Sep 2006

It's been about a week since orientation has gone by and about a week and a half since I've updated this blog. The main reason is that I've been running around like crazy looking for a place to live. With the advent of the internet, it's very easy to search for places to live. The problem is, however, that everyone has access to that information! So instead of five people looking at an apartment, sometimes 50 show up to look at one room. That makes you just one person on a list, a name without a face. It also doesn't help that I really want internet and really really really don't want to live with smokers. And in Spain, not smoking makes you the odd man out.

Let me give you some examples:
A bottom floor (in the US this would be the first floor except in Spain the first floor is the second floor) dormitory style apartment with smokers for 350 euros gastos no incluidos (expenses not included)
A nice roomy apartment with three French guys and one american but with 25 people on a list to get the last room.
A lovely apartment to be shared with a quiet twenty-something woman but no internet or guests and 425 euros a month.
Do you get the picture?

Nonetheless, I am persevering. Unlike others in my state, I at least have a great place to stay for the time being. In fact, I would even stay here except that my friends (Kerbin and Yerson) live so far from my job. The two times that I've been there it has taken me 1.5 hours and 2.5 hours, depending on the metro. And of course, in the process I have met a ton of people! In fact, it's been quite a great experience to see the inside of so many different buildings and explore different neighborhoods.

If you're interested in checking out the world of apartment hunting in Madrid, take a look at the following websites:
www.loquo.com(select shared flats)
www.segundamano.es(select inmobiliaria, then pisos compartidos)
www.craigslist.com(select Madrid)

After a short flight from Boston to Philadelphia and a long flight from Philadelphia to Madrid, I have made it to this great European city. I touched down early in the morning, sleeping just about one hour on the long plane ride across the atlantic. What surprised me most about Spain as I entered was how dry everything looked...very little greenery but lots of intricately managed fields. Then, in the airport, there were little glass rooms for smokers. They stood around a little chimney that pulled the air inward, chatting with fellow travelers and flicking ash into the trough.

Kerbin, my Dominican friend of around 7 years now, met me at the airport with his brother Yerson. I was so happy to see both of them. Yerson I had never met before--probably the only one in the family that I didn't know! I met everyone else, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, sisters, mom, while studying abroad in the Dominican Republic. They waited patiently at the airport for about 1.5 hours waiting for my delayed flight! We put my luggage in a cab (which they insisted on paying for) and drove to their apartment, a place on the outskirts of Madrid called San Blas. They both moved here about two years ago to work. Their apartment or piso is small, but very neat and tidy with everything you might want. And it's very well designed. The neighborhood of San Blas is like many parts of Madrid that were built after the 1800s, undistinguishable brick apartment buildings with little decoration on the outside save some window boxes with plants or graffiti. But people walk around everywhere and I see more people outside at random times of the day than I see during street fairs or festivals in the Twin Cities or Boston.

Today and yesterday I ventured to the center of Madrid with my willing tour guide, Yerson, who had graciously taken two days off of work to be available my first couple days to show me around and help me out. Our visit's purpose was twofold: to see the sights and look for an adaptor or enchufer to plug in my various electrical items. During the many hours and miles that we hiked around Madrid, we saw Plaza Mayor, Plaza del Sol (the center of the city), Principe Pio (one of the primary train stations), the Palacio Real (the royal palace-happens to be vacant because the king chooses to live elsewhere), and many many many people walking the streets just like us. Our search for adaptors was pretty fruitless. Spain and the rest of Europe uses plugs that have two round prongs, not two flat ones or two flat ones and a third round one like in the US. We searched the electronics department at the widely known El Corte Ingles to no avail. At a little travel store along one street, I found a worldwide adaptor for 20 euros that didn't seem worth the money. Finally, we gave up and, exhausted, hopped the metro back to San Blas. There, Yerson had a brilliant idea. He led me to an "everything" store owned by Chinese immigrants in the basement of one of the apartment buildings nearby. There, for a little more than half a Euro, we found a plug that worked.