Week 2: Home, Sweet Home
Over these past two weeks, I've established a rigorous routine, which reads something as follows:
8:00am: Wake up.
8:05am: Fall asleep again.
8:10am: Wake up and stumble blindly out of bed.
8:15am: Pull out a set of clothes from suitcase and get dressed.
8:30am: Have breakfast downstairs in the hotel bakery. Take advantage of wifi connection - ring family on WhatsApp.
8:50am: Scoff down that last piece of croissant and walk to work.
9:00am: Greet everyone at office and get started for the day.
1:30pm: Have lunch with everyone. Eat as many figs as possible from the office fridge.
2:00pm: Return to work.
6:00pm: Say goodbye to everyone and walk home. Try not to look at that Lindt chocolate shop as I walk past...
6:10pm: Detour from home and convince myself that I have to buy Lindt chocolate.
6:20pm: Arrive home, get changed into something comfortable.
6:40pm: Walk down to Placa de Catalunya or Gothic Quarter. Look at shops, go overboard on spending, particularly on summer clothes, music books, and goodness knows what else.
8:30pm: Have dinner with a glass of vino.
9:30pm: Walk home.
10:00pm: Catch up on emails from home, convince myself I'll get an early night sleep.
11:00pm: Get sidetracked on Facebook.
1:00am: Computer battery dies. Brush teeth, get into pjs and go to sleep.
This routine remained pretty steadfast during our first few two weeks.
However, after many months of searching, we've finally managed to secure accommodation. It's taken us a great deal of email correspondence and phone calls to find this place. But oh, the pain is all worth it, just to have a place we can call home, sweet home for these next few months.
So what's this apartment like, you're probably wondering?
Alas, dear reader, I've never excelled at giving flowery descriptions, so the following will have to suffice:
Picture an old, quaint building near the Sagrada Familia, with the number 644 printed on the door. Upon entering, you're immediately taken aback by the height of the building, which seems to stretch on for many floors above. You take a look around: there's no one there, except for an old man standing at the foot of the elevator. It's old-fashioned, like one of those iron-wrought cubicles from the black-and-white films. It looks like he's been waiting there for a while, and you're not even sure if the elevator is working. You decide to take the stairs. You start walking up. Higher and higher, the staircase twists into the shadows... Principal... Primero... the first floor... Segundo... Tercero...
You make it to your flat. The symbol, 5a, is inscribed on the door. Someone has stuck a a little wooden "K" just above the keyhole. It's bright and colourful. You wonder if the previous owner you had a child called Karmen or Katia.
Fumbling for the keys, you manage to fit one of them in the lock and twist it open. The door clicks open. You enter inside. There's a long corridor leading to two small bedrooms, a bathroom and a walk-in-closet. You keep walking and find yourself in the main room of the house, filled with light from the balcony. A small kitchen is attached to the space, with everything you could possibly need to make a hearty Spanish meal.
So this should give you an idea of what our new apartment looks like. It may not sound like much, but to us, it will be nothing less than home, sweet home for the rest of our internship here in Barcelona.