At Last...

You wouldn't think so, but the process of searching for an apartment is an emotionally taxing experience. When you go to see someone's apartment you get to evaluate the bedroom, kitchen and bathroom, but meanwhile the people living there are evaluating *you* as a person. Are you going to be tidy enough, adventurous enough, quiet enough, interesting enough? Are you going to have a good vibe (or "rollo")? Are you going to contribute something to the house while not disrupting the pre-existing balance? It's like a job interview, but intensely more personal, and you have to do it countless times if you want to find anything you'll be satisfied with. You meet people you'd like to be friends with only to find out you'll probably never see them again. You find places that seem ideal only to get turned down, usually in the form of an excuse so cheap it's almost worse than a flat "no": "we're actually looking for a girl" (do I sound gender-ambiguous over the phone or something?) or "we don't really want students." I got the latter explanation from a student who lives only with other students and who then gave the apartment to my friend Zander, also a student.



Knowing that, you can imagine the heavenly sense of relief that washed over me when I finally, finally got an ideal place to live in. It seems my reference to L'Auberge Espagnole was somewhat prophetic, as I landed an - you guessed it - Auberge with six pan-European residents. There's a sweet English girl, a warm, rather gorgeous French girl, a soft-spoken Catalan dude (they consider it a different race/nationality here, I guess), and three other people I haven't met who could be Japanese for all I know. The important thing is that I finally have a place to call my own, and I don't have to face the prospect of moving into a hostel once we get kicked out of the dorms. Worse case scenario, it sucks and I move somewhere else, right?



With that troublesome piece of business finally set aside, I can now focus on more fun and interesting ventures, such as finding myself a cheap bicycle, visiting Barcelona's beautiful beaches before this summer weather passes, and planning trips around the rest of this vast and wonderful continent. Lately Zander (below, left) has been floating around the idea of going to Amsterdam or Germany, but Evan (below, right) wants to visit friends in France. Everyone's got their own plan, but now that we're actually moving out of this strange bubble of Americana they seem real and tangible, and I feel as though wide vistas have opened for me. For the first time since my plane touched down, I feel genuinely giddy just for being here, and I can't wait to start classes and see what's out there. Unlike when I was in Mexico, I actually have the time to make sure that I do that.