L'auberge espanol

I was surprised at how quickly I was able to get a flat! My first day here I met some potential flatmates and we had a look at a place, and we signed the lease the next day. So here I am. In my very own Spanish Apartment. I have two flatmates, both girls. Emilie (pronounced 'Amelie') is french, but has lived in Spain for a while and her spanish is excellent. It was great having her for the negotiations with the landlords, they went so much more quickly. Giulia (Julia) is from Italy and is only here until June, but that's ok as that's when the contract runs out. I think I'll probably end up finding somewhere else to live after that.

The name of this post is actually strangely accurate. We all speak, with varying fluency, Spanish, French, and English, and of course Giulia speaks Italian too. I'd like to learn at some point but I think I'd better wait until my spanish falls into line...

This is my first night here, and there are so many issues with the place. I wasn't too impressed by the landlords (I should say 'landladies' I guess) at first, but they've rallied well and have also supplied just about everything. There are windows that don't lock properly, although we're on the third floor so it could be worse, the door from the kitchen onto the tiniest balcony you've ever seen doesn't even have a handle, the washing machine has a broken door, the blinds over the windows are having tantrums, one of the toilets didn't flush, the extension cord for the fridge was faulty (we have another one now though), a light refused to shine, and the first keys we got cut for the front door (we were only supplied with one) didn't work either, although I guess that wasn't the landladies fault, however I do think they should have had keys cut before renting out a three bedroom apartment! Anyway, there is this guy who I think looks after the whole apartment block who has fixed a lot of things and is coming back to fix some more tomorrow.

I went out to buy some food this evening, I got really lost but I'll tell you about that in a sec, and when I got back I tried to turn on the stove but that didn't go! And the fridge wasn't working. I thought I'd have to have plain bread for dinner (the bread here is divine) but then I realised that the sausages I'd bought were cured ham (and gluten-free lol) so I had sausages and bread. I asked the handyman about the stove and he showed me the fusebox, and turned on the electricity to the kitchen!! So now I can cook stuff. Yay!!

I looked at a couple of places when I was flat-hunting and something that struck me as odd was that the kitchen is usually a separate room, down the hall, from the living area, where the dining table is kept. This seems kinda strange but I guess it does mean that unwashed dishes are less noticeable when you have guests!

So, navigating Ciudad Real. It is VERY interesting to try. I have a couple of maps which are fine, but which sometimes aren't much use because THERE ARE NO STREET SIGNS!!! Well, there is the occasional plaque on the side of a building but they're few and far between. Yay for orienteering! I did get quite lost earlier though. I guess you can't really get to know a town until you've been lost in it a few times :D The streets are so narrow and aren't really laid out in squares, they just go wherever they want to, it's so confusing. I have marked my apartment building with a star on my map because when we first visited I had no idea where it was. Oh, and the parking!! The cars here crack me up all the time! In the middle of some of the larger intersections there are striped 'median-areas', and people park their cars on them. It is also apparently not illegal to park facing the opposite direction to traffic flow on the side of the street, although how people manage it on one-way streets I have no idea!

I have seen so many dogs in the few days I've been here. Little ones are very popular, chihuahuas and the like, the occasional sausage dog is around too. Yesterday as we were driving past a park I saw the tiniest dog I've ever seen in my whole life, it was perhaps a third the size of a bichon frise, and right after it there was this huge waist-high shaggy thing lolloping around. I would say 'great dane' but I'm not sure that's the right breed. The contrast was stunning. I suppose people keep little dogs because there are so many who live in apartments.. The town has very definite borders even though there's plenty of room outside them, and it is full of four-storey apartment blocks. There are the classic 'clothes hung out to dry on bits of string' everywhere. It's kinda cool in it's own way! I guess it stems from the days when people had to walk everywhere.

I visited a couple of small dairies and a supermarket (I say supermarket but it was only about the size of the fresh vege section at pak'n'save) and the difference in service and price was noticeable. I bought a box of cereal at a dairy and the proprietor gave me some watermelon flavoured chewing gum, it was really good. At the supermarket, though it was much cheaper, the lady behind the till didn't even look at me.

Oh well! Have a good day everyone :)