"once i get you up there, where the air is rarified / we'll just glide, starry-eyed"
Even with summer in its grave, we continue lead a sun-bathed, semi-charmed life.
We headed back to our continental stomping grounds last Wednesday prior, conveyed by KLM, the Dutch Airlines. Let us take a moment, m’lords, to address the contradictory, and oft-loathsome Dutch. The Dutch, from my experience with them, can be classified into two extremes: the wildly gorgeous Traveling Dutch, which seem to occupy every possible position in the transit business, providing veritable festivals for the sight, whether they are shimmying about with the refreshment cart or stamping your passport with a curious smile, and generally make you understand (if one is to assume that they have always been so incredibly hot) why on earth the Dutch have been so overwhelmingly successful traders for so long; these are juxtaposed with the Loathsome Dutch, a sort which seems to make up the rest of the population of the Netherlands and, indeed, consists of a smelly, filthy, foul-mannered, grossly negligent in terms of their personal dental health, overall distasteful people that make you wonder why on earth Spain bothered to keep it a colony for so bloody long. I experienced both during this most recent excursion through the Netherlands, though, to my great advantage, some more than others.
The adventure, indeed, begins with a prologue still on tropical soil, and features much of the Loathsome Dutch, and particularly the three that were ahead of me in the TSA line. LD1 was a woman with so pungent an odor that, a full ten feet behind her, I could smell her musk as if she were very much on me. LD2 was a father-and-son teem, both properly decked out in the usual eurotrash-in-the-tropics accoutrements, by which, of course, I mean matching pink sweat suits (á la J-Lo), clearly recently bought at some ridiculous South Beach boutique, if one is to go by their fairly ridiculous lobster-type sunburn. Upon hearing a flight attendant be asked to remove her jacket as she passed through the TSA screening, the son called out, in his wretched Dutch-speak, “Take it all off!”, and the father, great example that he was, echoed him with a “Ja!” Far more outrageous was LD3, however; he was, in fact, Afro-Dutch, and was bedecked in the latest styles of MC Hammer, circa 1993 - bizarre square-cut haircut, bright orange boxy-jacket over a t-shirt and blue pinstripe puff-pants. His sense of fashion, however, was left behind by the visibly open beer bottle in his hand, and the clinking of his bag, upon placing it on the conveyer belt. The TSA fellow promptly opened it, and discovered that, indeed, this backpack was a close relative of Felix the Cat’s handbag for, indeed, it seemingly had no bottom, and this fellow had apparently bought up the world’s supply of Red Stripe and decided to transport it back to his dam-protected abode, by way of his carry-on. He subsequently threw a fit, upon being told that he had to abandon it all.
It could have been far worse, of course, given that ‘pon taking my seat I was shortly thereafter joined by yet another fragrant Dutchman, but he conveniently noticed my fixation with the empty seats in front of us and, taking the clue, he more than amptly repayed whatever debt his country ran up with my people over the Eighty Year’s War by moving forward and leaving me as master of my domain, which for the rest of the flight consisted of two most-excellent seats on said plane.
It should be noted that, while the service was excellent, there is something curious about KLM flights, and I don’t mean the all-Gouda sandwiches. While the fleet seems to be new, or at the very least perfectly contemporary, their entertainment has apparently been severely affected by flying over the Bermuda Triangle. At least, that’s what I must assume, given that, while boarding and descending, we were treated to the latest musical hits, given ample representation by George Michael’s Careless Whisper and Culture Club’s Karma Chameleon; further, our visual entertainment during that curious time warp consisted of a series of Nordic documentaries and, to my incredulity, reruns of The Love Boat.
Needless to say, for the first time ever I finally found more than ample moments to read both The Economist and The New Yorker from cover to cover in a single, seven-hour sitting. While this would have been enjoyable enough, the consistent attention from the [fucking beautiful] flight attendants left me more than satisfied. The flight from Amsterdam to Madrid was essentially a repetition of that, save with an even hotter flight crew and, save for a few moments where, with utter fascination, I realized that the funny-shaped island in the middle of the curving-river-thing was the Île de la Cité, and that the curious little tower in that long rectangular lawn below us was, in fact, the Eiffel Tower, my attention was almost entirely focused on our flugbegleiter.
