Fun with Falling Furniture

So the time has come to share with you my latest Spanish adventure. Let me begin by saying I hope no-one has to repeat it, because it really wasn't fun.

I will set the scene. My little Ikea, almost kids', bedroom here in Madrid has a single bed pushed up against one wall. Over it, standing almost 7 feet tall, is a piece of furniture which has 4 cupboards at the top. It stands on 2 legs, one at either end of my bed, and the legs are probably about a foot across, and maybe an inch and half wide. Since I arrived here, I haven't put much in them, because I am not 7 feet tall and therefore can't reach them easily.

On Sunday evening, I came home with a bagful of goodies from my friend Hannah, who is leaving Madrid and had donated some things to me (thank you, Hannah!). Not being exactly brimming over with spare space, I decided to put just a couple of them in the cupboard over my bed. I can just about reach the cupboard handles so I reached up and opened the end cupboard.

Or at least that's what I tried to do. All I remember is that as I glanced up towards the cupboard to decide what to put in there, I was confused as to why the entire unit appeared to be getting bigger and closer to me. Cue something of a strangled scream as I realised that the whole thing was falling - on top of me. I at least had the presence of mind (I think) to get to the floor as fast as I could, which I'm pretty sure is the only thing that stopped it actually crashing into my head.

A couple of seconds later, and having heard the scream and the crash, my flatmate Kiran appeared in the doorway with a horrified look on her face, to find me in a heap on the floor, surrounded by the contents of the cupboards, most of the things from my table, with the massive unit leaning at a 45-degree angle across the room. Fortunately, my room isn't all that wide and the opposite wall had stopped the unit in its tracks, otherwise it would have continued its downward journey unimpeded and landed on me anyway.

I rather quickly noticed that the opposite wall wasn't the only thing that the unit had ended up crashing into. One of the cupboard door corners was wedged quite firmly straight into the keyboard of my laptop, like a dagger sticking out of a dead body.

In this technological age, as you can imagine, I was actually more concerned about the laptop than about whether or not I was still in one piece. Given the disastrous history of that laptop, I wasn't honestly surprised that it had suffered yet another attempt on its life.

With the help of most of the family in the next flat, I was extricated from underneath the offending piece of furniture, it was pushed upright again and after a lot of pushing, shoving, moving of other furniture, and the ingenuity of Jorge from next door, it stood up without any assistance, albeit still a little wobbly (as was I, by that point).

That's the exciting bits of the story pretty much over with, you'll be pleased to know.

The rest of that evening and most of the next day were taken up with phone calls between me and the landlady, her husband, the landlady and her insurance company and the computer repair centre. Rather surprisingly, we discovered that this flat is not covered for accidental damage to anything by anything. The contents are covered solely for damage due to flood, fire or theft. Now to me, that was a shock. I would have assumed that in order to rent out a flat privately an owner would be obliged to arrange comprehensive insurance cover, particularly in case something belonging to the owner in a furnished flat, somehow damages something belonging to a tenant, or even actually injures a tenant. I'm still staggered to find that it appears not to be the case. Given the hoops that landlords in the UK have to jump through in order to be allowed to rent out a property (electrical inspections, smoke alarm installation, fire extinguishers etc etc), it seems nigh on irresponsible that here someone can pretty much rent out their house/flat to private tenants without any formalities whatsoever to safeguard the health or safety of the tenants.

The laptop is now at the repair centre locally awaiting a decision on its fate (inexplicably, it did actually work after the incident, but 6 of the keys and the space bar were pretty much unuseable) - the landlady is paying for the inspection and the repair if that's possible and if it's not, she is paying for a replacement computer.

The piece of furniture has now been screwed to the wall behind it, which frankly, should have been done when it was installed - both the landlady and her husband have said precisely that. Which does beg the question "Well, if it SHOULD have been screwed to the wall, why wasn't it?" I'm guessing that will be an eternally unanswered question.

The room is finally sorted and things are back where they should be.

The only extra surprise has been the quite startling number of bruises that have appeared on me over the course of the week. I went from thinking I had come away entirely unscathed, to now looking as if I was beaten up. One example is in the photo at the top of the page. The rest of the bruises are on my back, my thighs and (be very grateful for the lack of photographs) my buttocks! I also ache all across my neck, shoulders, back and arms, I think from lifting the damn thing off me and then pushing it back to an upright position. It's a lot heavier than I had ever realised!

November really hasn't been my month all in all!

It's official - I hate technology

I knew my excitement at picking my laptop up from repair this morning would be short-lived. Off I trotted as early as I could, collected it with its new hard drive installed, brought it home and went to reinstall Windows XP. Oh no, not that simple. It followed the same routine it had before I admitted it was dead, gave me the same error message (including the suggestion that I remove any recently installed hard drives - yeah, right, I was going to do that!) and wouldn't play.

