Apartment Living

Before we came to Barcelona, I knew we would be living in an apartment. I have lived in an apartment before, about 20 years ago. I knew what I was in for; smaller space, less storage, up and down steps, and the like. Well I was mostly right. I have less storage, but I have less stuff. I have to go up and down steps, but I can use the exercise. The apartment is actually bigger than the house in Seattle, so I was pleasantly surprised with that. One of the greatest selling points of the new apartment is Adrianna and Antonio have their own room. In Seattle, they share a room (a very small room). How grand is this? Well, at least that is what I thought, and what the kids lead me to believe. Turns out, that the idea of your own room is a grand notion in theory. When actually posed with the idea of sleeping in separate rooms, Adrianna and Antonio were appalled. Now they say they are having a sleep over with each other. The problem with this is now we have two kids trying to sleep together in a twin bed. We tend to have lots of falling out of the bed. We are hoping that they will gradually adjust to sleeping in different rooms. I had not thought about not sleeping in my own bed. Sometimes it can be very difficult to sleep in a new bed. This has been the case for me. Given, I have a difficult time sleeping in my own bed, but this has been impossible here. The bed that is here, has a mattress that has no squish to it at all. When you sit down, it is just like sitting on a wood plank. After a few weeks of tossing all night, being in so much back and neck pain I could hardly get my self rolled over, and in general, getting next to no sleep, I became very irritable. There came one day, when Ron could take no more of me and my attitude and asked "What is wrong with you?" My reply..."I NEED TO GO TO IKEA" He got the message and off to Ikea we went. I now have multiple cushy down mattress pads and new down pillows. I have turned back into my "sweet and joyful" little self...life is good. I guess there is some truth in the idea that shopping can cure what ails you.  Now the thing I had forgotten about apartment living - noise. I had gotten very used to living in a house. The noise that I would hear would belong to someone in my house. This is not the case anymore, When I hear a loud noise, I am going to see what the kids are into. This mostly turns out to be a neighbor coming in or out of their door. I will hear water running and I am up looking to find where the water is coming from. This also turns out to be a neighbor using their water. When I hear the argument, I know that is the neighbor. Now this next one confused me for a brief moment. I was dead asleep and I was awaken by my own snoring. After being fully awake I realized it was not me, it was the neighbor upstairs. I can not even imagine how loud this persons snores are when in the actually room with them. Every night, I lie awake listening to snores that seem to shake the ceiling. I still wake up every now-and-then and wonder "was that me?" Turns out it is not. We had decided, earplugs may be a wise investment. After some searching, I can not find where to buy earplugs. Mental note: I have to live with the snoring a little while longer. Well last night I had an unplanned breakthrough....wine! I drank a few glasses of wine before bed last night and when I awoke this morning, I realized, I heard no snoring whatsoever. Ron claims there was still plenty of snoring, I just didn't hear it. I guess I will stop looking for the earplugs and just drink lots of wine before bed. Why change what is working! With that problem solved, it still leaves me with another. Around 7 AM every morning, the upstairs neighbor wakes up. I hear them walk across the floor and go into the bathroom. The next thing I hear is the trickling sound of pee in the toilet. This noise is not so disturbing in itself, it is the thought of what does the person downstairs hear us doing. I guess I should not worry so much, the apartment downstairs is actually an architect office. They are not there all of the time. Still, I just can't help wondering what they think of what is heard. There are some aspects of the apartment life here that are enjoyable. One neighbor plays the piano. This is always nice to hear. In the evening, the apartment is filled with the aroma of dinner coming from all directions. I love the smell of food cooking. When I take out the trash, I just open the front door and toss it down the chute. I don't have to worry about remembering to set out the garbage on the right day. Over all, I am loving the apartment. This is feeling like home.

We are still on the search for a tutor for the kids. I did find a playgroup for the kids. Beginning in December, they will begin going across the street to a child center from 5-7pm every day of the week. I am so glad we were able to find a place where the kids could have social time with children there own age and I can have a few hours of free time to re-coop from the school day. Adrianna loves doing her school work. Well, I should say she loves to write and color. You should see all of the sadness that appears on this babies face when she is asked to read something. She hates to read. I think she lacks confidence in her ability to do it. She has improved a great deal, in such a short amount of time. She still struggles some, but it gets better every day. Antonio is doing some better in the school work. When I say better, this does not mean good. We still struggle to get him to do his work. He loves to read. He will read anything you ask him to. The writing part is what is so grievous to Antonio. God love his little heart, he is a work in progress. God bless my little heart, give me patience to make it through this.

I will leave you with this last bit of irony. I could not find turkey for our Thanksgiving meal, so I made ham. It was a very expensive ham, but it was for Thanksgiving so I decided it was worth the outrageous price. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. (Well with the exception that Adrianna was disgusted with the sight of mango chutney on her ham and refused to eat it.) The next day, I decided to have some me time. I went for a 30 minute walk to a nearby neighborhood. Destination - Mercat Barceloneta. I ended up getting there about the time everyone was closing up shop. I did spot one thing -TURKEY!