Saturday, September 3, 2011

The Apartment Search Continues: There Will Be Blood...

…that is, if I don’t find an apartment soon. And by soon I mean now, because this whole “hey kids, you gots to go find your own apartment, kthxbye” stuff is way harder than you can possibly imagine. I’ve seen over 10 apartments in the past 3 days, and I have 4 more appointments scheduled to see other apartments in the next 2 days. Here’s a recap of the ones I’ve seen:

Crack House – See previous post. I refuse to recap the events of this visit. Terrifying.

Angela – Cute cottage-esque house, amazing proprietor with 2 adorable cats, but I wouldn’t be able to meet ANY of the roommates (there would be 3 others) until after I moved in. No thanks!

Guys above BCSP office – Meh. Whatevs. Huge room, cluttered and small everything else.  Homeboy looked like a super nerd… and not the good kind.

Crazy Chick who Kidnapped Me – Okay, so Dao didn’t kidnap me. She more or less hijacked me on Via Zamboni and guilted me into visiting the apartment she was renting out. Thankfully someone else was with me… for all I know this chick could be taking me to an opium den. It ended up being a pretty cool place. The apartment was massive, clean, but decorated with questionable taste (most of the walls were “decorated” by dipping a sponge in some paint and dotting it all over the walls… and not in a cute way), and the goth roommate who was there was very nice… except SHE HAD NO EYEBROWS. It freaked Miranda and I out enough to swear we couldn’t live there. I mean, does she draw her eyebrows on? Is she making some kind of political statement by going eyebrowless? DOES SHE THINK IT LOOKS GOOD? Nah, I’ll pass. Thanks, Dao!

Huge Ass Apartment that Jessica Took – Yeah, so I was more like a spectator on this visit. I just went with Jessica just in case one of us hit it off really well with the rooms. Despite being hella expensive, the roommates were incredibly nice and the room was frackin’ huge! I know I’ll be visiting Jessica a LOT…

Via Ben-something Da Carpi – Oh helllllll nah. I was SO EXCITED to see this place, too… and then it turns out that it’s a 30 minute walk outside the walls, meaning it’s nearly 45 minutes away from everywhere I need to be. That and Marco, the guy who showed me the apartment, had hair that went down to his kneecaps and was wearing a Simpsons t-shirt. I’m not even kidding about the hair. The apartment was in a super nice area, and it was huge (but really dirty)… but I don’t do weirdo roommates or dirt. I mean, at least pretend to be normal…

Via Delle Lame—kid with the tats up and down his arms. All the roommates but one had visible face piercings. No thanks.

Silvia at Via Avesella – I’m in like with this apartment… if it were in a different location and had more than one roommate, I’d take it in a heartbeat. Silvia was so cute and super sweet, and her mom was visiting for the day, so I got to meet my first Italian mamma—she was cooking something in the kitchen, so cute—and Silvia has this enormous cat named Moschino or something like that. The cat totes reminded me of a real-life Crookshanks. I want that cat. And the place was HUGE. Like, massive. Then when I talked with Danielle later I learned that it’s an area that might not be the safest at night, at least on one end of the street. Apparently that’s where the tranny prostitutes hang out after 10. Not even kidding, a girl at the BCSP office who lives on that street told me that. Tranny prostitutes. Uhhh… maybe I could deal with that if it meant having that huge room and a cat that looked like it’s face was smushed... in a good way, of course.

The Double off Via San Vitale – Meh, whatevs. The double was small, the kitchen was a little ghetto, and the girl who showed me around wasn’t particularly friendly. Good location, though.

Single on Via San Manzini – Meh, whatevs. The room was big, but it had 3 beds in it, two of which were bunked—which I don’t really get because it’s only supposed to have one bed. Francesca, the girl who I talked to, seemed relatively chill. The other roommates were fine… the apartment was a little dirty but not too bad…but I was pretty underwhelmed by it all.


Apartments I’m seeing today or tomorrow:

Via dell’Independenza 25 – I feel like this place is going to be AWESOME or a complete disaster. Via dell’Independenza is one of the main streets in Bologna, so it would be a nice location for walking home at night or whatever because there’s always people around. The proprietor I talked to, Silvana, seemed slightly whacky on the phone… it was kind of endearing. The single is taken, but according to Silvana the double is huge. For 400 Euro a bed, the double better be frackin’ AMAZING.

International House – This is where there are 4 boys and 4 girls—with four of the total being Italian and the other four being foreign. So, technically, there should be 2 foreign boys and 2 foreign girls in addition to 2 Italian boys and 2 Italian girls. I’m seeing this one because apparently the place is huge, but I would be living in a triple the size of a dorm room… however, if the rest of the house is big enough, I think I could deal with sleeping in a room with 2 other girls. Then again, knowing my prior history with roommates, maybe not.

Via Mazzini 82 – This is some girl who I found on EasyStanza. The apartment looks nice, it has a porter 24/7 which means it must be a tiny bit ritzy, and apparently its own tiny private garden. It has the potential to be amazing. Then again, it could be terrible.

Vittorio’s place – Vittorio sent me a text that was like, “Come check out my apartment.” And I was all, “Okay, see yah tomorrow.” Apparently there’s a cleaning lady who comes once a week, so it would never get too gross, but Vittorio is 32, and that’s a little weird. There’s 2 other people living in that house, but I don’t know any of them.

Paola and her famiglia – Danielle, the awesome girl who works with BCSP and gets. stuff. done. and has the cutest dog EVER, told be to look into a sort of “family stay” with some lady named Paola. I would live in a single with its own private bathroom, I WOULD’NT PAY RENT—YES, NO RENT AT ALL—in exchange for watching her 2 kids for 10-14 hours a week and speaking English with them. The kids are 10 and 14, so old enough where you don’t have to worry about them crawling off and sticking their fingers in light sockets but young enough to still need a nanny. Even though I’m not a huge kid-lover, I find most Italian children endearing. They're so animated, like cartoon children. That, and Danielle said the Paola is “a woman you want to know” in the sense that she goes a lot of places and knows a LOT of important people. Also, the family would bring you on any trips they take—the last girl who lived there got to go to Sicily for 2 weeks—SCORE!

Yeah, and “that’s it.” 10 apartments down, 5+ to go, 5 days left to find a place to live. Easy peasy, man!
NOT.

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