Now for the reveal of the new apartment! It’s absolutely incredible. I’m sure I will never again have the opportunity to live in such a beautiful apartment with such a spectacular view in a really vibrant and fun city. I’ll go ahead and say that this is going to sound like bragging…I guess that’s what I’m doing, but I also am trying to keep everyone updated on our whole trip…anyway, please forgive me. Or skip this post. Either way, you’re all welcome to come down and stay with us in this amazing place!
You may remember that our old building was called Bonanza. I couldn’t get over the name. It just cracked me up! This new place is called the Yacht Club. It is a fifty-something story building right on Avenida Balboa (as close to the water and walking paths as you can get). It is gorgeous. I admit that I lusted over it last year when we were here, but I never imagined we’d live here. The idea of the building is that it’s shaped like a boat (a yacht, I suppose, but gosh how pretentious does that sound?!) with the bow (I’ve been told not to call it the “front of the boat”) pointing towards the ocean. We are on the 44th floor in the apartment with the bow-shaped balcony.
The views from this place are indescribable in words, so I’ve taken a ton of pictures already. It’s a weird shaped apartment, since the sides and main dividing wall between living and sleeping areas are curved, so it might be hard to figure out where everything is, even with the pictures…but here you go anyway.
The day I originally wrote this post – Monday, Jan. 16, I believe – I was resting a lot in bed. But every time I get up and walk out to the “Grand Room,” as I silently called it that day – the kitchen/dining room/living room/balcony area with all the windows – I felt absolutely overwhelmed at the beauty of these views. I still do. I want to say that I feel so blessed, but I can’t decide if that word bothers me in this instance because it sounds cliche, especially for a southern girl, or because I feel guilty for living in such luxury…even just on this first day. This is so much more than we need, and a huge change from where we were living just last night.
A few little details are fun for me: First, I am in love with the elephant painting! I really want to blow up a print of this photo of it when we get back to NC and put it on a wall.
Secondly, I love the accent wall color. This one is for my Tar Heels…Becca, listen up. 🙂 When we met with the owner of the apartment to sign papers, she asked what color would be good for the wall. Eric immediately suggested Carolina Blue! As it turns out, the owner’s father-in-law is a UNC alumnus! Amazing! Anyway, she did paint the wall an almost Carolina Blue, but it turned out to be too bright and tacky, so she changed it to this. I’m okay with that – it looks beautiful. If I want my fave shade of blue, all I have to do is turn my head the other way and look out the wall of windows at the Carolina Blue sky!
Now for the best part…the views! Our building is one of the taller ones on Avenida Balboa, and we are maybe 10 floors from the top. You can see in the photo below that the balconies at the top are split – they don’t have the pointed part in the front. Ours is the highest balcony that has the pointed part, if that makes sense.
We are the top balcony out of the ones that have the point in the front.
So maybe you can tell a little from the photo above…our balcony starts at the front of our living room at the point (bow of the ship facing the ocean) and extends down the right side (in the photo) past the living room, the guest room, the master bedroom, and the master bath. On the other side of the living room, the whole wall is windows, most of which we keep open all day and night for the breeze. We haven’t used air conditioning at all except for the very first day we moved in when I wasn’t feeling well.
From here we can see nearly the whole coastline of the city, from Trump Tower in the northeast down to the old city, the long causeway that leads to three islands (Amador Causeway), and the entrance to the Canal. There are always tons of ships lined up and waiting their turn to go through the Canal. It’s incredible.
