You are currently browsing the monthly archive for June, 2008.
So let’s see…judging by the ‘blogstats’ thingy on WordPress dashboard, it’s been about 3 weeks since our last post…just despicable on our part.
We’re about eleventy-billion articles short…there was Barcelona and all of it’s magnificent Gaudí-ness; then Córdoba with it’s Candy Land-inspired mosque, and Granada, home of the Alhambra; then the horrors of lugging eight overloaded suitcases through the Madrid Metro, only to get two hours of sleep prior to landing in London’s Heathrow Airport (the 7th level of hell, btw, especially when you accidentally get stuck in the TSA screening line staffed exclusively with brain-dead mouth-breathing trainees intent on swabbing everything—EVERYTHING—in your carry-on, including business cards, forcing you into 30 minutes of rage-suppressing tongue-biting to the point you nearly pass out from the pain, just as an escape method). Then there’s the obligatory encapsulation post summarizing our experience and what we learned, what we miss, what shocked us, how the hell we managed to gain back all the weight we lost over there in three days back in the States, yadda, yadda, yadda. We could then go on to bore you about the discovery of $1600 worth of broken down cars in the driveway upon our return and the arduous necktie-laden schlepping through the steamy streets of Chicago in search of jobs and our subsequent jaunts from the north of M*ch*g*n to the south of Georgia and get everyone caught up.
But, there’s no time for that now. We have a family road trip coming up and must go pack for that. So, we just wanted to let you know that we have not abandoned you, dear readers, and will update more fully when we get to a static residence. Thanks for your patience and dedicated readership; we love your comments.
Anybody wanna hire a crack graphic designer and accountant tag team of fury? We’re available after the 4th…
-bdmc
Got back into the US yesterday. We have tons of updates to write about Barcelona, Cordoba, Granada, etc., but we’re a little busy selling ourselves on the street in order to pay for BOTH cars to be fixed. That’s right, we got home yesterday at around 10:30pm from a 24-hour trip (flight from Madrid to London, flight from London to Chicago, drive home from Chicago) having had about three hours of sleep in a 48-hour period, to find both of our cars broken. They are currently at the shop being worked on, and MC and I are stranded at a cafe (thank goodness there’s free wifi!) until one of them gets fixed.
We’ll be updating soon!
-cuptastic
So we all remember Mr. NoLoSiento, right? Well, he’s decided to exact his revenge (in addition to his elevator-lobby berating of yours truly) on us—and the entire building, for that matter—by redoing his bathroom. In any normal building, this would not be a problem, and would most likely go unnoticed by the other tenants of the building, but in cheap post-civil war Franconian prefab constructions, every mouse fart is clearly audible throughout the entire complex. Translate that mouse fart into the regular pounding of 20lb sledgehammer tearing down a wall, and that means that it sounds like a coal mine at blasting time in here.
Touché, good sir, touché.
-bdmc
We just now returned from a great long weekend spent with family friends in Barcelona (story forthcoming) to find our apartment (home to us, three wretchedly filthy early-20’s Swedes and formerly an 18-year-old German girl who thought that she owned the bathroom with the one functioning shower) in a state of disaster so foul that we are actually glad we only have four more days in it (and actually wish it was fewer). It is truly a sad state of affairs that our living conditions are such that they make us want to leave an otherwise gorgeous and perfect country…. If we had more cash and a better exchange rate, believe you me, we might actually consider staying here indefinitely….
Rather than bore / disgust you with the nasty details of said filthiness, I figured I’d give you a summary, using the process of going #2 (yes, I just said #2…Fourth Grade RULED!), to illustrate where we’re coming from.
Going Dookie in 5A: A Summary
01. Leave your bedroom and walk to the far bathroom near the kitchen because it is slightly cleaner than the other—closer—bathroom, which has so much muck built up on the toilet that the €10¢ piece that’s been sitting on the no-man’s-land between the tank and the bowl for at least 6 weeks has started rusting and fusing with the porcelain.
02. Try and bypass the kitchen, but still end up noting the sink overflowing with 4-day-old dirty dishes and pans on the stove encrusted with last week’s attempt at homemade Carbonara.
03. Enter the bathroom. Try not to touch anything.
04. Kick the filthy towel that’s been used as a bathmat for the past 11 weeks and is now so wretchedly filthy that dousing it in gasoline and setting it on fire is the only safe way to dispose of it (and even that’s not guaranteed).
05. Check that there’s TP (there’s usually not and unless we put it in there, it goes for days without being refilled…and they aren’t using the bidet…). If not, go procure some from private stash.
06. Test-flush the toilet. Will it work? Who knows! It’s toilet roulette, and the house (literally) always wins!
07. If it works, dust off seat (SEAT, not rim) to remove ass dander and other debris. If it looks questionable, pause, return to bedroom to procure secret industrial strength cleaner, return to bathroom and spray down toilet.
08. Wedge bathroom door closed. The handle doesn’t work, so do your best to ensure that it closes, but ensure that you can still get out when your task is complete, cause Lord knows you don’t wanna get stuck in there.
09. Initiate bidness. Be careful when sitting, however, as toilet rocks and you could fall off. Also take care too, that your pantlegs don’t drag on the floor as who knows what you may pick up
10. PUSH! The quicker the better. No time for reading. As you scan the room, searching for distractions, try not to be too disgusted by the crusty dust covering every nook and cranny or the giant hairball in the drain of the shower, which is just inches from your feet.
11. Complete the bidness and WASH YOUR HANDS! Oh, wait, there’s no soap! There should be soap, cause we just bought a new one a week ago and put it in there, but oh, it’s disappeared. Figure out how to unwedge bathroom door with minimal amount of handle contact, then race to kitchen, try to find spigot (which may or may not have already rotted through the decaying fiberboard countertop and fallen into the cupboard below), search for dish soap (if there’s any left) and wash hands.
12. Look for paper towels (which you also have solely supplied for the last 12 weeks) to dry hands. Realize dirty-ass roommates have used them all up and not replaced them, even though they’ve had four days to do so. Return to bedroom to use bath towel to dry hands.
13. Swear up and down that you are actually going to follow through with your plan to stage a grease fire that’ll burn down the apartment after you leave, but not implicate you as the culprit.
14. Double check that you have your return tickets and passport. Count down remaining days until return flight. Wish that you had won lottery prior to departure and money was no object such that you could afford a single apartment together. Leave apartment do go do something cultural to take your mind off the rash forming on your butt from shitting in such a wretchedly filthy apartment.
-bdmc
P.S.: State of filth of our apartment has been independently verified by our Tall, White American friends, two of whom have…uh…intimate knowledge on the subject of living in filth; even they were disgusted.
