Week 6

By Aaron

Lost in Translation: As Joni mentioned at length last week, apartment hunting in Madrid is incredibly difficult.  On Thursday of last week we finally had two seemingly solid leads, both with women named Maria!  Maria #1 showed us her lovely 2 bedroom apartment in Chamberi, complete with a giant window facing a quiet courtyard, a spacious living room and a kitchen fully equipped with modern appliances.   I’ll note that this place is conveniently located about a half block from the Islas Filipinas metro station, which explains part of the cryptic allusion in last week’s post. The only problem with this place was that Maria #1 could only rent us the apartment until January, and there was a man currently living in the space until October who may or may not be willing to let us move in right away. At this point, deep into a search that largely appeared to be getting us nowhere fast, we were excited enough by this opportunity to have a slightly more permanent home and the prospect of looking for housing in January seemed less daunting than September.  Maria #1 was open to us renting, and agreed to talk with the current tenant to see if he would agree to our immediate move-in needs.   We were waiting with the giddy anticipation of a novice eBay bidder, constantly checking WhatsApp to hear from our potential landlord.  Our instincts kicked in shortly, and we were off to view another apartment on the other side of town.

This brings us to Maria #2, who showed us a brand new apartment just a few minutes walk away from Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas - a famous bullring located on the eastern side of Madrid (which explains the other bit of allusion from last week!).  This apartment reminded me a bit of a model home, staged better than any other apartment we had encountered to date.  Everything appeared to be freshly unpacked, from the Ikea sofa-bed to the flat screen TV to the oven in the kitchen.  While it only contained one bedroom, there was ample space to host company and far more storage space than we could possibly fill.  After sitting down for a moment and talking it through, we decided that this apartment was not quite cheap enough to justify its relative distance from other neighborhoods we had come across in our search. We declined to pursue the place further, which we assumed was just an exercise in putting our name on a list to certainly be beat out by someone who a) already had a work contract or b) would be able to rent for 2 years instead of 11 months.  After thanking Maria #2, we exited the building and began the walk back to the nearest metro.  Just as the familiar sense of dejection began to set in, Maria #2 came running after us and offered to knock 50 euros off the monthly rent.  And then the confusion began to take hold.

From the moment we met her, Maria #2 was very nice and professional and completely unable to communicate at all in English. It became apparent that Maria #2 was a semi-pro, not quite an agent but also not the owner of the property she was showing.  Joni’s Spanish had improved through the many conversations on the phone and in person, but this was the fourth apartment viewing of the day after walking around Madrid in the peak of the summer heat.  We were grasping bits and pieces of the general spiel from the start, but we were sure that even more than usual was falling through the cracks.

Regardless of any communication gap, we clarified the price and determined that for whatever reason this woman did indeed follow us out of the apartment and offer us a discount.  We would be able to rent the apartment so long as we could prove we had savings equivalent to a year of rent.  Despite the incongruency with 100% of the apartment viewings we had seen in the past week, we were desperate for a win and were willing to chalk it up to a miracle of probability and determination.  We ended up signing a document that essentially reserved us the right to rent the apartment, and then handed over several hundred euros as a kind of deposit.  Reservation contract in hand, we departed again and felt both relieved and a little unsure about our decision.  The place was really nice, but the neighborhood was just a little more residential and suburban feeling than we had in mind.  It was neat to live so close to the iconic Ventas, though there were not many other places within a short walk that we anticipated visiting frequently.  Still, the price was right and the apartment was nice.























We almost lived 5 minutes from here...

The next day, we received an email from Maria #2 with a sample of the form the bank would need to fill out to confirm we had the requisite funds mentioned previously.  Upon closer inspection, we realized that this form was not just a simple affidavit, but a document involved in a process called an aval bancario.  This meant that we would have to place a year’s worth of rent in a special account (for which the bank would charge a monthly fee) that could not be touched until the completion of the contract.  After conferring with some friends, it appeared that while a legitimate thing that does happen in some cases an aval bancario should not be something a landlord asks for in an increment of 12 months for an apartment in the neighborhood in question.  We were already contemplating losing a month of rent at the end of the rental contract, as we plan to stay in Madrid until some point in July 2017, and the thought of somehow being unable to retrieve what essentially seemed like a massive security deposit (which, by the way, was to be on top of a standard one-month-of-rent security deposit) just didn’t sit well with us.  We emailed Maria #2 and stated that we were not willing to do an aval, and she responded that maybe we could reach another agreement.  It just so happened, however, that we had gone to see an apartment (see earlier comment about instincts) in a more preferable neighborhood at a cheaper price with a rental agreement that was much more straightforward.  We had no interest in pursuing anything with Maria #2, except to retrieve our significant stack of euro cash.  With the help of the incomparable staff at TtMadrid, the struggle continues. Stay tuned for updates!

In the midst of all this drama, we did finally find a stellar apartment from which I’m writing this very blog.  It is in the Atocha neighborhood south of the city center, with excellent communication (meaning bountiful nearby public transit options) and in close proximity to the massive Retiro park.  It is technically an interior apartment, but on the top floor of a building adjacent to a slightly shorter church building - which means we have both light and a quiet reprieve from the main street!  On top of all that, our landlord Liliana speaks English very well and has been incredibly kind throughout the rental process.

