Our street is getting spruced up!

 Here is the one and only guard house that I have seen painted read.... and it is right across the street. It is guarding the Restaurant next to it I guess.    Below you can see how they hang their tables while the floor is mopped each morning.  Clever Heh?

 This is the Monte Libano restaurant on the corner across the street from us.  This is after the long weeks of remodel... and lots of sleepless nights as the work went from midnight to six in the morning.

 I put the camera through the slats and caught the worker mopping the floor.  This is the outside patio part of the restaurant.  Below is the new entry look.  It is a lot nicer but a painful process for several of us.

Sorry this is a fuzzy one but this shows how they clean their floor at the Pizza Urbana restaurant on the corner across the street from the restaurant above.  They pour soapy water on all the floor and several workers scrub the floor with brooms.  They sweep out the water and then hose the floor down to rinse it.  Then the workers sweep out all the water.

They are two very popular restaurants but only two of 8  on our block.  The one on the right has an open roof dinning area( cleaned the same way--pushing the water down a few drains to the sidewalk).  The will have live bands and fill the top and the bottom floors with customers enjoying themselves loudly late into the night on week-ends.
The dining usually starts about 9:00 each night.

I saw the this out side of my window one morning early in September. These three men are cleaning off the curb with brushes and water...three times it gets a wash.  Then three more follow with paint and they paint the curb three times. Now it looks pretty and clean.  I remember seeing them paint last spring.  It only lasts one year I guess.

Welcome to our apartment... #307

This little plaque is right beside our door. 

There isn't a door bell so knock and come on in!    ps.   The elevator is right there on your left.

This is our old Kitchen table  from the other apartment with the new chairs.  It is on your left as you walk in the kitchen is on your right hand side.

 

Lovely front room with very comfortable couch and chairs.  A study area by the window and the TV.

Different angles here and below... this is the kitchen chair in the fore front.

 

From the window side as you look back at the kitchen and door.

Warren keeps his umbrella in the box made for us just for this very purpose.  Warren grabs it most days as we walk out.  Bro Ferrerini (from Argentina) made them from  card board boxes in different  little corner shapes. They were painted different colors - they all looked different in size and shape.  It works perfect.  Go on to the rest of the house... below!

Kitchen and Bathroom

I made this picture extra large so you will think I have a huge roomy kitchen.   It really isn't large at all... but it is so nice!

This shows our dishwasher on the right... remember it only washes --- no such thing as a dishdryer.  We are one of the lucky ones that have a double sink.  I like that!   The large white box between sink and stove is the water dispenser.  Pure water hot and cold. 

This is so nice to have an island-- as it give me two large shelve and three drawers.   The broom closet is behind it.  Bedroom door is next to the closet and the bathroom door is between the bedroom and the frig.  Hey, notice the drain in the floor that is so we can push the mop water down the drain.   Hum! I haven't used it... I don't fill the floor with water!

Lovely Bathroom--- oops sorry for the dirty clothes hamper as the center of attraction.

Our tiny tub has been one of the questions around here.  They make full size tubs.  The two half size rooms across the hall have them.  But the rest of us have half size tub. WEIRD!

Notice the commercial TP, towels and soap dispenser. Everything is a bit different but we are grateful. It is wonderful to have new clean living conditions.

The Bedroom

This is looking at the bedroom door from the Kitchen -stove area.  Notice that cute chart I got from the newspaper it has greetings and phrases to say to a friend.

 This is our nice roomy bedroom with a very high bed.  It is hard for me to climb into.

Behind the door is a bookcase... and on the end of it is my bulletin board.  Our computer is also in our room.

The closet has four nice drawers along the bottom and four drawers on the inside the closet as well as top shelves. We have three nice  large drawers in our night stands.  Also the top of the night stand slides out for a hidden drawer on top.

We have so much space for our clothes -- Look at this huge dresser.

 We have beautiful pictures through out the building.  This Nativity scene is above out bed.

OUR TRIP ! The bus ride

 We are on our way for our four day outing.  This is about a half hour into the trip.  This is a smaller town that is hooked right on to Asuncion. Much like SLC and Murray or something, we passed through four or five I think.  Notice the painted tire planters in the middle of the road. There was lots of traffic and travel was pretty slow for the first hour or more.

We still see this in the city... they are usually looking for garbage to recycle or put to use themselves.

It had been so rainy  for the last week that it seemed everyone had the laundry out.

Now we are out of the city.  We do go through about 5 more cities on our route. 

 We heard that many, many years ago the dictator here told each town to grow or  make something different from the others. And he told them what they had to produce. So,  we then understood more why each town had a lot of the same stuff out.  Pottery in front of all the homes, then baskets, then wood carving, and then furniture  etc.  One town even had only balls out. The shoes in one little town were all hanging in the stores and out front.  Seeing the meat out was the worst!!!!!HERE-you see the fruits and veggies. We saw this sight over and over stand  by stand.  I guess they don't know how to change the system.

In this town they had lots of stands with wooden toys and furniture for children.  The town before had tables and chairs of many kinds with a wood finish out.

Mom bringing the two kids home from school.

Four on the Moto as they are called here.

Once we got out of the towns there were many great views.

We saw hundreds of these mounds and would later find out they were ant hills.

 I am riding in a double decker modern bus but life is much the same as it has been for many here

This is a sample of the German area.  So are the next 3 pictures.

Just a little  view of the flooding

In this little community they were smoking charcoal.... for fires and BBQs.

A one  bull cart and a two bull model.

                                   This is a pretty common sight along our route.

Yes, the bus is passing this truck!  I snapped the picture and then watched to see how close the on coming traffic would get to us.  I could see them coming over the  hill. The biggest one is the boss around here.  We are the biggest so far. The wild driving of our driver and others weaving in and out made Jeanne Peel feel so up-tight the whole way.

One lake on our we saw on the route.

 This is a typical bus stop.  It has a little rain protection and a great little bench.

5 & 1/2  hours later we arrive here in the East City. (Notice the sign) The roads were better and had a nice center divide. We were so glad to be here at last.  The rocking swaying bus felt like a boat.