RuthAnn's View...

Our apartment has an interesting feature that I have not seen before.  There are two “courtyards” in our apartment that are open through all three levels.  We have a patio door and an office window opening onto one of these spaces.  The two apartments above us have windows opening on to this space.  The other “courtyard” is part of my laundry area.  There is a window in it to the kitchen and to the bathroom, but we have no wall or window closing it off from our living space.  On the floors above there are windows to laundry, bathroom, and kitchen.  Some of the neighbors hang their laundry out in the opening.  Once in a while we hear a crash and then get a knock at the door because the little boy on the 3^rd floor has dropped something down to our floor.

It is hard to imagine how this looks, but here are photos to illustrate.

Looking from our kitchen, you see the water bottle on the counter, and the front edge of the washer through a doorless opening.  You can see the light on the floor beyond

Moving into the courtyard the open area is about 7' x 7'. There is a floor drain in the tiles and you can see my sweepings from one weeks worth of Lima air pollution. 

   Moving up the wall, our bathroom window opens on to this area, and on the top left side you can see our second floor neighbor's dryer's portable exhaust/lint filter hanging out of their window along with other windows in to their apartment.

        

       Looking all the way up is the third floor clothesline and a small chimney on the roof adjacent to our building

          

I decided that since it never rains in Lima, this is not a concern, then one morning we woke up to the closest thing to rain that happens here, which is a very heavy mist.  The floor in my courtyard and in my laundry was covered in water.  While mopping up I realized that the whole area was the cleanest I had ever seen it, so I decided that an occasional good mist was helpful for my housekeeping.

There is a third courtyard at the rear of our apartment.  Two of our bedrooms have windows that open onto this space, which is about 12 ft x 15 ft.  While the 2 floors above us also have windows to this space, only WE HAVE GRASS!

The commercially available applesauce here is heavily sweetened and overcooked to the point that the texture is almost gummy.  But the other day at Tottus I saw some nice big apples and decided to make some applesauce.  As I cut them open I was surprised to see that there were no seeds.  Actually I found 2 very small seeds in 6 large apples.  The cores were minimal. The skins were quite tough, but not hard to peel.  Out of 6 apples I made probably close to two quarts of sauce. When I cook apples at home, I add a little water to get them started, but the water in the apples make the sauce quite runny.  These were really dry apples.  I think I probably added 2 cups of water to keep the pan from boiling dry before the apples were cooked.