Day 12: Getting Settled, part 1 of many
What was supposed to be a low-key empty day…wasn’t.
It started slow enough. Coffee at Dream Coffee, then a walk (through the desire path hole in the wall) to a local “papeleria” to pick up the bank card that DHL brought there instead of finding The Hobbit House. This was all padding around in our neighborhood (normal) but with a focus of clearing something off a to-do list that would make us locals (exciting). I tagged along with Bill because, a) I like him, and b) I was hoping to find cards or stationary to be able to write to friends back home. No shopping luck but it was a lovely morning — 23°C/73°F.
We are getting closer to having the things we need to feel “at home.” We have a handle on groceries and Bill even found GF cookies without coconut yesterday. We’ve got a pretty solid grasp of the how-tos of public transit. We’re making friends. The things we’re missing are a full-sized home (though the Hobbit House has grown on me), a line on Shabbat candles, stationary, and sandals for Bill (something I never would have expected to be adding to a shopping list). There are other things we’ll want once we are in a longer-term housing situation but for now we’re doing pretty darn well.
The search for Shabbat candles led me to, of all places, IKEA yesterday. It was an adventure of epic proportions as trips out to IKEA often are.
- Graham asked a contact where one might find Shabbat candles and was told IKEA was the place to go.
- I mention this to Melissa who LOVES IKEA (she’s an interior designer).
- Melissa and I devise a plan to go to IKEA that involves a bus for me and a cab for the four of us (the girls came along, too, of course).
- We make it to IKEA on the outskirts of Valencia (but much closer to the city than Schaumburg is to Evanston).
- We walk the entire store (as one does)…no Shabbat candles to be found.
- We try to get cabs home only to discover there aren’t any available. Do we live at IKEA now??
- Melissa, fluent in Español and armed with my transit app, asks a woman sitting on a bench outside of IKEA how the new bus (not one of the regular ones) showing on the app works and we head off across the parking lot to find it.
- A CAB PULLS INTO THE IKEA PARKING LOT!
- We (all 4 of us) literally chase the cab down at a run.
- Success — we have a ride home and don’t actually need to submit change of address forms for IKEA.
Totally typical IKEA trip, right? For a normal person that would have been enough excitement in a day. So…
I decided to walk from the bus stop that would have taken me to the Hobbit House over to a different bus stop further into Russafa that would take me to Malvarosa in advance of the 18:30 appointment we had to see our future home. Bill met me at Restaurante Nou Casa Ripoll, on the beach, and we shared a beverage before walking the SHORT walk (2–3 blocks depending on how you count it) to our potential apartment. Lookie!
We left the apartment and headed for the tram that would take us back to the Hobbit House. As a final “you totally need to live in this apartment” sign, we met a short, squat pittie (muzzled, as is the rule here) who gave me BIG love (have I mentioned how much we’re missing Mitzie?) on our way. Sold.
By the time we got back to the Hobbit House my watch had clocked almost 14000 steps and I. Was. SPENT. Light dinner, light conversation, and an early bed-time were the endcaps of the day.
Now…today is probably going to be a super chill day. Wait, where have I heard that before?
