My new home!

Sweet, sweet relief. That’s what I feel. Sweet relief and joy. So last week was actually pretty intense and draining emotionally, as I may or may not have alluded to in my Madrid entry, and it was all related to my housing search. It started last Monday when I was supposed to meet with someone and sign a contract for an apartment. When I initially saw it the week before, I was in love with it; it was new and clean and had a futon in my bedroom for guests and the owner seemed friendly enough. But then sometime during the week…well a lot of things actually happened, but the condensed version was that I got cold feet, and I also got to thinking that it was a little pricey. So on Monday I brought a Spanish (sorry, Gallega, Gallecia is another region in northwest Spain) coworker with me, Marta, to help with the transaction, and during a slightly more extended discussion with the owner of the place, I started to get the impression that (1) she was a little OCD and (2) she wasn’t going to be around much, or be my “friend.” (Not that I expect a friend, but some cordial social interaction or shared TV watching would be cool.) Also, the third roommate was going to be a 43-year-old writer.

Again, condensed version, suddenly I’m panicking and thinking this is a bad fit, so I hop back on Loquo (Spanish Craiglist) and fire off a bunch of emails (luckily distress doesn’t come across in writing). I managed to get three more appointments, one for later that night (last Monday) and two for Wednesday. So all of Tuesday and Wednesday I was figuring out how to stall with the original apartment, because I wanted to see the rest of the apartments. Tuesday was also the day I went to Madrid. By that point, I was bouncing back and forth between being super-stressed, super-frustrated, and also just kind of ready to give up and take the place, since at the very worst, it would be like living alone, except with things like electricity and gas taken care of for me.

My Monday appointment and my early Wednesday one didn’t particularly strike me. But then Wednesday night, in a last-ditch “well at least if I look a lot of place I’ll feel better that I tried,” effort, I went to one last apartment. One of the two roommates let me in, and at first it seemed pretty standard. Then I started to notice how big it was and how clean-yet-comfortable it was. After getting the mini-tour, the roommate who let me in explained that the other girl was going to be home soon, so I said I’d wait, and we sat down and talked a bit. The third roommate came home within a few minutes, and the three of us just started to chat, casually. It turned out that they both worked at Dow also (although the other Tarragona site), and we sort of just exchanged little tidbits about ourselves and I just got a really good feeling. I mean, to be able to sit down with two perfect strangers and converse freely in a foreign language has to be a good sign, right? They also mentioned that they were interested in having a roommate who was pleasant to live with, and that they weren’t going chronologically as much as conducting mini-interviews with prospective residents. Somehow, though, I knew that was going to work in my favor. So I left, telling them I’d call them the next day, but after talking with my parents, I ended up just calling later that night, because it was really just that perfect. And they seemed pumped about it too, so we set a date for me to bring my stuff over and now I have a set of keys to my new apartment! YYAAAYYYYYY!

Plus, as a double-bonus, I am hoping, tomorrow morning, to have in my possession two tickets to the Indoor Track & Field WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS in Valenica in two weeks. They were sold out, but they’re releasing more through El Corte Inglés (think Walmart, although I don’t know about the workers’ right controversies). I’m going with Thor (hopefully, if we have tickets). It’s going to be great. HOLY. CRAP. I’m not sure if I can express my feelings for all of this. Have I mentioned that I LOVE Spain?