The Flat

I like the word 'flat' for a dwelling. It's much simpler than 'apartment' and allows a lot more leeway for what it covers, at least in my mind. My flat is most of the top half of a house in a nice neighborhood not far from the city center. It's off tram 4, near a park with a planetarium. Not sure if this is the place where they display pictures of the heavens or do the actual observation of same. The former seems more likely given the amount of light around here.

There's a wall along the street and a big green metal gate, and you go up two flights of steps to get to the front door, which is narrow and has deep brown wood. The key often sticks in the lock so you have to jiggle it up and down. There's a second door a few feet after the first and you're in a small room that stretches about ten feet in front of you with a child's toys, coats, and a few home improvement supplies. Immediately to your right is a 6ft set of shelves where you leave your shoes, and maybe collect your house slippers, as you come in. The stairs which start there are old dry wood with black rubber matting tacked to them. They make an angle after a few feet, stretch up, across the house, and angle again at the far side for the last few feet. There's a door there on the right, a small room that is supposed to house two students of German who I still haven't met, on the left there's an alcove with a ladder to the attic. The door in front of you is mine and opens with a antique Ben Franklin style key.

The hall is white and runs twenty feet to the rooms Ahmed and I sleep in. It's tiled with large white hexagons. Just in front of the door at the far end there is a folding door on the right, which leads into to the shower room, which has a metal tub ensconced with square blue tiles. There's a tall skinny radiator next to the door and a sink with a mirror further to the right. The hot water heater is a two foot box that hangs in the upper corner of that wall. You can hear the gas and the flame thumping to life every time you turn on the hot water. While we do have a shower curtain rod, this bath isn't designed as for standing in, as the shower is a wand on a hose and the bracket is on a vertical rod. At the fullest possible extension it comes up to my ear. It's always chilly in there when you're wet, I worry how cold it will be come winter.

Across from the bath door there is a doorway through the very thick wall, which is faced with raised panels like you'd find on a front door. The main room is about 25 feet by 20. The floor is a herringbone pattern of foot long wooden strips which sometimes shift as you put your weight on them. There are two windows on the far side, both of the one set on the inside of the wall/one on the outside style common to old Czech buildings. We have some white lace curtains that Jarek's mom gave us. The walls are a burnt orange squash color and there's a bare bulb hanging from the center of the ceiling. We have a coffee table to the left of the door and a small dining table in the far corner, which is normally covered in cords and laptops. Next to the table is the door to the kitchen.

It's the newest part of the flat, with laminated wood cabinets and lousy laminate plank flooring that sinks where you walk on it. In the left corner there's an old gas stove/oven, with a shallow countertop that stretches to the single sink, about 8 feet to the right. The cabinets hanging above and the ones below have blue fronts and feel new. The whole set has the feeling of a kit or that they were salvaged from a house that was remodeled too cheaply. The fridge in in the corner and stands about 3 ft tall plus the microwave on top. I've had dorm fridges bigger than that. Just past the sink and the end of the counter is the door to the toilet. It's a tiny room with a sink right in front of you and the john just to the right. The tank is about five feet off the floor and has a pull cord flush. There wall is one foot in front of you as you sit down. At the top there's a one foot plexiglass window for light and by your right knee there's a 3 foot slit that allows the air from the radiator on the other side to circulate through. The kitchen window is above the radiator.

Across the main room from the kitchen is Cynthia's room, about half the size of the main room, where she's got the double bed and a wardrobe. Her husband, Jarek (he's Czech, she's Brazilian) visits from his job in a different town for a couple days every week or two, so Ahmed and I decided that we'd rather they have enough privacy that we aren't bothered with their marital activities.

To get to my room you have to walk through Ahmed's. His is about 15 ft square with blue carpet, a single bed, and a desk. To to the right there's a wooden divider painted white with lots of frosted glass and a set of sliding doors in the middle. My room is a mirror image, except the far wall is taken up with two large windows over looking the back garden and the radiator below them. In addition to the long skinny bed I have a set of shelves and my stuff strewn all over. There's a door in the wall that leads to a tiled room that's full of shelves and old cabinets, it's always cold in there because large windows and a lack of insulation. Our landlord tells me that that it was water damaged and won't be fixed anytime soon.

I realize I've made it sound like kind of a dump, but it's kinda homey and not too different from many other Czech dwellings of similar vintage (early 1900's I think). It's slightly shabby and lived in a way that testifies to its longevity and functionality. There's a comforting lack of plastic and everything has a little texture.