My Very Own Piso!

September 1st

Rabbit Rabbit!

Today was a lucky day as I found and signed for my own piso.  It is in the perfect location: in the Centro, close to Ronda, Albaycín, my facultad, and all of the places of interest.  My room is huge as I have a full size bed and my own personal terraza that gives me a great view of the entire street and almost to the center of the city.  The apartment itself takes up the entire 4th floor (the other places I looked at shared a floor with two or three more apartments) of the five story building.  Long spanning hallways, a nice size kitchen, great living room, and balcony make the piso feel spacious and intimate at the same time.  There are five bedrooms, which at the time of this entry, only four had been filled including me.  It has all of the amenities, with central heating, ac, tv, internet, and washer. Its only drawback is that its about 50 euros more that I wanted to spend per month on a piso.  Although it is more expensive, the rent at 320 euros a month (roughly 450 dollars), is significantly less than what I would be paying in La Jolla. 

The process of visiting and signing the contract for my new piso took up most of the afternoon, but the ILP classes in the morning were great.  In my Spanish literature class we discussed Don Quijote and my professor offered a new critical perspective and I had not seen before.  He refuted the idea that Don Quijote is an idealist as he believed that Don Quijote's idealism, delivered by the point of his spear, could not be considered idealism (He is referring to the scene in which Don Quijote stops the group of traveling merchants and demands that they believe that his lady is the most beautiful).  The professor believed that Don Quijote's use of violence negated the idea of a true idealist.  I thought this was an interesting point, but had remembered the same professor describing how he considered that Karl Marx was the most original idealist and free from thinker to have ever lived.  After class I approached him and asked how he could think that Don Quijote's idealism was invalid while Marx's (which of course advocates the ultimate revolution of the proletariat, something that would be extraordinarily violent) idealism was considered to be true.  Thus ensued a great discussion in which we discussed globalization, power of politics, and the ultimate idea of utopia.  It was difficult for me to try and articulate what I wanted to say as my vocabulary in Spanish is fairly limited.  I think I was able to get my point across and whether I agreed or disagreed with my professor, I really enjoyed his eagerness to engage in a conversation.  All of the professors in the ILP program have done a great job in making us feel like true University of Granada students.

I went back to my new apartment again at night to try and meet some of my roommates.  No one was home initially, but I was able to meet my newest roommate, an 18 year old boy from Madrid.  With his signing of the last room, our apartment is completely full.  I will be living with two Germans, 1 girl and 1 boy, and 2 Spaniards.  I'm definitely excited to have a mix of countries, cultures, and languages.