Friday, March 17, 1989

Flat Hunting in Madrid ...

Checked out of the Villa Garcia hotel this morning (pictured), paid the bill, packed my bags, and left without knowing exactly where I would be staying tonight. Viv and I headed back to the Residencia. We bought a local newspaper, "Ya," to look through the ads for flats once we got back to Viv's. After we realized that Viv (as well as everyone else) had missed their lesson, we went out to eat some breakfast.

Afterwards we contemplated heading to El Prado, but decided to postpone that visit and instead decided it would be best to go apartment hunting instead. I found what I thought would be the ideal place, but we looked at all of the others before settling on that one. After phoning an agent in the phone box, we got an appointment to take a look at the apartment at 8 p.m. tonight.

We called two others, but ruled them out as well as all of the others because they were being handled by agents, which made them more expensive. Later on it began to rain (...the rain in Spain does not stay mainly in the plains), so we canceled plans to go out anywhere and we stayed in. Viv, Kurt, Angie and I played (off and on) umpteen various games of cards, stopping for mealtimes. After dinner we watched bits of dubbed episodes of "The Cosby Show" and "ALF," before returning to cards.

At half 7 we left for the flat, which was in Gran Via, the main road in the heart of Madrid (pictured in the lower photo). We arrived at a very posh building. It looked very promising, until we realized that this was just the owner's office, and not the flat building itself. The one he advertised in the paper, it turns out, was too far away. But he suggested another one that was only five minutes away, which had five bedrooms and was 65,000 pesetas a month rent. (Divided among 5 students, that would make it around £70 a month each, compared to the £300 a month they are currently paying to stay in the Residencia. They scheduled an appointment to take a look at the place on La Lunes (Monday), so I really hope it works out.

After that I bought six more postcards and when we returned to the Residencia, I wrote out five of them. We finally decided that I would stay at the Residencia tonight and just hope that I don't get caught. Angie, Kurt and others went to a pub, then came back and had a party here. Viv and I finally fell asleep at about 2 a.m.