New York City August 2007 - My loft !

I’m a little bit late but here is the following post about my trip in New York City.
Mylittlechicks, may I introduce you... ‘my’ loft ?!
As you know I decided to rent an apartment for my stay in New York. This was a great way of staying, offered by travel agencies or the Lonely Planet guide. I finally found an agency on the internet : www.urbanliving.net and found an apartment thanks to Fred-Alex’s advices (the man of the agency) who spoke fluently French : a 304 sq feet loft in East Village located in this building :

The apartment was at the 3rd floor, where you can see the curtains. It was very big and my friend V and I were really comfortable !
Urban living gave me (for an huge commission !!) e.mail and address of Mary Jo, the owner of the apartment and we had decided to meet each other at the apartment when we arrived from the airport. I was a little bit scared : if this organization was phoney ? If there wasn’t any apartment ? Well I hadn’t paid for the rent yet so it wouldn’t have been the end of the world but it was 10:30 pm (NYC’s time – 4:30 am Paris’ time), I had left home since 8:45 am (Paris’ time – 2:45 am NYC’s time), I didn’t want to walk all around New York to find an hotel !
Fortunately, I rang at the nr3 and Mary Jo appeared and opened the door : my first chance to show my new English speaking !!

Here is the entry of the building and the corridor. There was a little garden behind and an apartment in the basement. There were three of them in the whole building. The corridor was decorated with very ‘special’ paintings, with naked women together and such things !! Bizarre... !
Well, if I want to be honest, I have to say that this part of the building didn’t smell very good, something like vomit ?! Though I was very enthusiastic when I arrived, I was a little bit upset with this smell...
But it was ok inside the loft and V and I were very happy about what we were discovering : space, painted concrete flooring, air conditioning, huge screen TV, Music, big kitchen, huge fridge : our american way of life could start !

Ikea kitchen, huge fridge, air conditioning, weird details like bizarre paintings and a poodle below the closet, 2 huge rubish bins (one for usual garbage, one for packagings).

The 2 first doors were closets’s doors. We didn’t use these closets because they weren’t very clean...! The loft was actually less modern than I had thought watching the photos on the website and much less modern that V and me had imagined apartments in New York City ! Well, travelling is also that : realize than cities aren’t as modern and comfortable as we could imagine. On the left, the door of the restroom (same : not really modern...!!!). Owner’s stuffs were still in the closets, I suppose she lives here sometimes even though she said she lives in her husband’s appartment few blocks away (husband ??? With all these naked women paintings in her loft ???!).
On the left, are the bathroom and the washing machines.

The main room with different kinds of sofas, like a ‘bric à brac’ ! All was old and odd but funny anyway. And everywhere, pieces of ‘doubtful’ art !
Curtains were closed during the day because of the heat. We switched on the air conditioning as soon as we came in the apartment (air conditioning is very useful in New York in August : if you want to rent an apartment, choose one with air conditioning, believe me). Mary Jo asked us to switch it off when we left home to save energy (like an ‘help us to save the planet’ thing !).
Air conditioning was very convenient but very noisy because the machine was inside the apartment so it was very wearing out after a while.
There was a door on the right to go to my bedroom where I slept like a baby despite of outside noises.
V and I felt very free and good in this apartment : we almost felt like real new yorkers ! V told me : ‘you could do a lot of things to decorate such a place !’. It’s true that this loft had an unexploited potential...
We didn’t use the kitchen a lot because it was so easy to eat outside that we didn’t want to bother ourselves with cooking and washing up : minimum efforts ! We took our breakfast there (very pleasant not to have to get dressed to go to a Starbucks or to an hotel’s restaurant to have our breakfast). V brought her Nescafé from France and I brought my chocolate powder : Perfect !
We bought food at the Associated market downstairs. We bought delicious white bread (not like french bread, like ‘pain de mie’), pepsi max and delicious seltzer water.
To do the laundery, I studied these machines :

I didn’t want to spend all my time cleaning the apartment up (and Zu, the Brazilian cleaning lady came once) but I had to wash the sheets and towels (Mary Jo provided them) because my friend C came after V was left. And I really wanted to feel like home (New York home) and do the laundery like a very busy new yorker !!
I don’t know if you’re going to enjoy this ‘every day life’ post but this was exactly what I wanted to live when I came to NYC : every day life and not being a tourist.
Everything was almost perfect except... the bathroom.
V and I were really enthusiastic the first night when we arrived but when we saw the bathroom, we realized that it’d be unpleasant to take showers in such a place... I thought that American people really cared about cleanliness and hygiene... Then, I was really disappointed ! They can talk about French people ! We used the kitchen’s sink to brush our teeth ! And regarding the bath, after the first shower, water refused to disappear : the stuff was blocked up... We found a magic product in the closet and V found a suction pad !

I had to go to NYC to learn how to use a suction pad ! Unbelievable !
It worked. But we had the same problem the day after and we hadn’t product anymore and the suction pad didn’t work either. I didn’t want to call the plumber because I know it’s very complicated in my own language, so imagine in a foreign language !
The situation became worse when, after the big storm (tornado in Brooklyn), the water level rised : imagine : a tide in a new york’s bath ! I was scared of the flooding so I made a big decision : even though I was in NYC, I’d use the old ways : I emptied the bath with buckets !!

Here, you can see me in pyjamas, emptying the bath...
New York way of life you said ??!...