Is it just me or do you need to be a complete weirdo to be an estate agent.
I wasn't going to write anything else but I just had to put this on!
8pm, kids in bed. Me in PJs. Someone rings doorbell impatiently. Wonder who the hell it is ringing away on my doorbell at this ungodly hour (ie. my one time of the day when I can have a cup of tea in piece and watch The City without children screaming).
There's a skinny, leathery estate agent outside my window with 2 young men. 'Can we come in' says he. I already asked your OH (who had tried to call me but my phone was on silent as usual). Erm OK says I, wishing I didn't have my PJs on.
He comes in, they look round bla bla, the usual...BUT the estate agent proceeds to make the following not entirely helpful statements in front of the prospective tenants:
1) You get a lot of transvestite prostitutes round here at night don't you.
2) I've seen a flat cheaper than this in a better area.
3) Yeah it might have a garden, but Portuguese people aren't interested in things like gardens when they rent a flat.
4) Wow the bathroom's tiny.
ARGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH are you trying to rent our flat or what!!!
In response to point number 1, I said 'Well they don't bother me', and he said 'Yeah but they might bother these young men', with a sinister grin, nudge nudge, wink wink.
I swear I'm not making these people up.
Good night!
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Monday, August 23, 2010
Dude where's my tapas.
DAY ONE
So although this trip isn't really a fun trip, as OH said, I should try and enjoy it a bit and at least squeeze some tapas in somewhere along the line, and some nice coffees. Oh I wish. That was the plan, but the path somehow leads me to:
1) Visiting the official Most Depressing Residential Areas in Madrid.
2) Not eating anything remotely tasty.
3) Tears before bedtime.
As I make my way towards the metro in the airport (it's surprisingly easy to find), so going well so far. Get to the ticket machines. Huge queues at the manned desk, so I try the machines. Doesn't accept my note. Doesn't accept my bank card, or the emergancy credit card (although it says it takes cards). I don't have enough change. This is going well. So I join the humungous queue and get my 10 journey ticket. Here commences my quest to see how many tube journeys I can squeeze into less than 2 days...and it's a lot. I spend the 36 hours on the metro pretty much...and it's really hot....and it sucks!
I'm not slagging off the Madrid metro here, it's actually very efficient and organised, and not as crowded as the London underground (but that could be because it's August and everyone's on hols). It's just not fun for me because I'm lugging a rucksack round half the time, and it's really hot and sweaty, and half the time I have to stand up. So this is not fun, and not really the sitting in street cafés eating tapas that I envisioned BUT I am here on a mission, so let it commence.
I get to the sleazy 2-star hotel in Sol that the budget stretched to (I thought who cares, it's only for 1 night). The room is yellow and brown, literally I'm in a haze of yellow and brown. There's no AC, just a really slow ceiling fan that clunks and creaks, it's actually so noisy I think I'll sleep without it on, but then all I can hear is the lift clunking outside my window, so I decide to leave it on. The door doesn't shut properly (there's a couple of inches gap at the bottom. When I put the ceiling fan on, it casts a weird flickering light round the room from the overhead strip light which makes my eyelids twitch. I actually feel like I've taken acid right now. I'm also really thirsty as haven't drunk anything for hours (except a take-out coffee, the remainders of which sit on the bedside table). So I down my nice cold coffee, and with a few more eye-twitches, I'm off back out.
I think I might die in that room. It's getting bolted when I get back in :)
1st flat: Tiny, no bath, 2 tiny rooms leading onto the tiny living room-so if you put the kids to bed, you'd be right next to them and couldn't make any noise. Drab area, nothing around, no sign of life, loads of graffiti, I feel like I'm in the Mexican wild west....back on the tube.
2nd flat: Chamartin, ahh the lovely Chamartin I've heard so much about. A really nice, lively area. I come out the train station, cross over a car-park and some wasteland, and walk through an industrial/office block area, nice. Get to the blocks of flats (which although the flats look nice, there's literally nothing around). No shops, no cafés, no life, no nothing. What if I need to pop out for a pint of milk. The thought of that crappy walk over wasteland when my classes finish at 9.30 at night isn't really appealing either. I decide not to even bother seeing it, and as I'm an hour early, I text the guy to cancel.
3rd flat: It's in a really posh area. I'm feeling suspicious already. I know for a fact we can't afford anything in this area so why is it a reasonable price. It is only 2-beds, but still, I'm suspicious. I pass Chanel, Louis Vuitton etc. This doesn't feel right. I actually don't even want to live here. I want to live in a normal area, with corner shops and nice, normal people. Not yuppies getting out of chauffered cars in sunglasses with little dogs in their pockets.
