September 7, 2004

Apartment hunting - the Spanish way of life

As soon as I arrived I had this uncontrollable concern deep inside me that I had to find a place to live after my 2 weeks were up at our school's flat that we had previously arranged the accomadation.

I flew in on a Sunday, had a cell phone by Wednesday night, and starting searching online by Thursday morning for an apartment.

Now, lets go back in history a couple of years to set up the situation. I lived in a dorm room for one academic year in college with another student (who actually became an awesome life-long friend). Then I moved into a 2-2 apartment with my own room and bathroom. Then I lived in a 1-1 apartment with my husband in Austin and then when we moved to DC, we could afford a studio apartment which was hundreds more than our last place in Austin, Texas.

When we planned to live in Barcelona, we dreamt of our own studio where we could host guest occasionally and have our privacy.

When I arrived on Sunday and started talking to people that lived in the city and soon my dream of a studio quickly vanished. Instead of my own apartment, I was going to be searching for a ROOM/HABITACION in a shared apartment/flat/piso.

Now we are currently living in a room in a shared flat and we luckily have really cool flat mates. As soon as I realized we would be living in one room in a shared flat for the rest of the year, I started to prepare myself for a new way of life.

Burak joked about the irony of the situation. The older, maturer, and supposedly more financially secure we get, the smaller our place appears to be. We went from a 1-1 apartment to a studio and now, to a ROOM! :) But oh well, when in Rome, you must live like the Romans. Or however that annoying quote goes. (Just kidding)

Anyway, I then had a problem of finding a place that would allow two people to share the room. When I said that it wouldn't be a problem for my husband and I to share a room, they would tell me that the room was too small for two people.

to be continued....

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