Casa San Miguel

We feel as if we are playing grown-up, as our house here is far larger than our home in Bellingham, and much more glamorous. All houses and apartments here are gated, and we share our gate with a neighboring house (the owners of which own this house and are the parents of the school’s HR manager). Passing through the gate, we arrive at our front door. There is a small open foyer with a gate leading outside and a wooden door leading to the house. Inside, we have a master bedroom with full bathroom that together are about half the size of our Bellingham home. There are three additional bedrooms, though at this time one is set up as a TV room and the other is mostly empty. There is a small living room and a small dining room. The kitchen has vaulted ceilings and is quite spacious, with two refrigerators, expansive cabinets, and gas range and oven, and washing machine. Off the kitchen is yet another bedroom and bath, intended for a live-in maid – for us it is storage. Also in the kitchen is 10x10 ft. area that has no ceiling or roof over it and is open to the air. It has a drain in the floor and is currently used to hang dry clothing. We are not sure what it’s intended use is, but when it rains , the rain will fall right into our house and out through the drain in the floor. No need to go outside to check the weather. Spanish tile throughout the house, windows that open wide, skylights in the kitchen and hallways, and beautifully furnished and decorated.

Exiting the back of the house we find an open air veranda spanning the entire width of the house (for those of you who know our Bellingham house, this is about the same size as our living, dining, kitchen and mudroom all put together). The veranda overlooks our yard/garden, which fall down the hillside. The yard is completely fenced, either by chain link and heavy vegetation, or 5 foot cement walls topped with chain link fence. Running behind the wall at the bottom of our yard is a small creek. Though we cannot see it, the sound of the water drowns out most of the city sounds, and it is easy to forget that we live in the middle of a city of 3 million.