Home Sweet Home

I returned to La Serena from my first observing run - not to the trusty apart-hotel Gran Pacifico, but to our new home! David and I managed to get ourselves off the bloody waiting list and into one of the houses on the Recinto!

As I mentioned before, the Recinto is a small community that is home to two of the large observatories in La Serena; Gemini and Cerro Tololo. The two main observatory buildings sit right next to each other, with a spattering of about 30 houses around them on a giant hill that overlooks the ocean. Most of these houses were built in the 70s, but they are still quite charming and have great yards. Better yet, they have American power, meaning we can run all of our kitchen appliances, lamps, etc. with no problems. We've been hoping to be able to rent one of the houses, but originally the prospects looked bleak. However our luck has seriously turned.

When we first saw our house, Casa 10, we were quite frankly, not in love. I don't know what I thought was worse: the terra cotta floors in the stark white kitchen, the peeling panda bear wallpaper in the kids bedroom, the red and brown plaid curtains covering every window of the house, or the cracking creme paint. Originally, we wanted another house, Casa 17, but our new friends and soon-to-be cooking buddies, Allison and Ryan, were ahead of us on the list and snatched it up immediately (not that I could blame them). So David and I thought we would settle for Casa 10 for a few months to get us out of the Gran Pacifico (which has started to develop a bad case of mold) and then move when another house became available. We'd heard, in fact, that two houses would be ready in December: Casa 4 (a permanent favorite of mine with a beautiful sea view) and Casa 28 (one of the newer houses built in the 90s).

However, when I came home from my observing run and saw the house a bit cleaned up, with some of the more hideous atrocities (like the plaid curtains) gone, it grew on me a bit. The kitchen, with a little hardware upgrade, could probably look fairly modern despite the 80s whte. But despite its flaws, it is simply huge compared to the kitchens in the other houses. Painted white, the main rooms will be very spacious. I can see potential in the guest bedrooms once the wallpaper is removed. And the house has two full bathrooms, including a huge master bath and "hardwood" floors (lamenate really; still better than carpeting)

We'd originally ask the Recinto management not to touch a thing, since we wanted to move in right away and planned to move out as soon as possible. So after chatting, yesterday we went with hat in hand and told them we'd changed our mind. We wanted to stay in Casa 10. Now all the painting and repair work will have to be done with us living in the house. This would be a pain, but without our stuff here - it's really not that much of a bother.

And at the end of the day, I'm just glad to be HOME!

Casa 10 - not much to look at..yet