Inner City Pressure

Well, it only took two and a half months, but I have finally moved into a quasi-permanent apartment. With a little help from Serge and his car, and a few fully-encumbered hikes across town, I have cast off my tiny, ugly, smelly studio for a much larger, less ugly, and significantly better smelling apartment on the other side of Lausanne. Last night was my first night in the new apartment, so I am still getting to know the place, but I figured I ought to post something before people start boycotting my blog in protest.

First, the good:

• The apartment nice, clean, and spacious.
• The bathroom is clean, has a full shower, and nice fixtures.
• The kitchen has a full-sized oven, four-burner stove, and plenty of cabinets.
• The bedroom is large, has it's own radiator, and has a wooden floor.
• The building looks really high-class on the inside and looks well-maintained.
• I have a cellar the size of a basketball court. Unfortunately, there's no electricity, so I can't turn it into a second bedroom.
• The surrounding neighborhood has an eclectic (for Switzerland) mix of people and places. Just down the street from my house, there is a Chinese, an Indian, and a Middle-eastern bodega. There is also an Indian restaurant, a Vietnamese restaurant (Linda Vista represent!), a Middle-eastern restaurant, and two pizza places.
• There are two barber shops in my building and at least 4 on the block. I live in the absolute epicenter of stylish, low-cost hair-cutting. How ironic.
• I am within walking distance of a huge supermarket (which is only open during "normal" business hours) and a couple of smaller places that are open as late as 10pm.
• I am only a 6 minute walk from the metro stop, thus making my total commute time 18 minutes.
• I am around the corner from the "Colonia Liberia Italia," an Italian community center. If I ever get the urge to play cards with Italian pensioners, I don't have to go far.
• I am only a 5 minute walk from the Collection de l'Art Brut, i.e. the single-greatest art gallery in the known world. Everyone I know loves this place. If you are even remotely thinking about coming out to Lausanne to visit, let me say: You need to come to this city just to see this gallery. It will BLOW YOUR MIND.

The bad:

• The apartment is on the Rez-de-chaussée, i.e. the ground floor. Fortunately, it is somewhat elevated from the street so there is at least some semblance of privacy.
• A significant portion of my total floor space consists of a long, fairly useless hallway.
• There are no closets.
• There is not a single drawer in the kitchen.
• There is not a square inch of actual storage space in the apartment.
• There are 27 units in the building, and there is exactly one washing machine in the basement for everyone to use.

The ugly:

There is no dryer. Just a bunch of laundry lines and a space heater. I haven't gone through the calculation myself, but I would estimate that this system is so obscenely inefficient that a new dryer would pay for itself in energy savings within a few months. Further, given that they must be pulling in around $25k a month in rent, you think they could swing the one-time cost of a dryer. Really, what aggravates me about this is that I have lived in this building for 24 hours and I am ready to go fight (metaphorically) with the concierge, the management, the ownership, or whoever it takes in order to get a frigging dryer in this building, and I want it immediately. On the other hand, there are 26 other people who have lived here much, much longer but are of such weak moral fiber that they probably haven't even voiced a complaint. Pathetic.

People who've known me a long time know I have a certain fondness for quixotic quests such as this (e.g. open lunch in high school, math forum at Mudd, recycling at Sharon Crest, etc.) so I assure you that there will be future updates on the situation.

Time for some pics!

Fig. 1: The outside of my building. Those two (and a half) windows belong to me. "Coiffure Edgar" offers surprisingly reasonable rates for being in Switzerland, but I still doubt that it can hold a candle to San Diego's Happy Barber and Happy Barber 2.

Fig. 2: The entrance of my apartment. I am thinking of covering the walls in mirrors to give the illusion of space.

Fig. 3: My living room. Yes, that is my only piece of "furniture." I am typing on it right now.

Fig. 4: My quite large bedroom. The white thing in the bottom right corner is the edge of a folding bed that my labmate has let me borrow. In the future, I will probably put my bed in the middle of the room, because as my one-time roommate Jonathan Hsu wisely noted, "I have seen tons of episodes of MTV Cribs and not one rapper has their bed in a corner."

Fig. 5: My kitchen. The clothes (visible on the left) are there because the small ledge there is quite literarly the only place in the house that I can hang clothes at the present time. A trip to Ikea in the near future will hopefully remedy this situation.

I hope that you have enjoyed this brief tour of my new place, I'm sorry if there isn't a whole lot to show. Once I get some furniture and whatnot, I'll probably take some more photos, just to whet your appetite to come visit. And, of course, I'll make sure to take a picture of the new dryer as soon as we get it.