Much like the video showing the school, the video of the apartment I stayed in while in Madrid probably should have been one of the first I posted, but it wasn’t. So, I’m giving it to you now. While in Madrid, I lived in a neighborhood called Hererra Oria, which is located at the end of metro line 9, about 45 minutes (by metro) from ENFOREX. Hererra Oria was a typical barrio (neighborhood) of Spain with tall apartment buildings, a centro comercial (sort of like a mall), and small mom-and-pop shops, including a locutorio (where you go to use the phone and/or internet). I had 1 roommate, but there were 4 of us (all guys) living in our apartment. Our building was a typical apartment building with 13 stories, and we were located on the 13th floor; thus, we got amazing views of the city as you can see in the video. The apartment was small, but this particular apartment would be considered a luxury in Spain because it has 3 bedrooms. There is generally one bathroom per apartment, the washing machine is generally located in the kitchen, and they do not use dryers in Spain- everything is hung up to dry. All of these qualities were demonstrated by our apartment.
Our house mother was the sweetest lady I have ever met in my life (she and Melodie are running a close race). She is separated from her husband, has one daughter, Laura, who she talked about all the time, and lived alone. She spent her days tidying our rooms, washing our clothes, and cooking. Although I do not care much for soup, she cooked a lot of it, and I ate a lot of it. I should mention here that I lost somewhere around 40 pounds in the month I was in Spain, and her healthy meals had a lot to do with it. Everything was fresh, and the only thing she had in her house to drink was water. She called me her hijo (son) and it seems like every day, she would say, “¡Ayyy, has adelgazado mi hijo! ¡Que guapo!” (You have lost weight, my son! How handsome!) Ha ha. Oh, how I loved her. Upon leaving, I cried.
This is a video showing the apartment (and María, my house mother). She was very upset that I was filming her and tried to hide. Ha ha. She kept saying “¡La casa es un desastre!” (The house is a disaster!). She also went into the bathroom and started combing her hair and saying, “¡Que española más fea!” (What an ugly Spanish woman!) Despite my assurances that the house was fine and she was fine, she continued running from me! She was so precious. Excuse the very bad Spanish that I speak in this video. It was 1 o’clock in the morning, I had been out all day, and I had just finished packing to come home.
Here we are right before the show began. We were nervous!
