Our apartment in Laureles, Medellin

My new digs... I'll send the address to friends...

This is the bottom level of a two story house in Strato 6 (highest rank) in the Laureles District which is the best neighborhood.  Beautiful streets loaded with restaurants, coffee houses, stores and banks.  The upscale Unicentro Centro Commercial (mall with supermarkets, boutiques, restaurants and movies) is three blocks away.  Our street is a quiet side street  opposite the Pontifical University Bolivar and its sports complex and pool to which the neighborhood has access.

The apartment  is about 5000 square feet!  It has five large bedrooms, three full baths and two half baths with a separate bedroom and bath for the "empleada", the maid's quarters off the laundry patio.  The laundry patio is half exposed to the sky and clothes are dried there.  The common rooms are another large sunlit patio, a dining room area off the kitchen, a living room area and yet another giant area for a garage.  The garage is living space and is open to the living room and the dining room (no need for a car!).  A gigantic plate glass window opens to the street.  There's a cute front garden but no backyard.

Beatriz and I have the master bedroom, her daughter, little 7 year old Andrea,  a large private room and bathroom, her brother Fernando Martin, a 48 year old dentist, another large bedroom with half bath, the visitor's room is another large bedroom with full bath, the fifth bedroom I have converted into a library and study 

for me but it too can be a visitor's room. The maid's room is also available for guests.

Our housekeeper, Dona Sylvia, is an old friend of the family.  She comes weekly and works the entire day.  She gets $25 per day!  Today she also went shopping with a list from Beatriz and prepared lunch, typically the largest meal, for Fernando and me. She does the laundry too and any odd jobs that have accumulated. Southern fried chicken, avocado, fried bananas, frijoles de Antioquia bean soup with rice, a local specialty, and juice from the tree tomato

Local Ecowalk

Me out front

(tomate de arbol), an orange juice which is sweet like an orange but with the aftertaste of tomato juice. Chilled!!! A new fruit for me!

Dona Sylvia is a Beethoven fan and can play drop the needle on many classics.  She stuck it to the finale of Movt 1 of Beethoven's Ninth the first time I met her.

well,got it made in the shade here in Medellin.  Needs something more though.  YOU know what that is.  Yes, send cash, errr I mean c'mon down.