from a Hungarian couple and will be spending the next 9 months living as a student in Budapest! Renting out an apartment makes me feel more at home and less like a tourist in this city. As you can see from the map below, my apartment is right on the Danube river. While we don't have a view from our apartment, we have a gorgeous view from the front door of our apartment building. From my room at night I can see the Liberation Monument that stands on top of Gellert Hill on the Buda side of the city. Our apartment is nice and close to Central European University (CEU) and we can easily walk there. We have also been taking a trolley that runs right in front of our house. We hop on the trolley and in two stops we are at school! Super convenient location right by school, the river, the bridges to Buda, a metro station, and more. Great apartment and spectacular location! 

The apartment I am renting is on the 4th floor of an apartment building that houses probably only 30 apartments. The whole inside of the apartment building is open to a courtyard, which is common in buildings in Budapest. We take the "lift" (aka elevator) to the 3th floor (really the 4rd floor, but they call the second story the first), and then walk up a set of spiral stairs to get to our apartment. We are the only apartment on this level, so it is nice and quite and feels super safe. Speaking of safety--we have a door and a gate on our apartment, which makes me feel really safe but is also a little impractical. Yesterday my roommate and I got locked inside our apartment because the gate was stuck and we couldn't open it!!

I am living with two other MESPOM students who I met within the first couple of days of being in Budapest. Galya is from Ukraine and Fanny is from Indonesia. They are both great girls and I am excited for a fun year of traveling and studying. Our apartment has tons of room so there should be space for everyone to hang out, study, and relax.

Our apartment has one angled roof and lots of wood floors and walls. It kinda looks like a ski cabin! Check out the pictures below of my new place....

• My bedroom: I took the smallest bedroom in the apartment and am paying less in rent per month. It is a cute little cozy room. Not quite enough room for all of my stuff, but I am sure that I will manage. I picked up some new sheets and a mirror from Ikea, so the room is starting to look like more of a Katie room!

• Kitchen: We have a cute little kitchen! We are lucky because we have a dish washer, washing machine, microwave, and a stove in our kitchen. Should be a nice place to prepare meals and have dinner parties!

•  Only problem with our kitchen is that the fridge and the freezer are in a closet..... kinda hard to get to the food in the back of the fridge! 

• Living room: We have a great big living room with two couches, my study desk, and a kitchen table. Great place for entertaining! 

• And, speaking of entertaining, we had a housewarming party and had a bunch of MESPOM students over to our house for wine, snacks, and games. Fun to hang out in our new place! 

I am sure that by the time winter rolls around I will have new stories about the apartment and how everything is working out! Hopefully this apartment is as great as it seems! So far this apartment is great for three students studying in Budapest, Hungary!