Home, sweet home

To properly appreciate my apartment in Madrid, you need to know what my options were. For example, I loved my neighborhood the first time I walked through it, because there is so much green. Parks, and even trees or bushes can be extremely rare in parts of downtown, Some streets don´t seem to have left room for anything except a narrow car path, and you pretty much only get trees if there is regular irrigation. (Here is one of the first neighborhoods I looked at, for example.)

I managed to snag a small apartment with a terrace overlooking a very quiet street and a few trees. (That´s my place, on the second story behind the green awning.) The neighborhood feels suburban, filled with apartment buildings, but most of the businesses like restaurants and grocery stores are tucked into the ground floor space of each building. And the public transportation is better than what I had in Maryland - I can walk to two different metro lines, a few bus lines, and lots of shops within 10-15 minutes. 

Furnished apartments are really common in Spain, thank goodness. And I´d describe the style of mine as 1990´s elderly lady with a cat. I think the owner previously lived here, and she did not see a spare foot of wall space that she couldn´t fill with seating, shelving, or hooks. I am now the proud owner [renter] of seven bookshelves, and I own one book. Perhaps I will rotate it so that it can visit a different location each day of the week?

The kitchen looks small from American standards, but many small apartments here omit ovens, and have only counter-sized fridges. I have tons of storage space and cooking is very efficient - you just rotate in place to reach oven, sink, counter, and fridge.

More shelves in the bedroom. I´d estimate the apartment is about 350 square feet (32 m2). My place in Miami was about that size, and I shared it with a dog, a cat, and another human. So this feels quite spacious, if you discount the eleven chairs plus one sofa living with me. 

And the very best part is that I have air-conditioning. I have realized that when it is 38C (100F), which is often the case in summer. I am sad and think about returning to the US. When it is 28C (82F), I think, "Golly, gee whiz, I live in Madrid! How amazing!" Climate control literally makes me happy.