Day 8 when we got some digs!

This condo block has a garbage chute! Like all the American movies and shows like Friends where you take your rubbish to a room and open a door type thing (?) and throw it down. These things have fascinated me for years and I have always wanted a shot, can I just say I am disappointed, they suck. Today was my first go and to be honest I will do all in my power to avoid doing it again, such was my disappointment. Natalie had did it earlier in the week but I don’t thin she had quite the level of expectation I did. I don’t know what I expected but the crushing level of disappointment I encountered on first go is hard to explain. Natalie has just told me that I over exaggerate the importance of some things and belittle other, basically she thinks I write a total load of crap most of the time, I disagree and I feel this is an excellent example of this, she sees it as rubbish, I see it as an examination of the minutiae of our cultural experiences over here and hence worthy of going in. Im sure though when I read it back next week, I will agree whole heartedly with her.

As far as the day was going that was proving to be the highlight, we had received a call about a apartment in the afternoon while I called home over the internet, the apartment, which was furnished was a step in the right direction but after the condo we went to see previously we weren’t hopeful, actually we were kinda dreading it and as the time clicked round to half six and it loomed large it got to a point where we really weren’t keen to go at all, this was coupled by the fact we hadn’t had any dinner. We tried to have dinner but failed miserably, we couldn’t get the communal bbq lit and trudged away hungry after 30 minutes using all our best efforts. Carol and Drew picked us up and ran us round to Wheatfield Road where the apartment was and on the way Natalie whispered in my ear that she had forgotten the paper on which the info was scribbled and the exact location of the apartment wasn’t known exactly it was either 42 or 44 in her mind. So we tried them, 42 and 44 to no avail, noone about. So we decided, late or not to go back to the condo and dig out this piece of paper with the info and know for definite, I jogged up the stairs (actually I jogged to the lift) and found the scrap. 43! It was number 43! Across the road. Rage. So we headed back over and the couple were waiting on the porch for us. We introduced ourselves and they led us around the back to their place for rent. At this point we were wholly expecting a basement apartment and were actually pleasantly surprised to find it was on the main level and actually had decking outside the front door looking out to the back garden. it’s a bachelor apartment in the same vane as the one I left behind in Preswick, not exactly the same as I had a separate kitchen but if you know what I lived in in Prestwick you will know where I am coming from. it’s a room with a double bed, a couch and a kichenette and a bathroom off it, I mean its not luxury but for the time we need it for, June till September I suppose it will do fine. The couple who will be our landlords were a pair of characters as well, the wife I feel will be a bit hard work but her Austrian husband seems a cracker! In fact it was him who brokered the deal for us. We took Carol in with us as sometimes our conversation skills are kind of lacking, not on our part, we follow everything but sometimes people don’t follow our particular phrasing of things, my rant yesterday on the lottery is an example of this (another came later tonight after we saw the apartment where Carol told us about Drew describing a parking lot as a car park and the Canadians he spoke to seeming not to put the two together, I digress) so Carol in some part acted as a translator and negotiator. Here is how it went down, the wife wanted us to tie ourselves down to a year, she didn’t want a short term deal. We were there knowing we wanted a short term deal as we are pretty certain to go back to the condo come October so carol fabricated a half truth out of us just having arrived and unsure of jobs and locations of jobs and maybe we might have jobs far away and a long term deal wouldn’t suit. It didn’t look good as the wife wanted long term, till the Austrian husband piped up and said that if we let them know if we weren’t staying on if we let them know before the college goes back they could advertise for a student to take over from us, the wife gave him mega daggers but he never seen them and so we jumped in and sealed the deal! We will let them know if were not staying on beyond September (we wont) and all is good to stay from june 1st!

We went on to a Irish bar called the Galway arms to celebrate our new place before going home to have the dinner we never got before going out!