I have yet to update about the new apartment but I'm in love with its location more than anything. It's a very, very, very small apartment. I just realized a couple of days ago that I literally cannot outstretch my arms all the way in the kitchen, it's that narrow. I have the medium sized bedroom that has lots of drawers to keep my stuff in, but it's quaint. I like it. If I keep it clean, there's plenty of space to do what I need to do. To live. That's if I keep it clean......which is a different story. I have two roommates, a boy and a girl who are both about 24/25ish. To be honest, I feel like I live with a girl and a 16-year-old girl. The actual girl is amazing, she's hilarious and fun. She's from the south of Spain and unfortunately goes home every other weekend to visit her family & boyfriend, but she's awesome. The boy...such a piece of work. He's from the south of Spain too. He's a sports journalist, basically, who gets paid to write about different sporting events. In America this type of person would be similar to a jock or someone more...athletic. My roommate is the biggest nerd I've ever met. Maybe geek is a better word. He's tall, t-shirt & jeans kind of guy but plays computer games 95% of his free time. If we don't hear him screaming from his bedroom at some stranger in another country via his gaming headset...then he's probably not home. I don't even mind that. I can live with the complete nerdiness. I do have a hard time dealing with his "around the house" apparel. He has these matching dull green sweatpants and sweatshirt with a wolf on it that he wears all the time. They smell funny. And the sweatpants are hideous. They're substantially tight and have elastic around the ankles. He doesn't own slippers, so he likes to pair them with some of those ugly strappy male sandals and socks.
He looks like the one in the middle. With these shoes:
I'd take a real live picture if it didn't make me nauseous and give me unnaturally strong urges to cut up the sandals and take a pair of sharp fabric scissors to the elastic ankles of the sweatpants.
Like I said, I deal with it all. What is hard to handle is him being a Spanish male who is out of the house for the first time. In Spain, people usually tend to live at home until they get married, and then finally move out when they are 30ish (they marry later here). That causes certain...well, problems. Spanish guys seem to be a LOT more immature. They aren't quite as self-sufficient. They think they are the hottest shit on the planet (because they live with personal cheerleaders, their mothers, until they get married...to another personal cheerleader.) Take that male out of his mother's household, put him in a new city...eventually (you hope) he might learn how to be more self-dependent and less demanding.
Well, not yet.
Of course all of that is just a generalization for many of the boys I have met. It's not true for all of them. And most of that information I got from my teachers at school, haha. My roommate doesn't understand cohabitation. On paper he gets it but in real life it just doesn't seem to be settling into his brain. For example, we all three have to share the bathroom and the living room. He's a nosey little bitch. So if one of those three areas is occupied, wait 30 seconds and he'll come poking his nose in to see what's going on. Maybe it's a territory issue....like dogs when they have to pee all over everything that's already been peed on. If I'm "peeing" in the living room, he's gotta come see what I'm doing, and "pee" there too. If I'm in the kitchen, he will walk back and forth in the hallway just poking his nose in because all of a sudden, now that I'm using the kitchen, he wants to do use it too. The girl & I cook together in the kitchen all the time with no problems...but he has to have it all to himself. And the bathroom.....good God, the bathroom. I feel like the bathroom is a sacred place. I don't care what you do in there but it's private time. Unless I'm about to piss my pants, I'm not going to knock on the door and ask you to get out. I expect the same courtesy. I lived with 50 girls in a sorority house and we NEVER had any issues. The bathroom is not different than the kitchen or the living room. I was in there for about a minute one night, washing my face and getting ready for bed, and I hear him come storming out of the bedroom and knocks on the door "CHELSEA...how much longer are you going to be in there?? A long time??" ....no, don't worry, I'm just washing my face. When I'm finished you can come proverbially piss all over the place. It's also his tone of voice that he uses. I feel like there is a certain commeradery among roommates...a politeness if you will. If someone's somewhere you need to be, you ask politely "when you're finished could you let me know?" Or if someone accidentally turns on water while you're in the shower, "Would you mind waiting until I'm out of the shower? The water just got cold!" All of these instances have happened between the girl and I and we have no problems. We're friends. The princess, however, who I might start calling Your Royal Highness, doesn't have that tact. Here's how Your Royal Highness deals with these situations. "HURRY UP, I NEED TO SHOWER BEFORE I GO TO BED!!!!" or my favorite...while banging on the door to the kitchen as I was washing dishes (I started washing dishes before he went into the bathroom) "CHELSEA!!! SHUT OFF THE WATER, I'M IN THE SHOWER AND IT'S COLD AS F***"
Assface. He couldn't be a bigger, more inconsiderate asshole if he intentionally tried. And I honestly don't care, it's just annoying. I avoid him and do what I need to do without giving a crap. He gets annoyed/jealous when I talk to the girl and we have bonding moments. One night I came home and they were in his room because he was showing her some video game about zombies and farms. She asked me how my day was, and I started telling them some funny stories...and all of a sudden he gets up, throws on his jacket, and runs out the door. We asked where he was going and he said "SHOPPING" then slammed the door in our faces. We had no idea what the hell had just happened. When he got home he was pouting because he was trying to show her this video game and then she started talking to me and clearly didn't care about it anymore....what a freaking lunatic.
