It's official...
We have our very own authentic, Andalusian "piso" (pronounced ‘pee-soh’) --- Spanish for an apartment with more that 1 bedroom – for the next 9 months! We did our final walk-through yesterday and signed the Spanish contract. It is quite a relief to have the search completed and the keys in our hands!
Here's a breakdown of the events that led up to this...
That morning, we met a new friend and 3rd year English teacher, Melissa Capp, for a traditional Linares breakfast "tostada". This is a toasted French bread baguette, topped with freshly-grated tomatoes, jamón (cured ham), and the enormously popular Jaén olive oil (a product that is made in our region, which also happens to be the world’s largest producer and exporter of olive oil). The breakfast was delicious and surprisingly filling breakfast – hopefully, something we can easily make on our own. During breakfast, we even asked Melissa to review the five page lease we were about to sign, especially all of the technical Spanish jargon which confused us. I guess, you would call it a "working breakfast" -- very un-Andalucian of us.
After breakfast, Melissa went with us help us open our Spanish bank account (and our first shared account as a married couple). It was very helpful to have her along with us since she was able to clearly explain to the account manager that we are teaching English in Linares for one year. Although we had heard stories of other auxiliares having problems with opening a bank account, the whole process ended up being much more simple than we had anticipated. The biggest problem was figuring out where the end of the line was at the bank! There are no lines of any sort. Basically, you walk in, and enter 'the sea of people' waiting in the lobby. Then, you go around asking each person "la ultima?" -- meaning, "are you the last one?". Next, you must track this person through 'the sea' until you finally see the person in front of you being attended to, only then do you know you're next.
We have our very own authentic, Andalusian "piso" (pronounced ‘pee-soh’) --- Spanish for an apartment with more that 1 bedroom – for the next 9 months! We did our final walk-through yesterday and signed the Spanish contract. It is quite a relief to have the search completed and the keys in our hands!
Here's a breakdown of the events that led up to this...
That morning, we met a new friend and 3rd year English teacher, Melissa Capp, for a traditional Linares breakfast "tostada". This is a toasted French bread baguette, topped with freshly-grated tomatoes, jamón (cured ham), and the enormously popular Jaén olive oil (a product that is made in our region, which also happens to be the world’s largest producer and exporter of olive oil). The breakfast was delicious and surprisingly filling breakfast – hopefully, something we can easily make on our own. During breakfast, we even asked Melissa to review the five page lease we were about to sign, especially all of the technical Spanish jargon which confused us. I guess, you would call it a "working breakfast" -- very un-Andalucian of us.
After breakfast, Melissa went with us help us open our Spanish bank account (and our first shared account as a married couple). It was very helpful to have her along with us since she was able to clearly explain to the account manager that we are teaching English in Linares for one year. Although we had heard stories of other auxiliares having problems with opening a bank account, the whole process ended up being much more simple than we had anticipated. The biggest problem was figuring out where the end of the line was at the bank! There are no lines of any sort. Basically, you walk in, and enter 'the sea of people' waiting in the lobby. Then, you go around asking each person "la ultima?" -- meaning, "are you the last one?". Next, you must track this person through 'the sea' until you finally see the person in front of you being attended to, only then do you know you're next.
Next, at noon, we were scheduled to meet the realtor and our landlord family (a Spanish family that arrived with husband, wife and daughter -- we think it was some sort of Spanish intimidation tactic for all of them to show up) for our final walk-through. The wife, Alejandra, helped to explain how all of the household appliances work. She was clearly the only one responsible for these chores (more on that, and the role of women in Spanish culture later) and Manuel, the husband, was able to chime in when we asked how to turn on the heat/air and hot water. I'm not sure we totally understood everything; in fact, we can say definitively that we didn't, but we were able to take a hot shower today. However, there is something unusual about using ‘salt’ in the dishwasher that we haven’t exactly figured out yet…
After signing the contract, we returned to our hotel to pack up for the last and final time. The realtor's son, Alvaro, actually came to pick us up in their car to bring us (and all of our belongings) to our new place! It was about 3:00pm (or dare we say 15:00) and we quickly dropped off our bags in our foyer (yes, we have a foyer) and asked him to take us to the nearby supermarket, AlCampo (think Wal-Mart without the obesity) to buy sheets, towels, and some other necessities.
Probably a little embarrassed to include this in 'el blog', but, we actually celebrated our achievement with a delicious lunch at ... McDonalds!!! We are sorry for not being sorry, because it was delicious. Before being judged, let us explain ... Up to this point, we've been eating a lot of authentic food, tapas (small meals), and ordering many things that we’re never 100% sure what they are until they arrive. So, it was with much anticipation to finally settle in and enjoy one big meal where we knew exactly what we are going to get, even if the ketchup is a little different. We won't hold that against them, it was definitely a little taste of home.
After all of our traveling, moving, packing, unpacking, repacking, it was such a nice feeling to wake up this morning in our own place!!! Nice to be "at home" ... even if we did have to spend the first night in our new place in our sleeping bags (because our sheets were still in their package).
After all of our traveling, moving, packing, unpacking, repacking, it was such a nice feeling to wake up this morning in our own place!!! Nice to be "at home" ... even if we did have to spend the first night in our new place in our sleeping bags (because our sheets were still in their package).
Our Spanish address:
Todd and Nancy Perzel
C/ Los Francos, N.8, 3A
23700 Linares (Jaén)
España
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| Keys in hand! |
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| When we saw the living room was the same colors as UGA, we knew it was meant to be! |
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| Our favorite part of the piso: The view from the upstairs terrace that overlooks the Sierra Morena mountain range. We have plenty of time to enjoy the sunset, it's a pretty incredible view... but, maybe we're just making it up, you'll have to come see it for yourself :) |
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