I'm stupidly early as usual, but there's nothing around. I'm sorted if I want a Prada handbag, but really I just want a coffee. It's getting clammy and cloudy, my feet are killing. Hoorah I spot an empty, overpriced sandwich shop. Get a coffee and doughnut and sit for an hour. Leave the shop and it starts raining. How can it rain in Madrid in August?! See the flat. It's tiny, dark, and weirdly you go up steps, then down steps to get to the front door (I again feel like I'm on acid, or in the cat in the hat book). 1 tiny bedroom. But wait I say, I thought this was 2 beds (but in my bad Spanish it goes something more like this: 'dos habitaciones?'. Si vale she says, and pulls out a stepladder from the ceiling leading to a prisoner-style bunk/room. Er ok probably not good for a family of 4 and I think a tad dangerous for the little ones, hey ho.
Time to go home, yes home sweet home. I can't find the nearest metro. Ask in the sandwich shop again and he directs me the wrong way, ask someone else and eventually I find it but not before I've got totally drenched in my not-very-suitable summer dress and flip-flops. Sit like a drowned rat on the metro, get back to my luxury apartment, bolt the door, remember I forgot to buy a bottle of water and pass out in a dehydrated, belly-rumbling, headachey yellow and brown haze.
Get woken up by a text from the Chamartin flat guy: 'Don't worry, we already rented it this morning anyway'.
http://my.msn.com/addtomymsn.armx?id= rss&ut=http://www.urblogfeedaddress.com/urblog.xml
So although this trip isn't really a fun trip, as OH said, I should try and enjoy it a bit and at least squeeze some tapas in somewhere along the line, and some nice coffees. Oh I wish. That was the plan, but the path somehow leads me to:
1) Visiting the official Most Depressing Residential Areas in Madrid.
2) Not eating anything remotely tasty.
3) Tears before bedtime.
As I make my way towards the metro in the airport (it's surprisingly easy to find), so going well so far. Get to the ticket machines. Huge queues at the manned desk, so I try the machines. Doesn't accept my note. Doesn't accept my bank card, or the emergancy credit card (although it says it takes cards). I don't have enough change. This is going well. So I join the humungous queue and get my 10 journey ticket. Here commences my quest to see how many tube journeys I can squeeze into less than 2 days...and it's a lot. I spend the 36 hours on the metro pretty much...and it's really hot....and it sucks!
I'm not slagging off the Madrid metro here, it's actually very efficient and organised, and not as crowded as the London underground (but that could be because it's August and everyone's on hols). It's just not fun for me because I'm lugging a rucksack round half the time, and it's really hot and sweaty, and half the time I have to stand up. So this is not fun, and not really the sitting in street cafés eating tapas that I envisioned BUT I am here on a mission, so let it commence.
I get to the sleazy 2-star hotel in Sol that the budget stretched to (I thought who cares, it's only for 1 night). The room is yellow and brown, literally I'm in a haze of yellow and brown. There's no AC, just a really slow ceiling fan that clunks and creaks, it's actually so noisy I think I'll sleep without it on, but then all I can hear is the lift clunking outside my window, so I decide to leave it on. The door doesn't shut properly (there's a couple of inches gap at the bottom. When I put the ceiling fan on, it casts a weird flickering light round the room from the overhead strip light which makes my eyelids twitch. I actually feel like I've taken acid right now. I'm also really thirsty as haven't drunk anything for hours (except a take-out coffee, the remainders of which sit on the bedside table). So I down my nice cold coffee, and with a few more eye-twitches, I'm off back out.
I think I might die in that room. It's getting bolted when I get back in :)
1st flat: Tiny, no bath, 2 tiny rooms leading onto the tiny living room-so if you put the kids to bed, you'd be right next to them and couldn't make any noise. Drab area, nothing around, no sign of life, loads of graffiti, I feel like I'm in the Mexican wild west....back on the tube.
2nd flat: Chamartin, ahh the lovely Chamartin I've heard so much about. A really nice, lively area. I come out the train station, cross over a car-park and some wasteland, and walk through an industrial/office block area, nice. Get to the blocks of flats (which although the flats look nice, there's literally nothing around). No shops, no cafés, no life, no nothing. What if I need to pop out for a pint of milk. The thought of that crappy walk over wasteland when my classes finish at 9.30 at night isn't really appealing either. I decide not to even bother seeing it, and as I'm an hour early, I text the guy to cancel.
