The first morning of orientation was as was to be expected: several lectures on academics, safety, rules, and general information. The Middlebury center is basically just a large office space with a little library, three aulas (classrooms), a kitchen/lounge area, a computer lab, and some offices. It's kind of funny to think that that space is where I'll be going to school for the next semester, but for 17 people, it is more than adequate.
Then the exciting part began. They broke us into smaller groups and we began the daunting process of finding a room to rent for all non-homestay students somewhere in Madrid. The only requirement was no native English speakers in the piso (apartment). There were four "ayudantes" - or helpers - helping us with the process. Renting a room in an apartment in Madrid is not uncommon, and there are a bunch of websites devoted to people renting out rooms or looking to rent a room in the city. We spent the first afternoon in the computer lab, yelling out neighborhoods or streets aloud to get the "sí" or "no." If we found one that looked good, the ayudantes would call to verify that it would work for us and to set up appointments. This proved harder than one might think - a lot of people rejected us simply because we're American, some because we're students, some because they wanted more than a five-month commitment, some weren't yet available, and lots had already been rented. Nonetheless, they managed to arrange a full schedule of visits for Tuesday (following a brutally long morning in the cell phone store getting phones for everyone).
We literally ran to the first piso from the cell phone store; it was quite amazing how quickly Inés and Irene (the helpers) could move - and Inés can't be more than 4'10". It was all for naught though, because the guy had already gone when we got there. Piso #1: fail. Then we split up again, three of us with Inés and the other three with Irene. Piso #2 was pretty nice - it had five bedrooms, but none of which were filled except for that of the casera (landlady). Other than the kitchen, however, it didn't have a common space. There was one room that was really nice, with access to the huge terrace and tons of sun - you could tell had definitely been the living room in the past, but had been walled off to be rented as a bedroom. Bummer. Piso #3 was across town and wasn't bad except that it was bad. Then we reunited and had a great Greek lunch (the waiter was hilarious - in his down time, he stood at the opening to the very small room with a wide stance and his legs crossed like a body guard, and he offered us a round of shots at the end for the price of Inés's phone number, which she gave him for no other reason than to not spare us a "cultural experience.").
Piso #4 was one my friend Jake had found, and it was in a great location overlooking a really popular walking street. The best part was the landlady whose name we originally thought was Baca (which means cow), but turned out to be Paca. She answered the door in her bathrobe and slippers (at 3:00 in the afternoon), asked Jake his name, tried to pronounce it a couple times and then just said, "what kind of name is that?" Her husband walked in at one point and she shooed him away, saying "we're talking here, can't you see?" And at the end, when it was decided that Jake wanted this as his room, she went over all the rules and was talking about the other members of the piso, one of which is an 18 year-old Spanish girl, but "she's too tall for you anyway." "Don't worry," she said, "you can find a Spanish girlfriend here."
We left the building laughing out loud and excited to learn that finding a room was actually a feasible goal. The next person wasn't there. When we arrived at the next meeting, there was no answer to the buzz, so we called and the lady said she was on her way and would be there shortly. A few minutes later, a man walked up and said, "Are you waiting for me?" Surprised that a man was the one showing us the piso when she had been talking to a woman all along, Irene said that she had been talking to a woman but that yes, we were waiting to look at a piso. The man said that the the only piso he had for rent in this building was in the basement and had to be rented out as an entire apartment, not by room. But, he said, he had a great studio apartment for only 700 EUR just down the street and we should check it out. This piso had been one that I had found, and I was super confused because I know that I never would have called on a basement apartment. We told the man that neither piso interested us and moved on toward the next meeting. When we were in the metro, Irene got a call from the woman asking where we were. After explaining the situation to her, she said, "that son of a b*tch has been trying to steal my clients all week." Turns out, he lives nearby and watches for when people are waiting for her, then proposes his apartment down the street - smart, yet ineffective considering that the piso we wanted to see was rented by the room and for students...
We saw two or three more that evening, got lost trying to find what may be the smallest street in Madrid, sat awkwardly for half an hour in a living room with a bunch of students who were studying, and called it a night. The next day was also packed with meetings, the first of which was perfect in pretty much every way except that it turned out it wasn't free until February (bummer), the second of which was perfect for my friend Erin, and the next few of which were wrong for one reason or another. I ended the day a little frustrated because so many of my friends had managed to find great pisos and I still wasn't satisfied with any of them. But the ayudantes reassured me, and I figured that having not found an apartment after only two days of looking really wasn't too bad after all.
Thursday we saw probably eight pisos, the first of which went to Ian, leaving only me and Irene for the rest of the day. One was great, but empty, which meant that I couldn't be sure with whom I was going to live. One had pretty much zero light. Two were huge and beautiful, and in a convent, which was weird. We revisited the one where we had been schemed and it was great except that they wouldn't accept a five-month lease. And the last one was great. It wasn't available for three days or so, so the landlady (Tessie) offered another room in another apartment that she owned in the same building.
Long story short, I never left. Well, I did, but only for two days, because the people in the first piso were so fun that I was super sad to leave them. My room is super small, but I live with five Spanish students from all over Spain and a Korean student - while a lot of them have studied English, they only speak Spanish in the piso, which is great, and we're actually planning to go out to dinner all together tonight to celebrate most of them being done with exams (this has been Spain's finals week, so most have been in the library).
I am quite content. I'll add some pictures a little later - I haven't uploaded them yet.
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