Colombo Apartment

Here's a little look at our furnished apartment in Colombo, Sri Lanka. It's a little smaller than our last place, but it compares well to our previous apartments with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. The unique thing about our new home is that it's in a hotel. The hotel has similarly sized apartments setup as daily rate hotel suites alongside their long-term residences like us.

Algiers Apartment

Here's a little look at our furnished apartment in Algiers, Algeria. It compares well to our previous apartments with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms of a good size. We're very fortunate to be in a new building with a great view of the city.

Riga Apartment

Here's a look at our furnished apartment in Riga. There's 2 bedrooms, an office, and 2 bathrooms. It compares very well with what was provided in Caracas and Stockholm.

It feels a bit roomier than Caracas with the really high ceilings and huge master bedroom suite even though it might be roughly the same size. The dining room is bigger and living room is smaller, so I think the rooms are distributed better in this layout. There's a better overall feel of space and it felt comfortable to me rather quickly.

I hear Stockholm is a furnished post now, so the handful of posts that don't provide furniture is that much rarer. We have to keep all of this furniture other than being allowed to swap out the master queen bed for our own. I already hate this mattress so it'll be good to eventually get our stuff.

Unfortunately the bulk of our household effects (HHE) is still in Miami and won't be available here until the middle of next month.  It'll feel more homey once we get our own decorations on the walls and shelves. Otherwise, we're home now (for the next 3 years)!

Caracas Apartment

I finally moved out of the hotel and into the apartment after 6 weeks at post. I came in at the end of the summer rush and post had to expand their housing pool again, so my assigned apartment was still being renovated when I arrived. It might be another 3 weeks until our stuff arrives including a much delayed Unaccompanied Air Baggage (UAB), so living out of 2 suitcases continues. It's good that my wife was held up with a visa issue and doesn't arrive until tomorrow.

Let's see, pack out was 1 week before departure, 6 weeks of home leave, 4 weeks in DC for training, and now 6 weeks at post to get into an apartment. That's 17 weeks of feeling homeless since the end of June. I've never lived out of 2 suitcases for so long and I'm still doing it! Well, at least we have a nice apartment to start feeling like home again. We'll get more familiar belongings delivered and then it will be a home for 2 years. After that, it's time to start the whole process all over again. :-)

Here's a few pictures of the nicely renovated and furnished place. The bed will be replaced with our own, but otherwise the rest of the furniture is here to stay. The first picture is the very important water tank added because of frequent water outages, which should really hit hard during the dry season in the spring. There's also a filter for the sink because of quality issues. We may get power outages but not enough to justify a generator... yet. Otherwise, it should be a nice apartment to live in while avoiding all of the crime outside.

Stockholm Apartment

Our apartment is finally looking like our home. I hadn't really posted any pictures of it. I was waiting until it had our stuff in it and didn't look like we were still moving in. Our daughter's bedroom may never be finished because we're not doing it, but we finally finished the rest of it. First, here's a picture near work of the lovely day outside. There wasn't any rain and it was a nice warm 64F. It's been more rainy and overcast so it was a nice break. I'm having some fun with the panorama feature on my phone (click to enlarge).