Casa, Sweet Casa

I've been meaning to post some photos of where I live ever since I arrived, but I was always waiting for a really great time right after I spent a whole afternoon cleaning. But who am I kidding? When I do clean, I like to do bits by bits, meaning that the whole place is never clean at the same time. Add to that roommates who don't clean up for themselves/still haven't fully moved in (I was so spoiled by living alone...) and, well, it just isn't going to happen. So, here you go, a real life peek at the way It Really Is.

Here's a map to get an idea of where I live, although it probably wouldn't mean anything to you unless you know about the city. Basically I live 3 miles or so from the center. From an American perspective, I realize that that is not at all far. I practically have to drive that far to get to the nearest grocery store at home. But Madrid is really a pretty small city and being European, pretty compact. The "center" is probably only about 1 square mile. Maybe 2. And when you have to walk everywhere... I wouldn't say I live in a suburb, exactly. But I might go so far as "outskirts". It's kind of like... the center is Manhattan, and I live in Brooklyn. Which is certainly more "authentic". This is where the real Madrileños live. But getting to the action requires a taxi, the metro or a very long walk. It is a very nice, very safe neighborhood, though. Not even any crackheads or anything.

Here's a view of my front door.

Did I mention I live in a garage? That might sound like the terrible, though inevitable, fate of a college grad with no real income to speak of. And, in some ways, you would be right. But no worries, I'm not camped out in some abandoned building, keeping warm by lighting fires in garbage cans, carting around my meager possessions in an abandoned shopping cart. Not yet anyway.

This is what the door looks like after I use my garage door opener to get in the house. We having amazing stealth capabilities here. It can be fun to startle people by opening the door while they're loitering by it. It also has the added benefit of not having any stairs to climb, although that can't be good for my girlish figure.

This is the view from the front door. The apartment is actually quite large. The tradeoff for extra space is that we have only one window, in the kitchen, which opens out into a light well. We do not get a whole lot of natural light. If I leave the roll up door open we do have some opaque windows facing the street that give the illusion of daylight. Most leased apartments in Spain come furnished, or at least most of the ones I have seen, so most of what you can see comes with the place. Thankfully my landlady doesn't have terrible taste. She also fancies herself as something of an artist, so we have a rather eclectic assortment of her originals adorning the walls.

Here's the kitchen - where all the magic happens. When I got here I was impressed by it's classiness. "Oooo, stainless steel, how swank," thought I. How naive. As I have come to discover, stainless steal is an idiotic thing to make your kitchen out of unless you never actually USE your kitchen. Or if you're a professional chef and you have people who you pay special to come in and clean up for you after you've had your fun. But, seeing as I do (and I don't), the novelty of being able to watch myself cook quickly gave way to the reality of the stuff being impossible to keep clean. Add to that the fact that you have to use special cleaner or you'll scratch it (groan) and it's hard to muster up the energy to even bother. And it's not just food. Heaven forbid you actually touch one of the drawers to open it. Fingerprint city! No, this is a not a kitchen for the obsessive compulsive cleaner. Or maybe it's the perfect one... Regardless, it is a nice kitchen and serves it's purpose well.

Here is the yard:

Hahaha. No, really. And the lovely view as well. The one in the middle is the basil plant that I haven't completely killed yet. I attempted to grow more herbs, but unfortunately the lack of natural light was not kind to their tender seedling selves.

 Here's a view of the dining room/living room from the kitchen...

Now we've come to the bathroom, an exciting part of any grand tour.

Here's my needlessly complicated shower.

You can actually have it shoot water straight into your face. I think maybe it's supposed to be massaging or something. It doesn't matter though because the hot water never lasts for more that 7 or 8 minutes, which is barely enough time for me to shampoo, condition and soap. When we moved in the landlady made a big deal about showing us that we had our own water heater with "100 liters of hot water just for us". As it turns out, 100 liters isn't all that much. And once you use it all up, it takes hours to heat up again. But it is nice and warm for those 7 or 8 minutes. At the last place it would stay warm indefinitely but only for alternating minutes with freezing cold (one minute of warm, one minute of freezing, one minute of warm, one of freezing, etc.). So I guess we're moving up in the world.

Here's my room, it was really hard to get a good angle here. Looking at it like this, it's rather boring. It's hard to get excited about decorating something when you know you'll just be leaving again in a few months. The mattress isn't very comfortable, but hey, it serves it's purpose.

Wow, thrilling.

This is my attempt to show the other side of the room... Again, not too exciting. But look! You can see the floor! How times have changed. Also I think we'd all agree this is much larger than my last room...

So that's the end of the grand tour of the apartment. I thought you might also be interested in my surroundings, so this is a photo of my street. It's a pretty quiet one-way road.

This is just a view of my walk home from the metro, I live one street over.

This is also the way to the park...

This is the park I go to most days to read or bask in the sun. It's a very nice park and only a few blocks from the apartment. Since a lot of people here don't have cars and walk everywhere, there are many many neighborhood parks in Madrid. A lot of people bring their dogs here to play and no one uses leashes except on puppies. Very different than what we're used to, but as a result all the dogs are very well behaved and friendly.

Finally, this is Plaza de Prosper- idad, the main plaza near the apartment, where our metro stop is. There are lots of benches and shade trees, as well as a play ground for the kiddies and a terrace cafe, so it's a pretty big hang out. The seniors all come out to chat in the late afternoons and early evenings and kids play soccer (sorry, football) here all day long. Watch out for flying balls!