He also has this weird obsession, being such a geek, of showing his body. I swear to God every time I'm trying to have a conversation with him he lifts up his shirt and starts stroking his hairy stomach. It's as horribly awkward as it sounds. Then one day I came home and he was shaving his head...and maybe his body....ugh who knows. I walk in the door and I'm staring at a very well lit, half naked roommate, with the bathroom door wide open and him shaving himself. Hair all over the floor. Hair all in the sink. (For this exact reason, plus he doesn't know how to cover his mouth when he coughs, I moved all of my personal things [i.e. toothbrush] out of the bathroom a month ago) I couldn't hide my horrified expression (he's not bad looking but personal grooming doesn't really get my motor running, it actually turns my stomach) and he looks at me, scratching his stomach again, and says, "What?? What's wrong with you??" ....clearly he couldn't possibly fathom why this moment was not the highlight of my 24 years of existance. Not to mention that there is ALWAYS hair all over the bathroom. And here's the thing....girl hair is not that gross. It's long. It's shiny. You know it came from a girl's head. Boy hair...............disgusting. It's short, dark, curly, and you have no idea what follicle on the body it came from. To me, it all looks like pubic hair. And that makes me want to gag. There's boy hair in the sink. Boy hair all over the bathroom. Boy hair in the shower. Living with one boy is 100 times worse than living with 50 girls. That's all I'm saying. And if he was more pleasant and polite, I'd care less about his bear hair all over the apartment.
Anyways. Like I said, I'm not affected that much by him. I know that rant makes it seem like I hate him but I really don't. It seemed like an entertaining rant and I haven't let it out to anybody yet. I still love the apartment. Monday, though, we had a tiff and he pissed me off so much that I stayed home from school to take a personal day. Every weekend I like to bake, and there's always a pile of dishes that aren't mine. I like to have a clean kitchen, though, so I always wash all the dishes. Numerous times. This past weekend I was so annoyed with it that I left all the dishes in the sink and didn't wash them. Then, randomly, Monday morning I hear my roommates screaming at each other at 7 a.m. I come stumbling out and asked the girl what's wrong. She said that it was just the apartment and how it's so dirty. I started to tell her how I was going to clean the living room later that day (we rotate the common rooms for cleaning each week) and he barges into the kitchen and yells that he wants all of the dishes cleaned by the time he gets home. To me. And I can't really snap back in Spanish at 7 a.m. when I have just been woken up and am getting screamed at for something I didn't do. And I told him I have been washing my dishes all week and leaving the rest and I wasn't going to clean HIS dishes. Plus the fact that he keeps dumping his old food and soup down the drain, on top of all of the dirty dishes....so that dishes that only had a couple of crumbs are now covered in an oily, tomatoe-y mess. He flipped the hell out, started cussing me out for 5 minutes, and then went to his bedroom to continue. I went to my room, started crying because I hate confrontation and was so annoyed with him (maybe some of the dishes were mine, but why the hell wouldn't you just have an adult conversation on Sunday night calmly, instead of blowing a gasket at 7 a.m. on a work day?? How stupid are you??) I knew a couple of the dishes were mine from making pancakes so I figured I was in such a bad mood I shouldn't be dealing with small children, so I texted my teachers, stayed home, and started cleaning the dishes. He came in and was like "are you gonna clean them or do I have to do them after I get home? Just leave them and I'll do them when I get home". No, douchebag. I'm already doing them. I just kept crying and cleaning. It ended up being a good thing because I cleaned the whole house. Dishes, the living room, my bedroom...and took out all the trash. I haven't talked to him since but the way I see it I owe him nothing so he can keep playing with his imaginary friends online and I'll live my life normally (but a little bit more organized as to avoid his crazy bipolar meltdowns).
