We’ve moved!

No big deal.

We moved around the horseshoe from 904 to 901.

The new apartment is larger, which is nice. But the real reason we moved was the noise.

The bedroom in our old apartment, 904, abutted the elevator shaft. It was always noisy, but it has gotten much worse. We finally couldn’t take it any more and requested a move.

We have complained about the noise and the housing/maintenance department say there is nothing wrong with the elevator.

A common theme with them is “well no one else has complained.” That was simple to remedy with a couple of emails. Everyone I have talked to that now lives or used to live in this building complains or has complained about the noise.

We are now the 2nd people that have moved THIS semester because of it.

Hopefully the elevator doesn’t break. The university is immune form liability lawsuits in egypt. But possibly not in the US. I don’t know.

Additionally, it sounds like our upstairs neighbor runs a tap dancing school.

I don’t know what she and her husband do up there all day and late into the evening. It is not uncommon to here someone walking around at midnight or later. It sounds like they wear slippers with heels. They have a small dog and perhaps the dog has a hard chew toy or bone or something.

It honestly sounds like they move their furniture everyday. All day.

One nice thing is that the husband is a concert pianist and we can often hear him playing during the day. We will miss that.

The reason 901 is quieter is that it is backwards from 904 in that the dining and living room are closer to the elevator. So the noise is really loud in the living space, but much quieter in the bedroom.

But the interesting thing (well, to me anyway) about this move is that it reminds me of all those college moves:

We didn’t move any furniture. We just had to pack up all our clothes and shit-knacks. We had to pack up the dishes and pots and pans. All the furniture stayed in 904 and we moved into 901 with all of its furniture in place.

But it was just the day to day stuff, no heavy items. Just LOTS of trips up and down the hallway.

And it is a rather long hallway. One of those hallways featured in nightmares and bad horror movies where one runs and runs and runs and never reaches the end of it.

We now have a couple of windows that face OUT from the courtyard. We hear the birds chirping at sunset as the roost in the trees. We can hear the church bells and the calls to prayer more clearly.

We can hear the children in the school across the street playing in the school yard.

We can hear the street noise more clearly as well.

But all in all, a good trade.