The View from the Kitchen Window

Our apartment is quite nice for the price. We viewed several "pisos" and finally decided, rather than spend the 700 euros (plus 700 euro deposit) for privacy (and self-maintained cleanliness), we would rent space in a four bedroom, two bathroom apartment. We are in a very central location and have wireless internet (which we use nonstop), a TV (which we never use), and heat for the winter months. As you can see in this picture, we have a laundry room as well...or a strung wire outside the kitchen window. We are equipped with a washer (thank goodness) but do have to air dry our clothes, something that I couldn't have imagined I would mind. Of course, when I think of line-drying clothing or sheets or towels, I picture it like anyone else from my technological generation would...overlooking a soft field in a golden breeze and fresh, mountain air. Or something. As it is, we'll now wear our jeans 3 or 4 or 5 days without washing them, since when you hang them out the kitchen window they pick up every aroma (of trash, the neighbor's frying fish, the traffic smog, the mold from the shaded walls). We don't get any sunshine on our side of the building, so they take a day and a half to dry and are long crunchy boards when we pull them back in.

I make it out to be worse than it is, but please do believe me, things don't smell very good here.

But back to the apartment. We have a small kitchen with a fridge and a freezer, a tiny porch with a bit of sun and a view of the busy street and a square the children play in after siesta. We have a microwave and an oven that we can't figure out how to work.

Most importantly, we have good roommates. One, as I mentioned before, is from the United States. Blake is an English MFA student, so we have a lot in common with him, and with his girlfriend as well, who is also a Georgian. Blake is fluent in Spanish (when he is not speaking English with a strong southern accent) so he helps us to communicate with Jorge and Isaac. Jorge is a hermetic local and speaks no English (we don't see much of him), but Isaac is a student from Barcelona. He is learning English, so we practice our foreign languages on one another. We watched the futbol game with him the other night, then he watched the Georgia-Alabama football game with us. All in all, everyone is friendly but mostly busy and out of the apartment.

I'm very content living here. There are a lot of strange sounds to adjust to (and strange hairs in the bathroom) but it is SPAIN!