WE HAVE A HOME!!! The road to getting where we are today is a bit on the rocky side of things, BUT after due diligence and lots of frustration, we have rented an apartment for the year and it feels darn good :) Although I hate to leave the nest at Belén’s, it is time for me to spread my wings and get a goin’ to where I gots to be getting.
Belén has cooked me many meals and we have finished even more bottles of wine and beer with Miguel and it’s been a fabulous time. Let me share with you the details of the past week’s events:
School started up with a nice kick in the pants. Students don’t realize this, but teachers want to be in classes just as much as the kids do. So, at the beginning of the year you can imagine the ambience at this place. But, after a week of school already in session, I received my time table of classes and was all legit to go. Belén made pizza for dinner one night and after we had some fruit for dessert. I was offered a coco and refused (trust me, when you are in a different country and you are offered a food that you don’t understand the name of, ALWAYS REFUSE!! Never know if you are going to luck out with something totally rad or a bowl full of monkey brains) but I’m soooo glad Irea, the youngest of Belén’s daughters, did not. I was thinking it was something chocolate-ish and being a hater of most sweets I really thought I was being clever by connecting coco to cocoa. But alas, Miguel went to the fridge and pulled out this coco. And it was a coconut. Another bad guess by the Brennster. Anyway, it wasn’t like shredded coconut, it was a whole hairy round coconut. I may be a little sheltered but never in my day have I seen such a thing uncut and uncleaned. For these reasons I was incredibly curious to see how you do in fact open a coconut. I have no idea where to even begin to open a coconut. Well it wasn’t long after I was watching that I realized that Miguel didn’t have the slightest clue either. Awesome. First he tried to stab it with a knife. NOPE. The he tried to use a wine bottle opener. Strike 2. Finally he left the kitchen and returned with a pick and hammer. Ding ding ding, we have a winner. He managed to pike 2 small holes in the top of the coconut and drain the juice. To my surprise that coconut was packin quite a bit of juice. Like a whole stinkin pint. (and here’s a little tip for all those who have not yet drank from a freshly stabbed coconut: the juice=not good. Bad actually, very very bad.) So great, he drained the coconut and now he just needed to get up in there and take out all the fresh white meat. He swings open the window and give the beast fruit a solid whack. nothing. cracks it again. nothing. One last violent blow and *poof* the difficult little round fruit opens up like a clam and reveals its inner goodness. Irea ate a bite and was less than impressed with it, the look on Miguel’s face was priceless. Hurt even. All the hard work, creativity, and sweat on his brow for a less than enthusiastic response. I tried some fresh coco myself and I have to tell ya...tastes just like sunscreen smells.
Okay so after a week of searching, turn downs, and cramping a friend’s style in her house, we finally found an apartment that we could move into immediately. It is in the exact same neighborhood as our place last year and it appeared to be pretty great. We are only renting the rooms so although we have access to the whole place, there are 3 rooms and we don’t have a say in the other roommate because the landlords rent that out on a first come first served basis. Bueno. We paid the first month’s rent and a one month deposit and were ready to move in. Belén and Miguel packed all my things into there VW and drove me over. After we moved everything in, they left and Callie and I were happy to finally be able to relax. After a few hours we decided to make our first meal in our new apartment. We got groceries, ran home and headed for the kitchen. We flipped on the lights and the counters, sink, and cabinets started moving. Scurrying really. It went from brown to white and blue. If you have not yet guessed, we were NOT on LSD...we had cockroaches. Not a cockroach or a small peaceful family, but muchas muchas muchas cucarachas. FFFFUUUUUUUUUUUDDDDDDGGGGEEEEE (just like in “A Christmas Story”, I’m editing the four letter word that creeped out of my mouth. It felt like slow-mo just the same). Well this is great. We just gave some old spanish man that we just met all of our money, didn’t sign a contract, and now have an infestation of critters. Perfecto. Well I’ll spare the horrifying details, but we got in contact with our landlord who immediately called the pest control service. We fumigated the apartment on Friday and slept there Friday night. Good idea? you decide. We could use everything but the kitchen so we found some great cheap street food for the weekend and on Monday a cleaning lady came and swept up all of the cockroach bodies and made our place sparkle like new (and it was probably new in about 1930 so considering everything, it doesn’t look half bad at all). Callie and I are finally all settled in, were told we have a male roommate from the canary islands who doesn’t speak a word of english and will move in at the end of this week. Clearly, updates to follow. But as for now we are incredibly happy with our place and have decided that we have lucked out for now. Holy crap i don’t want to move again and go thru this stuff all over!!!
On a complete side note, I’m writing this in the teachers’ room at my school during my break and I’m sitting in a chair that just so happens to be between the other two teachers in the room. They are both about 2 feet away from me on either side and they are yelling at each other. Loudly. I’m not sure where to look. AWKWARRRRD.
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