Pictures of Casablanca

If you're expecting something from Humphrey Bogart's time, you are not in the right blog. I've recently bemoaned the fact that my street address has not yet been assigned in the new house we're leasing. I've been told that the municipality could take as long as five months to come around and assign the street addresses. What to do until then? How do I manage a 'change of address' for American mailing concerns until then? It was recommended that the landlord NAME the house. If the house has a name, then the address can resolve. Or so they have led me to believe.

I'm thinking "Casablanca". By the pictures, you can see why.

Now that the house is ready, I'm just chomping at the bit waiting for my household goods to arrive. We've been told the ship is in port. Hopefully, they'll have an update on our container and some kind of timeframe for the customs inspection. I can hope, right?

The house itself has some surprises. The landlords lived in it briefly while it was being built and completed. They cultivated a bunch of 'money plants' on each tread of the staircase. Imagine my surprise when they left them for me! I like houseplants. But I think I'll trim up some of those trailing vines so I don't feel like I'm living in a jungle.

The house is small by Tunisian standards. Since the culture embraces multi-generational living, most houses are really large. I didn't want to rent a house where DH and I would just 'bang around' like marbles in a huge place. And, let's face it, I'd fill the rooms with furniture. That's how I roll. Then, when we left and never had a house that big again, I'd be stuck with a lot of furniture...

So, I shopped carefully for a small place and new construction was the ONLY way to accomplish this. Apparently, I'm not the only ex-pat looking for a few less square meters to keep clean. This house has five bedrooms, or four and an office. Two of them would barely support a twin bed. I don't need more than three bedrooms, so this works out for me.

The outside is white and Sidi Bou Said blue. Inside, color is concentrated in the kitchen and bathrooms.
The kitchen is shiny red. Luckily I love red. It will clash crazily with all my purple kitchen stuff, but who cares? It's a rental.

There are three bathrooms upstairs. One is brown and yellow predominantly. You can't see it in this picture, but they have very carefully painted the ceiling to match those yellow tiles inset in the walls. Canary yellow ceiling which matches the globe on the light dangling there. I hesitate to think what my makeup might appear like when I've applied it in that room. I foresee having to open the window for daylight a lot.

The other bathroom is yellow and orange--to include a tiled orange ceiling. Very mod. I'm thinking white towels... because, really, you can't go wrong with that, right?

Upon seeing the photo of the guest suite bathroom, my very dear friend Vangie said that all she could think was "Oh Behave!" with her Austin Powers accent. It is a little mod, isn't it? I'm afraid that voice will be echoing in my head every time I go into this bathroom for a while. "Do I make you randy?" Meh...

The house is two floors, also atypical of Tunisian construction, I schlepped up four flights of stairs looking at some of the houses we turned down. We have a large open living area that looks out over the pool, a small enclosed dining area, and a small kitchen.It's not a matter of 'will my furniture fit', it's a matter of 'how will it look in this space?' or 'will it fit in a way that makes sense?' I'll take pictures after I get us moved in and you can tell me if I did okay. We're going to have to invest in some rugs and carpets. We have miles of marble floors and the house echoes now.

I can't wait to settle into this place. Our landlords, Hammadi and Fatma, have been very kind. Their daughter, who's attending medical school, translated for them. They assured us that we were to treat this as our home. Do whatever we liked, make improvements, paint, whatever. Very nice. It's reassuring to know that I can make holes in the walls to hang curtains and pictures and not worry about the damage left behind. DH will point out that we've left every place better than we found it, and he's absolutely right. We're dream renters. I've got to keep reminding myself of that. I have a ton of pictures on Facebook. If you want to see something specific, let me know and I'll post the pics.

--Sandee Wagner