3rd flat: It's in a really posh area. I'm feeling suspicious already. I know for a fact we can't afford anything in this area so why is it a reasonable price. It is only 2-beds, but still, I'm suspicious. I pass Chanel, Louis Vuitton etc. This doesn't feel right. I actually don't even want to live here. I want to live in a normal area, with corner shops and nice, normal people. Not yuppies getting out of chauffered cars in sunglasses with little dogs in their pockets.
I'm stupidly early as usual, but there's nothing around. I'm sorted if I want a Prada handbag, but really I just want a coffee. It's getting clammy and cloudy, my feet are killing. Hoorah I spot an empty, overpriced sandwich shop. Get a coffee and doughnut and sit for an hour. Leave the shop and it starts raining. How can it rain in Madrid in August?! See the flat. It's tiny, dark, and weirdly you go up steps, then down steps to get to the front door (I again feel like I'm on acid, or in the cat in the hat book). 1 tiny bedroom. But wait I say, I thought this was 2 beds (but in my bad Spanish it goes something more like this: 'dos habitaciones?'. Si vale she says, and pulls out a stepladder from the ceiling leading to a prisoner-style bunk/room. Er ok probably not good for a family of 4 and I think a tad dangerous for the little ones, hey ho.
Time to go home, yes home sweet home. I can't find the nearest metro. Ask in the sandwich shop again and he directs me the wrong way, ask someone else and eventually I find it but not before I've got totally drenched in my not-very-suitable summer dress and flip-flops. Sit like a drowned rat on the metro, get back to my luxury apartment, bolt the door, remember I forgot to buy a bottle of water and pass out in a dehydrated, belly-rumbling, headachey yellow and brown haze.
Get woken up by a text from the Chamartin flat guy: 'Don't worry, we already rented it this morning anyway'.
http://my.msn.com/addtomymsn.armx?id= rss&ut=http://www.urblogfeedaddress.com/urblog.xml
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Leaving on a jet plane..
Soooo my first blog. I feel awkward, have never had a blog before. I've sort of half-admired, half thought 'how can you be bothered to write one' about other bloggers, but when I was sweating my way round the Madrid underground looking for flats the other day, experiencing weird experiences, I thought....it would be fun to write about this if I could be bothered because I really don't think my husband is interested in listening to the ramblings of my brain. So please indulge my wafflings here :)
I suppose it would also be good for my mum to catch up with what's going on in my life too because I haven't spoken to her since she went back to the Middle East almost a month ago! Between her not being able to get through to me, or everytime I call her a distended Arabic voice tells me there's no-one at the other end of her phone, or as I discovered when she finally wrote me an email, she's forgotten how to use skype. So this may be useful (if she works out how to click on the link), and also maybe some of my friends might read it! (please, friendies please)...
Basically I'm moving from Lisbon to Madrid in 2 weeks (I got a new, shiny job). We haven't been able to rent our flat out yet (despite it being a great flat), honest guv. People are so fussy! We haven't found somewhere to live in Madrid yet. My husb (let's call him OH, other half..it's easier), is on the job-hunt path, we have 2 small kids, not much money and don't really speak Spanish so it's all a bit mental. Also if we don't rent our flat OH has to stay here in Lisbon until it's rented...
It was decided that I'd go on a recon. visit to Madrid, and I'd naively hoped that I might find somewhere in less than 2 days. It would have been so much easier to sort a flat on my own first before having to turn up there with 2 kids in tow and live in a B&B or something while I go out and look.
The journey wasn't too bad. Easyjet was quite easy from Lisbon. Although I've decided recently that I hate flying, really hate it. Not in an I'm scared way, but just the whole experience. I think maybe it used to be a nice and quite luxurious experience, but it's just c*** now. Waiting around in the airport for hours, paying 5€ for a sweaty sandwich. Everyone barging in front of you in the queue even though you were one of the first people there. Feeling really guilty and nervous when you go through security. I literally hold my breath when I go through the scanner thing. Why? I'm only carrying a Dove deodorant spray, why the rampant paranoia?? Not being able to afford anything in duty-free sniff sniff. Taking 10 mins to get a seat as you shuffle down the aisle with fat guys from London bashing you as they reach for the overhead lockers. Getting squashed. Getting moaned at by air-hostesses for not having your bag to the correct degree of underyourseatness. ARGH, everything is argh!
