We are now in Seville and in a very nice apartment right in the center of the Jewish quarter. As I write this I have had a couple of days to calm down and reflect on the last couple of days, which have been by far the worst experience Tobi and I have ever had in all of our world travel outings.
Here goes...
We arrived in Seville on Tuesday morning, February 2, after traveling 21 hours. We actually had a very nice flight on Iberia with a plane that was not full. Tobi and I had two seats to ourselves and were able to stretch out on our 8 hour flight from Chicago to Madrid. The flight from Madrid to Seville was a different story. We were packed together like sardines. Great that it was only a 45 minute flight.
We were informed a couple of days before we left for Seville that the woman that we booked the apartment from was in the hospital and we were going to be let into the apartment by the mother (who I will just say right now is "bat shit" CRAZY.) We had a 3 month rental on this apartment through Airbnb just to give you some perspective. She showed us the apartment, which had not been cleaned and was in very rough shape from whomever stayed there before us. The beds were not made, there were dirty dishes in the sink, old food in the fridge and freezer etc. This woman did not speak English so Tobi had to deal with her. She told us that she would clean the apartment that afternoon. We also asked about the internet because Tobi had an online class that evening and we needed an internet connection (which was included in the rental). She informed us that the box was stolen and she would ask her daughter about it. (We later found the box in a cupboard, hooked it up and there was still no service). She lied! She told us we could unpack and rearrange the furniture as we liked. She left to go meet with her daughter who was in hospital in Seville, and said she would return by 6:00 PM - hopefully with information about the Internet.
We unpacked and I set up my composing workstation on a table in the living room that we moved to the other side of the room to be near some outlets. We unpacked all of our clothes, noticed there was no toilet paper in the bathroom, went shopping and bought some food (and toilet paper) (took it upon ourselves to clean all the crap out of the fridge and freezer, which had a lovely pot of once boiled frozen noodles still in the water, which was now ice) (and clean the fridge and freezer). We then put our suitcases in the second bedroom (you will later see why this may have been our downfall).
We also decided that we needed to go to a hotel that night so that Tobi could have internet. We then went out to dinner at a cafe with internet and got an email from the daughter requesting that the mother be allowed to stay with us a couple of nights since she was from another town and she was still in the hospital. This was a VERY strange request. I said NO! Tobi, being Tobi, agreed.....BIG MISTAKE!
We returned to the apartment after dinner and all hell broke loose! Tobi asked the BS crazy mom if she had worked out the internet issue and she said no. Tobi then said "no problem" and informed her that we would have to stay at a hotel that night so we could have access to Tobi's online class at the University of Illinois.
The woman then LOST IT! She informed us that we had NO RIGHT to place our suitcases in HER ROOM (we had rented the entire apartment). She told us we had no right to clean out the fridge and throw out her medicine (which she showed us) It was not medicine it was ginseng (clearly not medicine)! She then went on to say that THERE WAS TO BE NO MUSIC IN THIS APARTMENT as it would disturb the neighbors. I compose with headphones! We also asked (before we booked this place) if it would be OK if I worked on my music while we were there and the daughter said "no problem". And here is the best part....she then started swearing up a storm, threatening us that her son was going to throw us out and then she started throwing our suitcases out into the hallway! SHE WAS TOTALLY OUT OF CONTROL. She would not listen to a word Tobi said. She also started pulling the table with my MASSIVE computer RAVE music station on it across the room. I had to physically get in front of her to make her stop so I could remove my computer.
So there we stood after being awake for 24 hours at 8:00 PM out in the street with no place to stay. For added effect the woman shouted something at me in Spanish ending with "Americano" while she slammed the door in my face and dead-bolted it. We also had to leave most of the groceries that we purchased that evening because we could not carry them out in addition to our luggage. Tobi found a taxi and we went to the hotel that we found with the internet.
Here is my VERY MASSIVE music workstation where we were clearly going to be hosting RAVE music parties in the apartment! Good thing the BS crazy mom nipped that in the bud! We might have brought down the whole town of Seville with my LOUD music coming through my headphones.
In the end this all worked out for the best. We met two very nice women and have now moved into a GREAT apartment. We can't stay for the entire 3 months in our current digs, but Tobi found another great apartment on the other side of the city and the owner walked us around yesterday and even helped us purchase cell phones that we could use while we were in Seville. We move into our second apartment on March 18th.
We did find a GREAT Gelato place by our hotel, so we did not suffer too much!
I am not done with Airbnb, who has been very silent on this. We want to know why we were kicked out. We had a three month lease. They are covering our cab and hotel expenses and did give us a 10% discount on our new rental, but we also wound up spending an additional $1000 for these two new apartments because listings were limited. I am far from done with the BAT SHIT crazy woman. She owes us some $$ so I can buy larger speakers for future RAVE dance parties that Tobi and I will be hosting! WE ARE GOING TO ROCK THIS TOWN!
La Plaza de España in the María Luisa Park. This is right by our new apartment and on our running route. It is a very large park with lots of running trails. We both went out for a run this morning and it was very nice!
La Plaza de España has beautiful paintings and ceramic tile work representing many Spanish cities.
More later...
