I found a home in Huelva! This may seem like a given, but coming into the situation I had 5 nights in a hotel to find a place before I became homeless or moved into the youth hostel for good.

Before I post pics of my awesome new piso (=  apartment) here’s a sidenote on finding a place to live in a country where you marginally speak the language: it sucks. I tried to do as much as possible over the internet, but most people would contact me to say “here is my number, give me a call.” Don’t they know I can’t use Google translator for phone conversations?? Whenever possible I told them beforehand in an email that I was American so their expectations of my Spanish would automatically drop a little. (That is to say, they would know I’m a foreigner, I’m not implying that all Americans are poor at speaking Spanish…) During the first two calls I made I understood maybe the first 5 seconds of the conversation. The first phone call was to a guy with a thick Andalucian accent. I couldn’t even tell if he was asking me questions or just talking so eventually I just said “vale, gracias” and hung up having no idea what just happened. The second woman repeated the same question to me 5 times, but I still couldn’t understand so I aksed her to email me. I was reciting my email address to her, but then I got to the @ part and realized I had no idea how to say that in spanish. Not surprisingly, I never received an email from her.

On the second day I had more success on the phone and set up three appointments to see places. The first one was very cute! It was in a cute neighborhood on a cute street in a cute building and the girl I spoke with was very nice (you thought I was going to say cute, didn’t you?). But as it turns out there was another American girl from my program already living there (she was not in my 2-week immersion group so I hadn’t met her beforehand). She asked if I was from CIEE and introduced herself. After the nice girl gave me a tour of the ridiculously cute apartment I asked the American if she would mind living with me or if she was trying to avoid living with Americans. Her response: “Well in an ideal world, I’d leave here speaking perfect Spanish. But I mean, I don’t really care.” Ooookay, thanks, that’s very welcoming. I loved the apartment but was unsure if I’d want to live in a place where one of the roommates resented my presence. So on to the next one…

Which was a dump. The girls were nice enough, but they were Russian and one spoke even less Spanish than me. The building was crummy and farther away from my school and basically all-around worse than the cute place. The one girl (who spoke pretty good Spanish) kept asking me if I liked the place and if I liked the room. I said (rather diplomatically, if I do say so myself) that I still had to see one other place and that their apartment was a little bit far from my school, but that I would call the next day. I walked to the next place and had time to check out the building before my appointment. It also looked kinda blah. Not as crappy as the Russian one, but, again, not as nice as the cute one. Things were looking down.

Then I went inside. It was cute, too! Perhaps even cuter than the cute one! And the woman who lived there was very very nice and I could understand her pretty easily. I say “woman” because she is a little bit older than me–35–but she looks pretty young and dresses very hip. She has fantastic taste and I hope that one day when I have my own place I can decorate it 1/2 as nice as her apt. I think I said “que bonita” about 20 times while I was looking at the place. I told her I would take it before I left, no sense in waiting until the next day to call her when I knew I wanted to live there. I moved in two days later, with 1 night in the hotel to spare.

I’m contemplating recording a “virtual tour” with my webcam, but until I actually do that, here are some pics of my new home:

entry into the apt

kitchen (and tiny washing machine in the way back corner)

dining area

the other wall in the dining area

bathroom - with a shower curtain!!

the salon (living room)

couch in the salon and door to the terrace

our little but lovely terrace

view of Huelva from the terrace

and finally - my room! (before I put my new sheets, etc on - it's not all white anymore)

my armoire/wardrobe thingy and the desk where I type to you from! Coincidentally, it's the same exact one from Ikea that I had in VA and sold for $5 before I moved here.