I HAVE A PISO!!!

That's right everybody, I have my very first piso, or apartment!!!  Before I came over here I wasn't too worried about finding anything.  From what I read online, it should have been a simple task.  Notice the word "should" being used in that sentence.  It was anything BUT simple.  I hope you're prepared to read about the adventure that was piso hunting.

During orientation many of our leaders said it was fairly simple for them to find an apartment here.  They looked at maybe one or two places before finding something they really liked.  After hearing this I was like, cool, I have two weeks to find a place, this will be a piece of cake.  It was a piece of angry devil cake, that's what it was.  To find the most apartments online in Madrid, many people use a website called Idealista.  This is a great tool to use when apartment hunting in Madrid, especially being able to use the app anywhere.  However, one issue is that some of the apartments were posted months ago, and you never knew if those were still empty or full.  I started my search by only contacting three or four people a day.  I didn't want to get too confused with different places and numbers, so I thought starting small was a good idea.  Well it came to the point where I was getting no messages back.  After crying to mom for an hour (shoutout to momma Kath for dealing with me!) I decided to contact more than three or four at a time.  So I contacted almost 20 different people.  You read that right...20...different...people.  Now that is quite a lot of people, so you would think I would have many responses (because I only emailed people who had posted with the last two days).  I got seven.  Out of those seven, four were already occupied.  So I went to see three....and they were terrible.  Two didn't have a contract and had a ceiling so low my sunglasses got knocked off my head.

FINALLY after contacting over 30 people and seeing six different places (because that was the number of responses I got back in total) I found a place to live!!!!  I live in a neighborhood called Chamberi and I love it!  It's about a thirty minute walk to the city center, so I am close, but away from all the noise.  I have a very small room, but it has everything I need and the other people who live here are great!!  Here are some pictures of my piso!!!!

Isn't it fantastic!!! I just love it!! Well, I hope you all enjoyed reading the fiasco that was finding an apartment.  As I am typing this I am going through another fiasco: trying to figure out why I can't get to the terrace with my clothes on it.  And yes, the terrace is on the roof.  And yes, it is kind of windy.  So yes, my clothes could fly away.

Until next time!!

Hasta luego!