"Se Alquila"

The past two days have been devoted to apartment hunting. Before I came here I knew no matter who I met during orientation I wanted to live with Spaniards (or Europeans). Even though I came here with Clay and Emily and also met several very good friends during orientation, once we got to Málaga I stuck to my initial goal. I was determined to find a free room in an apartment where I will be able to speak Spanish on a daily basis and hopefully make some European friends. So while it was definitely not the easy way to do things, I am hoping that my two days stressed out running all over the city will pay off. The picture below is from a bulletin board at the University that we went to to find phone numbers to call.

There are several websites that are helpful for finding an apartment in Spain such as Loquo, Idealista and Easypiso. However, the easier way to find an apartment is to look for signs that say "se alquila." This means that someone is advertising a "piso" or "habitación" (a room, which is what I was looking for) that is for rent. I called dozens of phone numbers that I found on signs near the main plaza on c/ larios and several near the University. Unfortunately none of these worked out. Many of the numbers I called were actually to rent offices or apartments with multiple bedrooms, whereas I just wanted to move in to a free room where other people were already living.

Luckily I did receive several messages on Easypiso and one of them was from an agency called EPS Malaga. My friend Emily had already put a deposit down for an apartment through this company to move in with four europeans so I was very interested. A young woman working for the company took me to the apartment on c/ Atarazanas which is a great location. It is five minutes from the bus that I need to take to get to work and very close to a huge outdoor supermarket/grocery store as well as c/ larios. There are four european boys living in the apartment. At first this made me a little bit nervous because if they were anything like my guy friends who had houses together in college it was going to be pretty unlivable for a girl. However, the apartment was actually spotless. I could not believe it. I would have my own room and there are two bathrooms, a decent kitchen and living room. There is even a "cleaning schedule" in the kitchen that says who cleans what room what day. I only met one of the guys, a student from France, but there are two Italians and a guy from England.

After my unsuccessful day searching today I went back to EPS and told them I wanted the apartment!!! I am going to move in October 1 (after my first day of teaching). I am very excited and hope that it will be a great experience. I had to sign a lease until at least January, but if I am really unhappy I can always leave (but will lose my security deposit).