The Apartment HUNT.

Chris and I arrived in Lucknow on June 15 and stayed at a guesthouse which was an upstairs apartment in a family home. We shared this apartment with two students who were in Lucknow for the summer to study Urdu. Although it was quite fun sharing an apartment with these two young, bright ladies, we were newly married and thought it was important to find a place to call our own. So we started our apartment (or "flat") hunt.

Before I begin, I should mention that there are three main modes of public transportation in Lucknow: a cycle rickshaw, an auto (or tuk tuk), and a tempo (bigger tuk tuk). The autos and tempos typically work like city buses so in the 115+ weather, Chris and I decided the cycle rickshaw would be the best way to get around since we could just rent it for the day. We would try and head out around 8am, but no one would really be around until 11am or so (the hottest point in the day), it took a lot of will power to head out at that time. We initially tried to look at places we found listed in the newspaper or on the internet.

Moving by cycle-rickshaw

Oh I almost forgot, in India (or at least Lucknow) when you get an apartment, it has nothing in it. When I say "nothing," I mean nothing, you need to furnish the whole place, from light switches to appliances and everything in between. Once this dawned on us, we determined that for basic necessities we would need at least $7000 USD. So we set out to find a fully furnished place....

The first place we saw was an apartment below the apartment of the landlord. They claimed it was "fully furnished." We walked into the apartment and were asked to sit down by the lady of the house. Below is how the conversation went:

Lady: How do you know each other?
Me: We're married.
Lady: How can that be?
Me: I'm sorry?
Lady: Are you Muslim?
Me: Yes.
Lady: and you're married?
Me: Yes, this is my husband.
Lady: Were your parents at the wedding?
Me: Of course.
<awkward silence>
Chris: So what's close to here? Are there any malls, grocery stores? Can we see the house?
Gentleman: Yes.
<no one moves>
Lady: When did you get married?
Me (to Chris): I think we should go.

We did eventually see the house, which looked like a torn up frat house with pink walls, open kitchen (no, not like what you would consider an 'open floorplan,' open as in there was no roof over it), bird droppings galore, and when Chris asked them if they could turn on the air conditioner or stove, the gentleman would bob his head from side to side without actually doing anything. It was partially furnished at best, but we actually didn't stick around long enough to do a full assessment.

The second apartment we saw, we actually didn't. That conversation went something like this:

Chris: So the apartment is fully furnished.
Property Manager: Yes, yes, it has everything.
Me: So it has a fridge, beds, stove, lights, fans, everything?
Property Manager: No, no, but we put a tube light in it!

After a few more incidences such as these, we decided we needed a different approach, we needed an agent. Chris is one of the most resourceful and adaptable people I know, thankfully I'm married to him. He called the Indian equivalent of '411' and got a list of agents in the area. Then, he called every single one of them and as soon as they heard his voice on the phone, they were on a mission to find us what we were looking for. Unfortunately, many of them showed us unfurnished places or places that were out in a "township." 

A township in Lucknow consists of "premium homes....where fine living comes alive in imperial grandeur." Most of these townships include swimming pools, gyms, medical facilities, walking paths, etc. We saw one about an hour and 30 minutes away from where Chris would need to conduct his research and quickly realized that we would be living in Lucknow without really living in Lucknow. Not to mention, the cost was about four times what we were hoping to spend and we would need to purchase a car.

So back at square one, Chris randomly receives a call from a guy whose house students from the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS, based in Lucknow) used to live in, he doesn't have any students coming through this year so was wondering if we would be interested in renting his "fully furnished" flat. We thank our lucky stars! Chris had been there before, the apartment was centrally located and had all the basic amenities we needed! Chris encouraged me to take a look too, after everything else we had seen, this seemed liked the perfect match. Four long weeks of sweat, tears, and many a rickshaw rides.... we had an apartment! 

The next challenge was making this apartment, a home for the next year +. Here are a few pictures of our place:

The brown sofas with gold and chocolate brown flowers, beautiful! 

The house is not perfect, it definitely needs a paint job, new cabinets, appliances, and non-brown furniture but since we won't be here forever, we're adding little things to make it our home: 

We hope you come visit!