So 20 minutes later I was back off to the repair centre, clutching the laptop (having decided throwing it out the window may not be the best thing to do), every bit of paperwork that came with it, and the XP disk. The woman behind the desk looked a bit surprised (and somewhat disappointed) to see me back so soon. One of the technicians came down to play with it and after 10 minutes of changing the settings in the boot menu (let's face it, not something I was likely to have been able to do) pronounced it ready for XP to be reinstalled. Not that I didn't believe him - well, maybe just a little - but I insisted on staying there while it was reinstalled. Fine. All done. So back home with it.

Transferred a few things from my external hard drive over to it, sorted out the appearance settings etc, then decided the time had come to flick the switch and try to get online.

Wireless switch flicked. Nothing. No icon for wireless network or anything even similar. Off to Control Panel with me. Searched for my internal modem which I know is in there! Nope. Machine insists I don't have a modem of any kind, internal, external or anything else. Oh yes, I do, I shouted at it, pointlessly.

None of the paperwork that came from the shop with it is of any use at all. I don't have software for the modem, I don't even know what it is so I can't search for any info on the net using Eve's laptop. And even if I could, it's not like I could download the driver etc for it to my laptop because......I can't get on the net.....because apparently I don't have a modem!

I'm going round in circles. At the rate I'm going, I will have to lug it back to the UK, take it back to where I bought it and get them to sort that out. Meaning until my trip, I'll still have to rely on Eve's laptop for all net stuff.

Also, without the net, I can't download any of the programs I need to actually use the thing for anything useful. I want Picasa, various spyware/anti virus stuff, Live Messenger etc etc. I don't have a WP prog of any kind cos I left the Word disk in the UK but I can't download Open Office as a back-up.

Back to a quill pen and a bottle of ink I reckon!

Officially not unemployed now!

Well, OK, that may not be entirely the case as far as the Social Security and tax people here are concerned but....! I "worked" for the first time since February 4th today. I gave a 1hr 30min English lesson to the lovely Begona (really must find a way to add that twiddly thing that goes over the n). The time absolutely flew past. Mind you, I hope all my future students are like her. She came to the lesson clutching a bundle of papers she needs to understand and pronounce for work. She wanted to read them out, one paragraph at a time and then have me correct the pronunciation. No problem. Then she asked if she could alter the paragraphs and try to write them in simpler English. Also no problem. Then.....she came up with her own homework! More of that, I say! But I really enjoyed it - I hope she did. Good 25 minute walk to her office which is good exercise now, but in the height of summer may not be quite so enjoyable!

2 other students are semi panning out. One has decided to postpone until June for reasons I didn't quite understand, but then she wants an hour every day for the whole of June and July! Or at least I'm hoping Monday to Friday. Intensive, but fine by me. And Jose, who was going to recommend me to people at his office, said it would only work out if I can provide invoices with my NIE. Hah! See previous blog.

On that note, however, I do appear to have at last found out the correct (and current) procedure for sorting that out. Not that that makes it any easier of course. It appears I now have to call for an appointment at an office actually quite near here - the appointments currently being dished out are for ........ AUGUST!!!!! Still, it would appear that once I have an appointment, as long as I bring the right completed form, a receipt for an obligatory payment via a bank, and 23 other things, I should get a "Certificate of Residency as an EU National" which will contain the NIE. I'm not holding my breath!

Good news on the technology front too. My laptop is apparently fixed!!! In as much as they removed my old hard drive, sent it back to Toshiba and replaced it with a new one. I have to pick it up tomorrow, then I'll have to reinstall XP and see how it goes. Got stacks of software to reinstall, most of which is back in the UK so it'll be a while til that's all sorted. But I'll still have my laptop back - YAAAY! Let's hope this hard drive lasts longer than the first one. I fully expect to continue to receive helpful messages along the lines of "Should have got a Mac" from several nameless people! ;-)

"Las obras" (public works) continue to follow me round Madrid. Not content with digging up the roads and pavements near my old place the whole time I was there, I was thrilled to discover that they are now replacing the gas pipes in pretty much every street round my new place too! Stacks of pneumatic drills, diggers and large groups of men in hi-vis vests staring into holes in the ground - some things are clearly the same the world over!

Today was La Diada de Sant Jordi, or El Dia de la Rosa, or even El Dia del Libre (St George's Day, Day of the Rose and Day of the Book respectively). It's not just the UK that claims 23 April as its own - St George is one of the patron saints of Catalunya, Aragon and Valencia. Events take place all over Spain, though mainly in Barcelona and other towns in those three regions. The basic idea is that it's a little like our Valentine's Day, except the guys buy the girls a red rose, and the girls buy the guys a book in return. Apparently it all started in 1923 when a bookseller decided to celebrate the allegedly simultaneous deaths of Cervantes and Shakespeare on April 23, 1616. Despite having read that the Parque del Retiro would join in by having some book stalls on what is now also World Book Day, there was no sign of it this afternoon. Instead, I spent a happy hour lolling on the steps by the lake, watching energetic people row their rented boats around, stopping briefly to drench eachother with oar-loads of refreshing (though slightly scummy) lake water.

