Where's the Gaggenau?

I'm wondering: would any of you, when renting a very nice apartment in Madrid, think to ask your realtor if the kitchen and bathrooms were heated?

My fingernails are actually BLUE since returning from the Artic tundra that is our kitchen and I'm realizing: nope, I didn't think to ask that question.  Call me gullible, but when I see an elevator, I figure it probably works.  When I see a lovely apartment, I figure, it's probably heated -- in all the rooms.  First I thought,  gosh the vents must be closed.  Then I looked around and, guess what? No vents!  And no Gaggenau-million-dollar-stove-that-stays-on all-the-time-and-heats-the-kitchens-in-European-country-homes either.

And I know that when I pose the question of heat to my landlord -- through an interpreter, of course -- that he will pfff the air of dismissal through his lips and remind me that nowhere in our rental agreement does it state that all rooms are heated.   

And now it's time for me to run from my warm and cozy bedroom into my freezing cold bathroom for a frosty shower.  I know, some of you are thinking, stop wining and enjoy your European plazas and fountains.  And I will...just as soon as I can get up the nerve to get out from under this warm blanket.

Keep It Short

If you plan on calling me, just know that there's a 98% chance that we'll be disconnected after a minute or two.

The electricity cuts off approximately 2 dozen times a day leaving us with the impression, sometimes, that we live in a very beautiful part of Beruit.  The electrical company says that the apartment may not be wired to handle the amount of electricity that we need to live in the apartment....did you get that?  Luckily, there is a way to "open a case", to test whether the apartment is fit to live in, electrically speaking... It will take several months, but in Spanish terms, that's the blink of an eye.

The following is a sample conversation that I've had many times recently:

Delora: Hi, how are you?  I'm so sorry that we got cut off earlier!

Friend:  No problem. What a pain in the #$@ though!  Everytime I call you we get disconnected.

Delora: Yeah, it's really a drag.  So quick, how are you?  Silence...

Lately, I haven't even been able to enjoy these short conversations. Why?  Because of a nice little monopoly called TELEFONICA.  Telefonica reminds me of the ATT monopoly in the US about 25 years ago.  Although our local phone service has been out for 8 days, and we're on the EMERGENCY list, it will take between 8-15 days until the technician will be able to make it to our house. Telefonica provides our landline service and our cable service.  Just one glitch: when you plug in the phones, it blows out the line.  Oops.  And the microfilters that they suggest you buy to keep from blowing out the line?  They don't work either.

Watch your back, César Alierta, Executive Chairman of Telefonica.  There's a new cowboy in town gunning for your job.  He's a man of few words, but he's customer-oriented, focused on service and highly intelligent.  From what I've seen, there's no way he couldn't do a better job.  Here he is:

Thundér Pérkins,  future Executive Chairman of Telefonica

Supermarket Confessional

Some people are genius grocery shoppers.  I am not.  There's nothing I hate more than going to a Super Stop & Shop.  I start to hyper-ventilate and before I know it, I'm phoning a friend, a genius super-shopper, for advice: Taylor, where are the legumes?  With the precision of an air traffic controller, she calmly directs me to the exact aisle and shelf for french lentils, recommends alternatives, offers advice on fat content and prices per ounce by brand. She and KK know this is true: I literally haven't been to a supermarket more than twice in the past five years.


We have eaten, thanks to an excellent right-hand woman, Maria D., who, among other things, has been stocking our cabinets for over 6 years.  Maria shakes her head sadly when I mention my food shopping anxieties in my new city of Madrid. She knows I'm out of my league.

Now I'm in Spain, without Maria and Taylor.  I'm advised to shop on-line.  See the screen I'm presented with above?  I'm not sure I could navigate that screen in English, but in Spanish it's a total wash.  We're eating out alot...

Our nemesis (el ascendor)

When looking for apartments in Spain, no one warns you to check if the elevator (el ascensor) works. Ours, a beautiful baroque wrought iron variety typical in Spanish buildings of a certain era, moves slowly through the center of the building, the marble stairway spiraling around it. The small glass box (holding 4 slender people, tops) allows stair-walkers to amuse themselves on the walk by seeing just who might be caught between floors inside the little glass trap. If it's a slow day, you can just watch the narrow band of rubber that creaks over the pulleys as they move the box up and down. In fact, you can smell the rubber burning just a little. This is not an elevator for the young or impatient. A series of steps, similar to those required to build a nuclear reactor, must be followed in sequence and at properly timed intervals for the box to move. Typically both young and impatient, delivery boys are frequently stuck between the first and second floor of our building tapping on the glass (saying something Spanish that means, help!) Sometimes the elevator repair man rides on the top of the box for a couple hours to figure out the latest glitch. When he gestures that it's ok to get in, we Americans mime a Schwartzenegger muscle pose or do a Chariots of Fire type slo-mo run to show him that we're sure the elevator is fine, but we're in training. We'll take the stairs.

Why we haven't been to the Museum

A partial list of broken items in the apartment we're renting:

• No cold water in the kitchen
• Broken dishwasher (circa 1995)
• Broken washer and dryer (circa 1995)
• Broken oven (circa?) - already fixed twice
• Broken toilet in Sam's room- already fixed twice
• Broken shower in Sam's room
• 2 broken shutters -- the exterior metal kind that block out sunlight
• Electrical circuitry on the 2nd floor
• Alarm system
• Misc: towel bars (2), shelf in the refrigerator, various cabinet doors

Number of times the electricity has gone out - 8; but our landlord is on vacation until September, so he'll call the electrical company in September...