Wanted: New Roommate

I’ve been in Spain for a little over a week. I’ve got a cell phone and a metro card!

I’ve also got a place to live. It’s in Salamanca, the posh part of Madrid, and very close to the metro. But I’m planning on moving out on October first, as soon as I possibly can. I was going to stay longer, but the señora who I’m staying with is driving me nuts. When I first arrived, she was nice. Now she yells at me every day and insults me. It’s a very hostile environment for me to be living in. I can’t wait to move out. The thought of picking out my own food, having an internet connection, and not getting screamed at or bossed around is exciting, though these are things I would have taken for granted before!

When I called Señora Alfonsa from the US before coming here, she told me she had an internet connection. It turns out that she does pay for WiFi every month, but her router isn’t plugged in. I can’t hook it up because it’s missing the power cord. I showed her the picture of the power cord in the manual, and she started screaming at me in Spanish that she doesn’t understand technology. I tried a few more times, politely, but there was no getting through to her. So it was off to the internet café every day. (I have to get the timing just right, since they are closed on holidays, on random days, in the middle of the day, and late at night.)

There are three teenage girls from Italy staying with us in the other room right now. “¿Por qué necesitas el internet?” the señora said. “Las chicas italianas no lo necesitan!” (Why do you need the internet? The girls from Italy don’t!) I’ve had to explain several times that they are on vacation for a few days, but I will be living in Spain for ten months. I’ll be living here, working, and taking a class, so of course I need it.

I am always polite to the señora and I never raise my voice. I try to eat everything she cooks for me, even though I was practically a vegetarian when I was living in the US. Yesterday though, I was starting to feel sick from eating so much meat. So I left some chicken on my plate and told her I wasn’t very hungry. She yelled at me that in Spain, it’s a tradition to eat everything on your plate, or you don’t get any more food… ever. Then she sat down right next to me, only so she could smoke a cigarette in my face and insult me while I ate.

The señora is always home and watches TV all day at unprecedented volumes. She even leaves it on while she sleeps! I sleep with earplugs in every night. She won’t let me use my international phone card to call anyone from her phone. I explained that it only would charge my card, so it would be free for her. I offered to pay money if it wasn’t. The director of my internship even called her and explained to her in fluent Spanish that it’s free. But the señora only hollered at her that it was very expensive and that it wasn’t possible to make international calls from her phone. Then she slammed the phone down. Now when she leaved the house, she usually brings the phone cord with her.

She is often yelling at me and asking me questions about what I’m doing and where I’ve been. Sometimes I even hear her screaming from across the hall and I shudder, only to realize that she’s yelling at the dog.