Apartment found!

So, against all odds, we managed to find an apartment in this town without any glaring flaws, and in an area that we like that's really only a five minute walk from where we currently live, and still on the edge of the pedestrianized historical center. We think we'll be a lot happier here than in the current, drab place.

We met the owner (he's a nice guy) and signed the lease, but it all feels a bit anticlimactic since we can't actually move in until January 1. We initially could have moved in at the start of December, but the apartment that the current tenants are moving into is apparently not going to be ready until the 15th, and the owner needs time to clean the place up and whatnot, so January 1 it is.

Of course, that means we have to spend one more month here on Dunajska, where passersby relieve themselves in broad daylight around the base of the building and drunken louts wail tunelessly into the evening in hoarse slivovice-roughened voices. But at least the owner of our current apartment was kind enough to let us stay an extra month beyond our lease, so we're not camping out on the street or anything.

The new place is in the neighborhood around Medená, which is just spitting distance from the historical Hviezdoslavovo square, in a building constructed around 1920. The area should be a lot quieter - the windows all face mellow, sort of non-street areas, so no more being awakened at the crack of dawn by loud, beeping Tesco delivery trucks. One side of the building faces a little, elevated triangular island with trees and vegetation that has apparently become the de facto neighborhood dog toilet. But hey, that's a step up from living in a building that has become the de facto neighborhood people toilet!
 

I'll bore you with a more detailed post about this place when we actually move into it.

It came down to deciding between this apartment and a really nice flat over on busy Obchodna. But the one we chose had the edge, partly due to it being in a nicer, quieter neighborhood, but also due to some other factors that I won't bore you with here. One on Sládkovičova - the "myopic landlord" apartment in this post - was a contender as well, especially given that it's in one of my favorite neighborhoods, but Terezia felt that the quasi ground floor windows would make us feel sort of exposed. 

So, hurray for us. Hopefully when we move in the owner won't have covered all the hardwood floors with wall-to-wall baby shit brown carpeting, swapped out all the furniture for threadbare 1970s-era crap from his grandmother's panelak, and replaced all the doors with those sliding vinyl accordion thingies.