The keys to our new place!

We're on the 6th floor (or 7th floor in Spain, since the ground floor is zero!).  Even though the building is nearly 100 years old, it has an elevator and appears to be in good shape.

We are excited to be settling into a place we know we’ll be living in for more than a month for the first time since mid-June.  Here are a few charts to sum up our gypsy experience:

Exploring the City: After moving into our new place, it was time to partake in one of my favorite past times - going to a new grocery store!  For our inaugural trip as long-term Spanish tenants, we chose the Carrefour in Lavapíes, inspired by Joni's desire to purchase a hairdryer.  The store is sort of a mega-CVS/Walgreens + grocery store, and it is open 24 hours.  Considering we had been freed of the mental weight of sharing fridge space, we showed some restraint and were able to transport all our food back home on the metro.

Our first major trip to a grocery store.  We went wild and even purchased a cart for hauling food on the metro.

Memorable meal: With a desire to explore our new neighborhood and currently running on a schedule where we are free of obligations after 1:30 in the afternoon, Joni and I ventured to a nearby Asturian restaurant called El Rincón II.  Liliana had recommended this place and mentioned that a lot of people from Asturia (in the north of Spain) had settled in our neighborhood.  As is the custom for many restaurants in Madrid, El Rincón II features a menú del día at lunch time.  In our experience, this typically consists of choosing 1 starter, 1 entree, 1 beverage and 1 dessert/coffee from a pre-set menu.  Basically a TON of food for any meal, let alone lunch, and these menus tend to run between 10-15 euros a person.  I had a delicious potato chorizo stew, some roast beef with something that was either gravy or mashed potatoes but definitely tasty, a glass of wine, and a café con leche.  Joni ordered the first gazpacho either of us has had since arriving, along with a pork and potato dish, a glass of pineapple juice, and a strawberry sundae. We also had bread to dip in the soup, as well as a bit of chorizo at the start of the meal. We spoke to each other in our own hodgepodge brands of Spanish for much of the meal,  paid 25 euro for the entire spread, had leftovers that could constitute an entire additional meal, and had no need to eat dinner that night.  It was amazing and I'm already salivating thinking of our next visit.

Who’s Coming to Dinner: Even though we didn't find an apartment by September 1st, we are lucky enough to have generous friends who housed us for five nights. Dinner at Cat and Ben's place may not be as unpredictable as dinner at Marli's, but it still offers great conversation and opportunities to meet new people. Added bonus: said friends have an adorable dog. Her name is Andazi, which means "donut" in Swahili. She is super sweet and loves to cuddle. She was always near by when we ate our meals, looking adorable in hopes of earning some hot dogs (her favorite treat). We also, of course, had Cat's company during our meals. Ben, however, is currently in the U.S. for work, so he was not able to join us for meals. On Saturday, Cat and Ben's friend Allison joined us for dinner. She is from North Carolina and has lived in Madrid with her husband for one year. She completed the TtMadrid TEFL course last fall, and Cat completed the same course in the fall of 2014, so Joni and I were able to pick their brains about the process of job searching/choosing, as well as about the ins and outs of working for different companies, for families, in schools, etc. There are so many job opportunities that it's just overwhelming and difficult to know where to start, so their advice is very helpful!?

The incomparable Andazi, who welcomed us into her home (also, Cat & Ben, not pictured).

En la clase:  After about a month of living in a Spanish speaking country, we finally started our clases de Español this week! These classes are held right across the hall from our beloved TtMadrid, which means we have enjoyed seeing familiar faces in familiar spaces when getting coffee or tea on our breaks.  I'm a tried and true beginner, with only some rudimentary high school coursework (and various flirtations with DuoLingo) under my belt, so I was placed in the A1 class.  100% of the instruction is in Spanish, which may seem counter-intuitive for such a low level but actually proves to work quite well in practice.  There are a surprising amount of things that can be mimed, and after just four classes I can already sense my conversational confidence increasing.  As mentioned previously, Joni is much more advanced in her language skills and was placed in a B1 level class.  Her experience has been a bit more challenging than mine, as might be expected from a more advanced course. It has been an adjustment for Joni not to be at the top of the class, as she says she is one of the lower students in her level, but she is up for the challenge and is eager to learn.  Currently we are in the intensive course track, meaning that we have class from 9:30 - 1:30 each morning.  We'll need to decide soon if we wish to continue with this schedule or switch to a lighter but more elongated format (i.e. bi-weekly 1 hour classes across the span of several months).  The most likely determining factor of that decision will be our work schedule, which is starting to come together quite quickly.

Final Notes: TEFL certificate, check.  Apartment, check. Next up, find a job!  It's been a few years since I've had to search for work, but already the experience is vastly different than the grueling six weeks I spent traipsing around DC in September of 2011.  Sure, I'm no longer fresh-out-of-college without any work experience in an office, but the job market for English teachers in Madrid seems (so far) heavily tilted in our favor.  Not to jinx anything, but at this point it seems FAR easier to land a job than to find an apartment in Madrid.  May my words not come back to haunt me.