I'm enjoying exploring my new local area. It's a proper Spanish residential area, with stacks of proper little local businesses in the surrounding streets - bakers, butchers (no candlestick makers yet!) etc. It's nice to wander around and just see the locals out doing what they do! I can see why some of the people I know want to live right in the centre - damn sight easier for going out socialising for a start - but it's so touristy! If I'm going to live here, I want to LIVE here! Still, that means my Spanish needs to improve a lot! I've been pretty good at doing about an hour's study a day recently, but there's nothing to match actually speaking it. I think some kind of proper language exchange is in my future - there are plenty of ads for Spaniards looking to spend half an hour practicing their English in return for listening to foreigners massacring Spanish!

Actually, doing more study might make me turn the TV off. It's been a bit of a novelty having a TV here, having not had one for a month so I've probably wasted more time than I should in front of it. When the weather was rubbish, it didn't seem so bad but now it's sunny and 26 degrees, I really should be out doing stuff. Mind you, the Monte Carlo and Barcelona tennis tournaments have been keeping me occupied, which I don't mind at all. However, the fact that I'm starting to enjoy The OC and Smallville (in Spanish) is a bit worrying! As the old TV theme went, why don't I just turn off the TV and go and do something more interesting instead?

Sid tracked down a company that do really cheap phone calls abroad so she tested it out on me this evening. Had a good hour's chat with her, catching up on news etc. Was nice to have a proper chat instead of emails and texts though obviously the technological methods are much more practical as it doesn't matter who's home and when.

OK, so my vegetable soup is pretty much boiled to death, my frozen baguette has thawed nicely on the balcony in about half an hour, and there are several San Miguels chilling nicely in the fridge, so adios, buenos noches, hasta luego etc!

New home, old rain!

My lovely, new, sunny flat is not quite living up to its reputation! It's been raining pretty much ever since I arrived on Tuesday evening. Today it decided to dump a downpour on the washing that was valiantly trying to dry on the balcony.

Thanks to the lovely Nacho (Ignacio) and his Citroen C3, I didn't have to move house on the metro. That would have been interesting, with a huge suitcase, rucksack, laptop bag and 3 bags of food (and beer!) But not only did he help me move my stuff, he carried most of it up the 4 flights of stairs to the flat. Trust me to move to the 4th floor in a building with no lift. When I move out, I think I'll just throw everything off the balcony!

My new flatmate, at least for the next 6 weeks, is a lovely Dublin girl called Eve. She's a happy, bouncy, athletic thing who has a penchant for Spanish men!! ;-) I'll be disappointed when she moves out, her company has been a nice change from my little house on my own before. She's also letting me use her laptop while mine is being repaired/replaced - for this I will be eternally grateful!

Talking of the laptop, I deposited it at the Toshiba repair place near here on Thursday morning and IF I understood the lady correctly, they should call in 2 working days if it's repairable on-site, but if it has to go back to Toshiba then it'll be another 3-5 days on top of that. I'm not holding my breath but it still sounds theoretically quicker than the probably guaranteed minimum of 2-3 weeks it would have taken in the UK. Where I would also have had to post it, insure it etc etc instead of just dropping it off at an authorised repair centre.

The weather hasn't been conducive to doing much over the last couple of days so I've wandered around the new local area, stocked the fridge (though I appear to have run out of beer AGAIN!) and made inroads into getting some work. I emailed every Spaniard I ever met on a Vaughan Town to explain that I'm in Madrid and available to give English classes. Within 12 hours I had one definite request for lessons, plus a potential offer of teaching someone's 2 daughters (ages not yet known - could be interesting!) So things appear to be moving. My American, chirpy, eternally optimistic mate Julie also has a bit of a plan for when she returns in September which I'm hoping to be part of.

It's Friday so it's the English speaking meet-up at Brasserie Locandita tonight, after which I've been invited to a party. Hopefully I won't be paying the price tomorrow! ;-)

One of those days? I hope so!

Started the day with a very long walk to the main police station just to pick up an application form for an NIE (the foreign residents number thing!). Lots of people there, the guy on the door pointed me towards a queue so I joined it. There didn´t appear to be anywhere to pick up a form and take it away so in the queue I stayed for 40 minutes until I reached the front. There I was met by a very fierce looking woman who listened to my (admittedly probably not very good) Spanish request for a form, shouted loudly something about "Do you have a certificate?", thrust a small piece of paper with a phone number on at me, which when I tried to take, she took back and put it under her desk, shooed me away and took the next person in the queue. I wasn´t really in the mood to try again.

So I decided to download the form off the net and fill it in at my leisure. Great idea til I got to the net cafe, settled down with a drink and a cake, only to find that my laptop appears to have crashed. It won´t load XP at all, no matter what I do. Just goes through the motions then very apologetically tells me XP isn´t loading. I´ve tried Start Normally, Safe Mode, Back to Last Known Good Configuration.....nothing. Not playing. Unimpressed. Tomorrow I move to a flat with WiFi and was all excited about being on the net all the time, and now no bloody laptop! Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

However, the day wasn´t a complete disaster as I did have gorgeous veggie lunch at Yerba y Bueno, which Julie had picked up a leaflet for. Scrummy!

So if anyone has any suggestions for how to fix my laptop (and no, I don´t have the XP disk, it wasn´t provided with the machine), I´ll be very grateful!!!