piso-hunting

I’ve decided that the best way to get to know a new city and the type of people who live there is through apartment (“piso”) shopping. That’s how I’ve spent my last week—scouring websites like CraigsList and Idealista for pisos with friendly-sounding roommates, sunny and bright living rooms, and bedrooms that could fit both me and a bed comfortably at the same time.

At first, I simply tagged along with Cathy, as she had begun the Search for the Perfect Piso online from the States. Of course I was not so well-prepared, and as I met more and more Fulbrighters who claimed they were exhausted from seeing 10+ pisos in one day, I realized I probably could have started the housing hunt earlier. However, once I actually began looking on the various websites for myself, I realized just how many options were available—no wonder people were visiting so many! Tons of different pisos were posted all over the Internet, with varying prices, locations, access to public transportation and our schools (spread mostly outside of the actual city limits), roommates’ nationalities and ages and occupations, etc. etc. etc.

Needless to say, it was quite a process.

But I couldn’t figure out how people could possibly make it to more than 4 or 5 in one day. The amount of time Cathy and I were spending at each place was, apparently, unusual, because we were just chattin it up with whoever showed us the room (one housemate, all the housemates, a landlord), spending ages in each piso asking all sorts of questions about the neighborhood, the apartment, and the roommates. Apparently other people spent less than 15 minutes per flat, while I really enjoyed getting to know the people at each piso, even if I would not have wanted to live in all of them.

One of the best people I met through piso-shopping is a Brailizan guy named Guilherme. He was a lot of fun and extremely friendly on the tour Cathy and I took of his apartment, so in my e-mail to him saying I’d decided to live in a different piso, I suggested that we could still hang out with him and his roommates (his sister and another Brazilian man). He wrote back immediately that we should definitely hang out, and that “You and your friend are super super super majas!” (a common word here for “really cool”) He followed this with, “You are hella cool (a slang that an American friend taught me lol)!!” and that’s when I knew that he was perfect. He actually just invited us on a grand adventure Saturday to a nearby town called Cuenca, and I’m super stoked to meet his friends and practice my Spanish while exploring a medieval town (which my family will be disappointed to note is actually not covered in Rick Steves’ SPAIN 2009?!?! [obviously, because I am my father’s daughter, I looked it up immediately]), and the bus there/back is less than 25E!

So, despite some disappointments during the Great Piso Hunt (“I’m sorry, we ended up giving the room to someone else...” or “You can’t have any visitors if you live here” or just not writing/calling back at all), I think we all ended up in some awesome places. Cathy and I are in a similar neighborhood—probably about a 10-minute walk between our pisos—and really, with the incredible public transportation system in Madrid, I don’t think we’re more than a few Metro stops away from any of our friends so far (other than a few Fulbrighters who are living in the suburbs where they’re teaching).

I’m actually not going to describe my piso too much at this point, since I can’t move in until Pablo, the guy living in my room, leaves, but I’m really excited about it! Right now, I’m staying in a 15E/night hostel nearer to the center of Madrid for another week, before I’ll head over to my new place and crash in the living room until Pablo heads out. Another Fulbrighter, Laura, is in a similar position, where she can’t move in (to her 8-person, extremely international piso) until 1 October, so she’s in the hostel next to me, and we can commiserate together about the lack of kitchen space for a few more days. I mean, I’m only kind of half-complaining about being forced to purchase chocolate croissants every day, but it is actually pretty annoying to not have a fridge for my yogurts (...they just get more cultured sitting on a desk in my room though... right, guys?)