Finding a Place to Live in Cordoba

It was Friday, Sept. 17th when I arrived in Cordoba with my 80 lb suitcase in tow. While staying at the Seneca hostel, I started my piso search on Easypiso.com. I paid the 19€ to have a month long access to people's profiles including their phone #s. The profiles tell all sorts of things from sexual orientation of the room mates to whether they accept pets or couples living with them or not. Since sharing flats is so common here in Spain, it's meant to hook people up with the right kind of room mates. It doesn't cost anything to view the profiles but there are these fees to have access to their telephone #s and to be able to send them emails. I started by sending messages to places I was interested in... in Spanish of course. Let's just say that they weren't filling up my inbox with responses...in fact nobody responded for a couple days even though I had sent about 20 messages since I had purchased my membership. In total I only got maybe 4 messages back and most to tell me that it probably wouldn't work out with me having Tony come live with me here for 3 months. But I'm sure part of the reason was because my Spanish sounds almost as funny in writing as it does when I speak.

Finally, I got the cajones to make some phone calls. The first lady I called was supernice over the phone and said she would email me to set up an appointment to view the apartment but not until that next Friday cuz she didn't have the keys yet. After having a positive experience with that lady, it was easier to muster up the courage for my next phone call in Spanish. I called a lady named Paqui (seems to be a pretty popular name here believe it or not). She was nice as well and set up an appointment for 6 that night. Now that's more the pace I was looking for people!!! I don't love shelling out money for a hostel no matter how cheap they are. Plus, I wanted to feel settled instead of living in uncertainty of whether or not anyone would EVER want this strange foreigner and her boyfriend living with them. Maybe it will be too much work for them to communicate with me. Maybe they will view me as unintelligent because of my accent and grammer mistakes. Maybe my blank, deer-in-the-headlights looks will cause them too much frustration and awkwardness to live with for the next 9 months. These were my negative, yet realistic, thoughts getting the best of me again. But I tried my best to stay positive. It had only been a few days after all.

Anyways, back to Paqui and the apartment. Juliana came with me just to be on the safe side. We asked the receptionist at the hotel to show us on the map where calle Dona Engracia was. She marked it with an X and we were on our way. Like anal americans, we gave ourselves nearly 2 hours to find this place...just in case something happened and it's better to be early than late, right????? WRONG. We didn't actually ring the bell to the apartment til about quarter to 6 but still no one answered. I rang it again...nobody. Many things ran through my mind at this point...did I not know how to work the intercom thingy?, did I have the wrong address?, was I too early?, did she change her mind?, was she not home?, had she forgotten about our appointment? Then, an older Spanish lady appeared in the doorway. I said in Spanish "are you Pacqui?" and she said "yes, I'm Pacqui". I said "we have an appointment...". She shook her head slowly side to side "Noooo". I turned around and said "come on Juliana, lets go" and started walking speadily down the street with the lady following behind us, going wherever she was going. I was thinking the worst and that she had changed her mind and decided to say that we didn't have an appointment after all. Juliana said "maybe there's another Pacqui?" and me never having heard that name in my life, thought "no, there can't be two Pacquis living in the same building." But then, I remembered that the lady I was supposed to meet with was 37 on her profile. Wait a minute, that can't be right. We sat on a bench in front of a beautiful old apartment building where I could regather my thoughts. Okay, it's only just 6 now, and I've always heard about the Spanish tendency to show up late for everything. We went back at 6:15 and tried the button again. This time someone answered "Hola, soy Pacqui". Phew I was so relieved but definately not over my jitters cuz I couldn't think to figure out how to respond back. Push the button my the speaker you idiot!!! It would have been so much easier to turn around and walk away. In fact, I think I did for a second. But then my phone rang. It looked like the number I had called before. It was Pacqui and I was able to tell her that I was downstairs in the street. I pushed the button again and because the iron gate was so old looking we had no idea that it opened electronically. Thus, we missed the click sound that opened the old iron gate to the building. So, for the FIFTH TIME I pushed the stinkin button. Click!! We ran through sighing and laughing nervously. We made our way up the 3 flights of white marble staircase until we saw a short, curly haired and much younger lady standing in a doorway. I said in Spanish "we had some problems" with a laugh and she welcomed us in. She was in the middle of cleaning and didn't want to open the door yet apparently so she apologized for that.

The apartment was small but beautiful. Dark wood floors, a white and grey marble kitchen, asian decor (my personal favorite), three bedrooms and one bathroom with..get this..a bade'(probably not spelled correctly). It seems that all the houses here have them. She wants to have it removed though she said to have more room in the bathroom. She showed me the room that was available...very small with a single little bed but lots of closet space. I told her about Tony coming and she said that was okay with her but that she would have to check with the other potential room mate. She also said that it was an awful small bed for a couple to sleep in. I joked and said "its okay, Tony can sleep on the floor". The joke didn't translate well cuz she looked mortified when I said that. She said she would call me in the next few days after she talked to the other potential housemate. I thanked her and the waiting game began.