Madrid, personified by Claire, welcomed me back with open arms, and our situation from last year prior was greatly improved, given that rather than board at the usual shoddy youth hostel and bemoan the sufferings of apartment-hunting with the serious handicaps of restricted internet access and rather filthy showers and wretched backpackers, I instead received most generous lodging in a charming flat, and quietly chatted about the inconvenience of apartment-reviews over tea and round-the-clock wireless internet service, all the while regaled by most excellent company of the refined sort. {A note on Claire Kaplan: Claire Kaplan is the veritable hero of mid-to-late 2006; given her outstanding efforts and incredible acts of freindship in securing my university papers and providing lodging these past days, let us just say that if we were the Premier of the Soviet Union, we would very much be inclined to give Claire Kaplan the Order of Lenin in comemoration of her epic service. Madame, you are a titan.} Beer and the Parque del Oeste more than fittingly occupied the first night, mild flat seeking the first day, followed by even milder flat viewings on the second day, which culminated in the acquisition of a flat by that evening, which was yesterday, and the pending occupation of said flat tomorrow afternoon. Two notes on two flats, which is exactly how many I visited before one was secured -
The first flat I visited was almost an exact repetition, in terms of location and amenities, of the one I had so desired and lost last year. Plus sides: down the hill from the palace, small but nice, cast of roommates comfortably consisting of school peers. Downsides: a bit far from campus, located a block from an enormous cemetery, not properly outfitted to deal with a zombie attack. Rather than get as viciously buggered as I did last year, when the flat was given to the fellow that arrived five minutes before me, I left well-early and with the map-route well-studied, in order to be there at least ten minutes before the appointed time. I dashed through the neighbourhood, guiding myself , and as I leisurely crossed one of the streets I passed…a young lady with a map, just wrapping up asking for directions. “COMPETITION!,” my mind shrieked, and after nearly a block with her neck to neck with me, I jay-ran across the street and took off. Several blocks later, I arrived at the location and pushed the button. I was in the flat a full five minutes before the bell rings again and in totters that exact same girl, flushed and somewhat flustered to see I had beat her to the punch. As if that weren’t enough, the occupants of the flat, all Spaniards, were nothing short of thrilled (if by “thrilled” one means “not-thrilled”) to discover that she was, indeed, a Frog. She then proceeds to ask, with all possible haughtiness, how long it will take to get from there to the university and how many bathrooms the place has, and she looks visibly shocked to discover that the bathroom (singular) will be shared betwixt four persons. Asked to comment on what she thinks of the flat, she says, “C’est rigolo”. By that time we had figured out that I understood French, and so I was asked to translate. “If I’m not mistaken, ‘Rigolo’ means funny…I think.” Confused, we ask her to repeat, in English. “It is...zis apartment…it is very Funkee,” she says. “Funky?,” ask I. “Oui, Funkee.”The Spaniards turn for deciphration. “Eh…funky…it means, eh…you know, curious…funny, in a strange way?” The Spaniards are unamused. They take down our numbers and promise to call with news. By next Wednesday. At which point it is my turn to be unamused, given that it is Friday.
The owner of flat two, a fellow named Clemens, had actually answered my “in need of a flat” advert on Friday, but I had thought the place to be too far away and had completely ignored it. Until Saturday, when he uploaded posted an ad about his place on the internet, faced with no other real options (the posted places being prohibitively expensive or just ridiculous or excessively sought-after), I trekked down to see it in Carabanchel, a neighbourhood of Madrid I knew only due to its famous reputation.
As the location of the most infamous prison in the history of Francoist Spain.
(Though one which was, fortunately, closed down 8 years ago.)
As I took the metro down, I fumed. I did not know why I was doing this. It was half an hour away from campus via metro (inconvenient), didn’t really have huge parks nearby (unbrilliant for running), and was slightly more than I cared to spend. Essentially, I had my mind made up to hate the place. I even went out of my way to walk around the area and be late, though this worked against me as I ended up rather liking the atmosphere - no trace of the prison, but charming little shops, people strolling on the streets, very working class, but very earnestly “Madrid”. Finally, I went to the place, and went up to the flat, my interest perked by a treacherous-yet-awesome spiraling staircase that leads up to this place, that takes up the entire fifth-floor. Cut to me coming into an awesome living room, with big French doors that open onto an enormous terrace that wraps around the place. And Clemens “aus Münster”, a 20-something German with long curly hair.
And Mariana, the competition who arrived 10 minutes before.
“Should I go? Is the flat rented?,” I asked? “No, no, I’ll show you around,” he said, and led me about the place, that only seemed to get better and better. The room being let was huge. The kitchen was fantastic. The bathroom lovely. An extra storage shed. And the fucking terrace wrapped about the place, and it had a hammock. A fucking hammock. As in, "Oh, sorry Nigel, I'm afraid I can't come with you to fetch the brie given that I've quite resolutely decided to head out to my terrace and take a nap in the sun. On the fucking hammock."
I wanted it. The competition must die.
Except the competition, m’lords, was basically the female embodiment…of me. (If I were Italo-Chilean, gorgeous and curvy, and an art student at my university - which, if I were a girl, I totally would be.) Funny, clever, same bold “I’m going to blindly jump out to this foreign country and figure things out for myself in the most randomly autonomous way possible with no real thought to all the ways in which things might possibly go wrong” philosophy to life, etc.
The competition must not die. The competition is fucking awesome.
Twenty minutes of animated, three-person chatter later, Clemens apparently thought so as well - atleast, in terms of us being male / female versions of the same person. And so, with an amusing mix of chill-out and Prussian-ness, he begged permission to be given the afternoon to choose who would be the recipient. Now, I think we all know how this turns out - we’ve got a twenty-something male with the prospect of sharing his apartment solely with a person that can either be embodied by the 21-year-old male or the 21-year-old female. Oh, the possibilities. Whoever shall he chose?
Three hours later, and a short question about my level of comfort with the use of marijuana, I became the next occupant of the top floor flat in Carabanchel, with the enormous terrace and the German roommate. Who, by the way, for shits and giggles, is apparently professionally a DJ.
In short, it should be a fucking fascinating year.
Class starts in a few hours.
I move in to my new place shortly past noon.
Excitement, excitement, kittons.