Hello and welcome to yet another lesson and today’s lesson is about Apartments. Well,
you know what I’m gonna tell you a story about my apartment hunting experience. Now
first of all, what is an apartment? Now apartment is a house, which is in a building. Which
has a fixed number of rooms. So you can have an apartment that has three bedrooms, a kitchen
and a drawing room or you could have an apartment, which is just a studio apartment, meaning
it has just one long large room, which kind of then serves as your kitchen, your dining
and your bedroom. Well, apartments are houses and buildings and mostly, I’d say that American’s
use the term apartment, whereas the British actually call, call apartment as flats. So
well a flat and an apartment in a building is actually the same thing. So well when I
moved to this city for the first time. I obviously had to go apartment hunting. I had to look
for a flat that actually served my purpose and was to my liking, so that I could move
into it. I started visiting various buildings, looking for apartments or flats, whatever
you want to call it and I mostly visited sky scrapers. Now what is a sky scraper? A sky
scraper is an extremely tall building. So a sky scraper is an extremely tall building
meaning anything that is above says twenty five floors and above can be termed as a sky
scraper. In the olden days anything above ten floors was termed as a sky scraper. But
nowadays with buildings which have fifty floors, hundred floors and above hundred floors. I
would say safely that, if there is a building that’s above twenty five floors, then you
can call it an extremely tall building, meaning you can call it a sky scraper. So yes I went
looking for my apartment, I visited a lot of sky scrapers, because I know some people
find the idea of living in the sky a little unnatural, but honestly, personally me, I
love the idea of living in the sky. Now what does it mean to live in the sky? It means
living in a sky scraper on a really tall floor. So say if you’re living on the forty third
floor, my god doesn’t it feel like you are living in the sky. So yes living really, really
high up. On a high floor, would amount to living in the sky. So yes I went looking for
my apartment and yes I wanted an apartment that made me feel like I was living in the
sky, so that I could actually overlook the entire city’s skyline as in have a view
a top view of the city and enjoy that view every morning along with my breakfast. But,
however much that I may like living in the sky. A lot of people don’t like living in
sky scrapers, because sky scrapers are causing problems in cities. Now these problems include
overcrowding. So overcrowding is an honest and a very obvious problem of sky scrapers,
because earlier people would live in houses with gardens and now, people are actually
living in buildings, one on top of each other. So a lot of people are living in a small space
and this leads to various problems. So overcrowding meaning more density of people in a small
space. So yes overcrowding is one, you know big problem that sky scrapers are facing.
But there are many many ways that people are trying to resolve these problems. Like for
example, overcrowding leads to problems with parking spaces for cars. So that is why builders
have come up with ideas such as mechanical parking. That’s right absolutely mechanical
parking spaces for your car. Now what exactly is mechanical parking? Mechanical parking
means having an elevator for your car in such a way that, when you park your car in a particular
space a mechanical elevator elevates your car and stacks it up, so that another car
can park below you. So you’re actually stacking cars one above the other, just the way people
are living one above the other in buildings. So mechanical parking is an elevator, parking
for your car one on top of another. And of course very obviously, when you have a really
tall sky scraper like for example, if I was looking for an apartment on the 50th floor,
then I would need an elevator to go up there, coz I cannot be climbing fifty floors everyday
a multiple times. So yes elevators as in lifts are very very essential in sky scrapers. So
yes I went apartment hunting in sky scrapers, I saw a lot of beautiful apartments and some
of the buildings that I saw have beautiful foyers, just like really really luxurious
hotels. Now what is a foyer? A foyer is the lobby or reception area of your apartment.
So it had like a manager, who was taking care of visitors. There was a fabulously decorated
lobby, which is termed as a foyer and frankly speaking I was impressed. I was also told
by the realtor as in the person, who was showing me the apartments, that I also have the option
of hiring a serviced apartment. Now what is a serviced apartment? Serviced apartment actually
means, that you have an apartment with all sorts of services that you would have, if
you were staying in a hotel room. So essentially it is like living in a hotel, it’s just
that you’re living in an apartment, but you have the same kind of services, be it
laundry, housekeeping, you know home delivery, food delivery, whatever that is. So yes serviced
apartment is an apartment with hotel room facilities. I actually liked the idea of hiring
a serviced apartment, coz I realized if I had a serviced apartment with all the facilities
of a hotel room. Then I would spend less time on doing my daily jaws and more time doing
the things I enjoy or more time at work. So well a serviced apartment was a great option
for me and I actually chose to hire one in a fantastic looking sky scraper in down town.
And yes when I was actually moving into a serviced apartment, the first thing that caught
my eye as always was the skyline. That’s right; there was a beautiful private terrace
garden in my service apartment from where I could see the city’s skyline. And like
we already know skyline means the entire top view of the city and the terrace garden means a garden, which
is not on the ground, but it is on a terrace, on an elevated floor in the apartment. So
I finally settled for a serviced apartment on the forty eight floor of my sky scraper
and to tell you the truth, I’m actually really enjoying it. So I do hope that you’ve
enjoyed my apartment hunting story and also learnt a few words in the process. If you’ve
liked this lesson make sure you do subscribe to our channel and keep watching our videos.
I’m gonna be back very very soon with yet another lesson. Till then this is me Rima
saying good bye and take care.