Niamh Lynch has had to look for a new place to live in Madrid where she works as a translator. My place I've spent this week signing contracts, handing over exorbitant amounts of cash and biting my fingernails, but not one minute of it has had anything to do with work. Just as well, because it is quite likely I would have died of boredom had I not had my new flat to entertain me. Spain is on holiday – every last part of it. Entire offices have packed up and headed to the beach, shops are closed, restaurants are locked up and even newspaper kiosks have little signs saying ‘We've gone to Ibiza, suckers!’ With my boss back from his extended holidays, and everybody else in the office simultaneously gone on theirs, any possibility of internal work has all but disappeared. My boss and I joke that, any day now, General Electric will buy National Express and the deal will be advised by Goldman Sachs and financed by Merrill Lynch, a highly unlikely scenario that would generate a wrist-slitting amount of work for us (not to mention half of the business world), but in reality, we're lucky if we can scrape together an hour's worth of solid work a day. I'm not too worried because I know that once everything reopens in September, my nose will be inches away from the grindstone, where it usually is, so I took this week to fully revel in my latest milestone – my first non-shared dwelling!
No overcrowdingI have shared a flat since I was 17, and with a few exceptions (most notably the psoriasis-stricken bulimic who would sit in the living room, scratching her dead skin onto the sofa, while gorging on MY Ben & Jerry's, before leaping up and running off to make herself sick) it has always been fine. In the last year though, I have been feeling a growing distaste for shared living, not due to any particular factor, just an increasing desire for my own space and, quite probably, some latent only-child inclinations. I decided to look for a studio apartment when my last contract ran out, and after an extensive hunt and a life lesson in Spanish estate agent-speak, I found a lovely place in north Madrid. In the process, I discovered that you can deduce absolutely nothing from a price in a Spanish ad. For example, I saw two apartments on the same road for €600. One was a smallish room, painted salmon-pink and kitted out entirely with office furniture (no exaggeration: the ‘wardrobe’ was a filing cabinet and the ‘coffee table’ was an office desk). It had the first (and I hope the last) free-standing kitchen I have ever seen, and smelt strongly of damp despite an attempt to cover this up with cheap scented candles. The owner (a sweaty man, supposedly a lawyer, who wore flip-flops, shorts and a greying t-shirt with a naked woman on it) informed me that he was ‘quite psychological’ and could tell a lot about a person from a phone call, before going on to tell me that he knew the flat was a ‘bit small’ (the last of its problems) but sure, young people only came home to sleep and have sex, after all. I made my excuses and ran. You can tell it upset me. The second apartment, on the other had, was a lovely little place with separate rooms, basic but perfectly suitable furniture and a little balcony. The owner didn't sweat, professed no ‘psychological abilities’ and was thankfully free of naked women. I almost gave up at that point, but kept going, and a few days later found my apartment. A kitchen and a viewMy place is between a studio and a flat – it has one big sleeping/living area, but it is divided by half-walls and raised areas, as well as a large bathroom and a separate kitchen (many studios in Spain have what they call a ‘cocina americana’ - an ‘American kitchen’. I have no idea why it’s called that, seeing as how all the American kitchens I have ever seen are ginormous, but the Spanish version is often a hot-plate and sink that fit into a single cupboard – have a look here to get the idea). Obviously, for a cooking freak like me, a proper kitchen is very important, and so are the huge windows and balcony that let in lots of natural light. I've only been here a few nights, but so far so good. I can even see the Bernabeu Stadium from my balcony – the home of Real Madrid. What do you think the chances of getting Cannavaro over for a cup of tea are? The only problem with this lovely flat is its exorbitant price. It's not that expensive for a large studio in the city centre, I suppose, but it is a large chunk of my salary. There is a rise on the horizon, but I am still going to have to chase the freelance work hard this year, rather than waiting for it to come to me like I used to. My plans for business cards and website have taken a back seat recently, but I'm going to have to get going on them to increase my chances. Looking around my little flat as I write this makes me feel that it will be worth it though. I mean, it’s not perfect – right now, for example, I can see a little pile of grot under the kitchen table, but at least I can relax in the knowledge that it’s MY grot.... Read Niamh's previous blogs If you would like to become a Prospects blogger and you left uni either this year or in 2006, please make contact. |
