La Vida de Una Madrilena

After 2 months of contemplating it, I finally decided that my time would be better spent living in Madrid. Toledo has my heart forever, but the 3 hours traveling and the extra expenses swayed me towards moving. My lease on my apartment in Toledo ended in August so I started looking for apartments in Madrid in my spare time. It wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. Friends told me about some great websites to search:

http://www.idealista.com/
http://www.loquo.com/
http://www.fotocasa.com/

I found a lot of great places; however, with my limited free time, it was almost impossible for me to look at any apartments. Another teacher, Craig and I were looking to room together. So he was able to look at a few places but we never found anything we thought was decent enough. So it was coming up on the last week of August and I hadn’t found anything yet. Needless to say I was stressing. Well as fate would have it, I spent the weekend in Madrid with some friends that came to visit from Ohio. We went out with some teachers from ALA and I was telling a few of them about my predicament of finding a place. Then Christelle, one of the teachers, told me that she was going home to Canada for September, and if I needed, I could stay at her place. She had a small studio apartment in the Centro just 10 minutes walking from work. She said that I could pay her half the rent and could spend the rest of the month searching for something in October. I couldn’t believe how perfectly timing worked out. So later that week, I began moving things from Toledo to Madrid. It was official; I was leaving the City of My Dreams and starting another new chapter in my life as a Madrilena!

Well, my first night ended being a very interesting start to my new life in Madrid. One of the ALA teachers, Melissa was leaving to move to Granada. So after I dropped off the last of my suitcases, I met up with the group of ladies for some ‘quick’ goodbye drinks. 6 hours later as I’m stumbling back to my new apartment in a hurry to change clothes for a movie I was going to see with some other friends, I knew that I was in for a wild ride.

It was an amazing month. I got to sleep in and not worry about being late for class because I missed the bus or there were metro delays. During siesta I was able to go ‘home’ and take an actual siesta... wonderful! I had free time to run errands and not worry about when I could do the grocery shopping or laundry. Most importantly, when one of my friends asked if I wanted to go out for a quick drink or something, I could actually say yes instead of my common reply “Gee, I wish I could but I have to catch the last bus to Toledo now!” Without a doubt, this past month has definitely been less stressful and I was able to enjoy working in Madrid and actually discover all that it has to offer.

October came quickly. My birthday was at the end of September and I still hadn’t decided which apartment I wanted. Going back to the same websites, I looked at a place in Plaza de Castilla. The room was massive with its own sitting area and mini-fridge. However, my roommate was an older French woman. But I knew I wouldn’t find a room and accommodations like this. The other room was about a 3 minute walk from my work. I would share an apartment with 3 other people. It was definitely smaller but all the roommates we around my age. In the end I chose the second apartment. At this time in my life, I want to be around people my own age and to be able to come and go as I want not worrying if I am a bother to my other roommate. As far as I can tell, it was the right decision. I’m still working out the kinks with all the roommates but that’ll be in another blog! :)

I still haven’t discovered a third of what Madrid has to offer in the 2 ½ months I have been here already. I miss Toledo everyday but I know that Madrid is where I need to be right now. It’s been a wild ride and I can’t see what is in store for me down the line!

PICTURES COMING SOON!