So those are the roommates. Our neighbors are fun too. One of our neighbors has heard me on the phone with Jeri before and has been trying to catch me because she's Swedish or something and doesn't speak much Spanish. She keeps asking the girl if she's the one who's been speaking English. In the mean time I wonder what else she's heard because the walls are made of paper and I say a lot of stuff I wouldn't with English-speaking roomates because they don't understand me....haha. I met another neighbor one day at the front door and she's hilarious. I'm guessing she's 95 years old, has an amazing fashion sense, and has like fifteen names. I was telling her I'm from the States and this weather seems cold, even for me. She told me her name was Maria Teresa, or Maite, or Maria, or just Teresa....and she lives in 3A if I ever need anything. I love neighbors like that.
The apartment is located ten minutes away from my school (walking) so I get to walk to school every morning. This comes with a lot of pro's and con's. The pro's are being able to walk to school and the fact that it's so centrally located. I can walk to the center of Madrid in 20 minutes. It's also in between two main Metro lines. I also live next door to the Madrid Harley Davidson. European bikers are much different than American bikers. In America they wear lots of leather, long curly hair, bandanas, and look like they could kill you with one look. Europeans also wear lots of leather, but they are very very well groomed. This causes all European bikers to look like they belong in a gay bar or club. It cracks me up. And makes me feel quite at home.
The con's.....there are many. For one, I live next to my school and so do many of my students. I can no longer leave my apartment without makeup and doing my hair because 85% of the time I run into my students. This might sound conceited (and if you were to come to school with me one day you'd understand) but I'm kind of famous at my school. I have more than 420 students and all of them adore me (because I have the fun class of the week usually). Now that I've been speaking Spanish more with them, all of the shy ones feel more comfortable talking to me when they don't know what to say in English and we're all a lot closer. Basically, when we're not in school (or even if it's just lunch break) and they see me on the street, they act like they've just seen Brad Pitt walking half naked down the street. Jumping. Shouting. Waving like a crazy person. Screaming in English. And because they're screaming in English, everyone turns and looks with a look like, "what the hell?? Why is this small child screaming in English?" Most of the time I see them and say hi and ask how they're doing (it's a ritual...."How are you? I'm fine thanks, and you?" If you don't ask how they are, and just say hello, most of my students look confused, wait 15 seconds, then say "............I'm fine, thanks, and you??" without even being prompted). Also, one of my least favorite students lives in the next apartment down. She's annoying and has the worst behavior of any female student I have. Her mother is also annoying because she likes to brag about how amazing her daughter's English is, to ME, her English teacher. At first I didn't know her well (she's a new student) but after getting to know her through punishing her almost every class, I have a lot more that I don't say to her mother now. Every morning her mother tries to wait for me outside the building so I can walk to school with her, practice English, and the mother doesn't have to leave the house. Of COURSE it's my luck to live next to the one student I practically loathe. And of course she has the biggest mouth of anybody at school and tells everyone we're neighbors.
I also have a "bad" habit of listening to my iPhone on the way to school, to avoid gypsies begging for money and men hitting on me or calling me "rubia"...blonde. If even one man under the age of 40 and under 300 lbs. hit on me, I'd reconsider my walking habits. Until then...headphone ignorance. This causes problems because I cannot count how many times my students run up to me at school and tell me "I saw you yesterday!! I said hi, but you didn't hear me because you had your headphones in...." *insert sad puppy face*. I feel so awful but my headphones cancel out all noises. I've begun taking out my headphones when I reach the street of the school, but sometimes that's not good enough. One of my teachers told me yesterday that she was with a group of students, about 8, who were all screaming at me at the top of their lungs trying to get my attention, and thought I was ignoring them. She said her daughter (who isn't my student, she's only 5 and in preschool...but she sees me during lunch & on the way to school sometimes and really likes me) was in the front of the pact screaming and waving like a maniac. Luckily the teacher saw me take out my headphones and was able to explain that's why I was "ignoring" them, I had no idea they were there.
All in all, I'm happier here. Being close to my life is very important for my work life and my social life. I'll try to update soon with the other catch-up news...but it felt really good getting all this off my chest :) Until next time!
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