But I digress. So this flight seemed to be going ok. No-one had sat by me yet. The really loud and irritating teenagers had sat near the back. Until duh-duh-duh a couple sat next to me. They were quite quiet at first (a good sign), they didn't talk to me (a better sign), they started to kiss a bit (a bad sign). She started reading things and knocking stuff everywhere, completely oblivious to the fact that she was dropping magazines on me. I waited...she didn't move them. I moved them 'Oh desculpe', she seemed so apologetic. Maybe they're not that bad I thought. Until she did it again. Then they started snogging more. Then they started taking photos. Could it get worse...yes. When she leaned into me, stretched her arm behind me and started taking photos out the window (I was in the window seat), as if I wasn't there! You know when you have those moments where you want to shout 'Excuse me, am I fe***** invisible here!'. Anyway photo-taking calmed down. Snogging resumed. I sat grumpily thinking 'Oh F-off and get married, you'll soon stop this canoodling'.
Next update. Arrival in Madrid! ...and it has its highs and lows.
Thanks for reading! :)
http://my.msn.com/addtomymsn.armx?id= rss&ut=http://www.urblogfeedaddress.com/urblog.xml
I suppose it would also be good for my mum to catch up with what's going on in my life too because I haven't spoken to her since she went back to the Middle East almost a month ago! Between her not being able to get through to me, or everytime I call her a distended Arabic voice tells me there's no-one at the other end of her phone, or as I discovered when she finally wrote me an email, she's forgotten how to use skype. So this may be useful (if she works out how to click on the link), and also maybe some of my friends might read it! (please, friendies please)...
Basically I'm moving from Lisbon to Madrid in 2 weeks (I got a new, shiny job). We haven't been able to rent our flat out yet (despite it being a great flat), honest guv. People are so fussy! We haven't found somewhere to live in Madrid yet. My husb (let's call him OH, other half..it's easier), is on the job-hunt path, we have 2 small kids, not much money and don't really speak Spanish so it's all a bit mental. Also if we don't rent our flat OH has to stay here in Lisbon until it's rented...
It was decided that I'd go on a recon. visit to Madrid, and I'd naively hoped that I might find somewhere in less than 2 days. It would have been so much easier to sort a flat on my own first before having to turn up there with 2 kids in tow and live in a B&B or something while I go out and look.
The journey wasn't too bad. Easyjet was quite easy from Lisbon. Although I've decided recently that I hate flying, really hate it. Not in an I'm scared way, but just the whole experience. I think maybe it used to be a nice and quite luxurious experience, but it's just c*** now. Waiting around in the airport for hours, paying 5€ for a sweaty sandwich. Everyone barging in front of you in the queue even though you were one of the first people there. Feeling really guilty and nervous when you go through security. I literally hold my breath when I go through the scanner thing. Why? I'm only carrying a Dove deodorant spray, why the rampant paranoia?? Not being able to afford anything in duty-free sniff sniff. Taking 10 mins to get a seat as you shuffle down the aisle with fat guys from London bashing you as they reach for the overhead lockers. Getting squashed. Getting moaned at by air-hostesses for not having your bag to the correct degree of underyourseatness. ARGH, everything is argh!
But I digress. So this flight seemed to be going ok. No-one had sat by me yet. The really loud and irritating teenagers had sat near the back. Until duh-duh-duh a couple sat next to me. They were quite quiet at first (a good sign), they didn't talk to me (a better sign), they started to kiss a bit (a bad sign). She started reading things and knocking stuff everywhere, completely oblivious to the fact that she was dropping magazines on me. I waited...she didn't move them. I moved them 'Oh desculpe', she seemed so apologetic. Maybe they're not that bad I thought. Until she did it again. Then they started snogging more. Then they started taking photos. Could it get worse...yes. When she leaned into me, stretched her arm behind me and started taking photos out the window (I was in the window seat), as if I wasn't there! You know when you have those moments where you want to shout 'Excuse me, am I fe***** invisible here!'. Anyway photo-taking calmed down. Snogging resumed. I sat grumpily thinking 'Oh F-off and get married, you'll soon stop this canoodling'.
Next update. Arrival in Madrid! ...and it has its highs and lows.
Thanks for reading! :)
http://my.msn.com/addtomymsn.armx?id= rss&ut=http://www.urblogfeedaddress.com/urblog.xml
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