The three of you who read this blog (thank you, I love you) have mentioned to me that I didn’t write a housing update. This will be short and sweet. We did find housing. It was that last house that our lovely relocation coordinator worked tirelessly to find for us that I wrote about in the Nail biter & Our Superhero post. We were flying back to Brooklyn the next morning at some ungodly hour, so it was this cute, last minute place or a gorgeous villa very far away from Dan’s office, which would have meant an hour and a half commute each way to work.

The home we chose is on the smaller side (Brooklyn friends, don’t be mad, I know this is beyond large in our warped world)—over 2500 square feet vs. the 5000, 5 floor almost-palaces we saw. We are actually under our housing budget—I can’t say that I am often under budget for anything, so this was a big win. The villa is very simple and bright, with a big kitchen, in an expat neighborhood with an amazing community center (a pool for the kids, a room with a climbing gym for them like the Chuck E. Cheese’s at the Atlantic Center used to have, but cleaner), 4 bathrooms and an extra bedroom for all of our American guests (right? please?). Most of the expats in this community are of Indian decent. I did see one white woman in the neighborhood, but I think there are going to be a lot less people that look like us than I thought when I heard the word “expat,” which is great because the last thing I want to do is take my children out of a diverse school to put them in a bubble with other people who are just like them.

It took from the end of February until about a week ago to get the lease signed. Much, much longer process than in Brooklyn. And in India you can request certain things. So we requested a dryer to go with the washer that’s already there, and 2 TVs! How insane is that?!? In Brooklyn you you feel so lucky to get a lease that you suck it up and are happy if there’s a new coat of paint on the walls.

Oh, and although I didn’t post a photo, there is a small backyard, but simple enough that there aren’t any good hiding places for snakes, which was a must for us since there are 4 kinds of venomous snakes that live in Bangalore. And they like backyards, apparently. More on that next time!