Third time's the charm

I've never pegged myself as a romantic--or as unbearably bourgeois, for that matter. At least, not until I found myself wandering around Plaza Santa Barbara and C/Lagasca, for example. There, looking at beautiful wrought-iron doors and up at soft glows from behind willowing textiles, I felt a tinge of envy for the imagined cosiness. There, my ideal place, my home away from home, a respite from the hustle and bustle in the city, still within the city.

Ok, I take some of that back. A person who works 20 hours at the very most doesn't really need a "respite."

I am, however, looking for a place where I can at least have a hot shower.

Here's the story: I found both of the apartments in which I've lived through easypiso, an internet site which allows you to browse for free. The trick is that you must pay a fee in order to actually get a hold of anyone. I caved before leaving the states, in a mission to NOT spend my first few weeks in a hostel. My first roommate, A, sends an email informing me of an availability in his apartment, with the other two roommates being "girls" of around 50 years. Sure, it didn't have internet, but who was I to complain? There was no contract to be signed and I figured I could just hop on down to the nearest internet cafe.

The two roommates turned out to be A's mother and aunt. So, I was living with a family. Were this my first time in Spain or in Europe or traveling/living by myself, I would've stuck it out. I also realized that I missed the internet more than I thought I would have, and it took about an hour and a half by metro to go to work at the other side of the city, and took about 35-40 minutes to get to where I actually wanted to hang out. (Hey, I'm in my twenties.)

So, I high-tailed it out of there when another opportunity came up. This was from P, a guy I'd contacted in the summer. He and the other roommate had no luck finding a roommate for September. The rent was only a bit more expensive than A's, there was no window and I'd have to sign a lease until the next September, but there was internet AND it took only 15 minutes to get to school. I would "probably" get my deposit back even if I left in June, when my contract was up. Sweet.

A few months later, I find myself on the prowl yet again. Mostly due to passive-aggressive roommate issues (on all three parts), but also to (me) feeling like a houseguest. I've been confined to my windowless shoebox because when the roommates are home, they really do occupy ALL of the rooms, and I don't just mean their respective bedrooms. To top it all off, I think I paid a little too much for my share of the utilities for the month previous. This, considering that I'd only had about three or four six-second hot showers (I swear!) since I'd moved in. Being passive-aggressive, however, I merely paid what was charged of me and sulked about it in private (read: complained about it to whomever would listen, including reader(s) of this blog).

And, coming back from my break in the States, I came home to the news of broken appliances and a new roommate.

I suppose that I'm very slowly learning my lesson. For sure, this month will be frenzied, harried, and that I must be very careful when choosing the next "right" place. I'm no longer asking for anything even close to pretty, only somewhere that feels somewhat akin to a home away from home 'cos, as I've found out, there's no place really like it.