Mel and I have decided to call our flat the Rehab Centre, due to all the drug addicts who have come to apply for residence. The first person who came was some freaky mono-browed Goth who growled under his breath and barged in and barged out. The second guy (he was really weird) was a homeless guy who looked at least 30 but claimed he was 24. He came in, peered for ages into our bedrooms then started mumbling stuff about being cold, it being October and money. I think he was saying he had money to pay us. When we said we´d let him know, he started asking us to find it in our hearts to let him stay just for the night. Since he wouldn´t leave, I finally told him we were going out so he had to leave and was preparing myself to pick up the coffee table in the living room and bashing him on the head with it if he wouldn´t go. And then calling the police. He was Druggie #1.
Druggie #2 was a gaunt looking woman with perspiration shining on her face, one single fat dreadlock running down her back and pieces sticking out of it, a shiny red wig perched on her head and a mullet haircut that you could see from under the wig. She said something about coming off medication and leaving the hospital and needing somewhere safe to stay at night. (What kind of ´medication´, I wanted to ask). But she was very polite. When she said she had 100 Euros to pay for the rest of the month, I said she´d need at least another 125 for the bond and her face dropped but she thanked us and left. Then Druggie #1 came again, pretending to be someone else and begged us to give him a chance.
Druggie #3 was by far the worst. He was actually a drug dealer, so he told me, after the landlady wouldn´t let him stay because he had no documents or ID and only a passport that didn´t belong to him. After he came to look at the flat, we told him he´d need to call the landlady and talk to her so he did that immediately and claimed that he was going to her place straight away to make the contract. But at around 7 pm, he came back and told Mel that he´d spoken to the landlady and even though he didn´t have the contract yet, she was allowing him to move in. I wasn´t home, but since he had all his stuff with him and she didn´t want to just leave him on the street, she let him in, then went out to dinner. So when I came back, I found this guy moving in his amp, electric guitar, clothes etc. I was in a very bad mood. While I was talking to him, the landlady called me and told me to ask him to leave immediately, but he said he´d go over and sign the contract and after he´d visited her, the landlady called me and told me to not let him in the house at all, since he´d told her all these lies and didn´t have any documents at all. She said she´d suggested calling the police on him and he´d panicked and left. She kept talking faster and faster and getting more and more worked up, very cute. I think she feared for my life.
However, when he turned up, since all his stuff was in the house I couldn´t very well not let him take it, so I let him in but he started making dinner in our kitchen, the bastard. And leaving a mess. And then he told me what the landlady had said, and how he´d had all these illusions about living in our flat, and how beautiful my smile was and how he´d felt a connection between us the first moment he saw me. I was like, wow, you are deluded. He also asked me if a had a boyfriend and I said yes, thank you and I love him very much but he leant in anyway and asked for a kiss. Bloody nerve. That was when I messaged Mel and asked her to come home immediately. I would have gone to lock myself up in my room but I didn´t trust him to leave him alone in our flat. And then, (I think he was seriously deluded), even though I´d made it very clear that I wasn´t interested at all, he said ´Wow, it´s hot in here´ and took off his shirt. Very hairy and pale and unattractive. That was when Mel and Alexis came back and I nearly wept with joy.
He was going to leave his stuff and come pick it up the next day, but Alexis asked him to take it and he looked pissed off but said he´d come for it in half an hour. An hour later, he called me and told me he´d come by the next morning. I told him to come at 9:30, but by 11:30 he hadn´t come, so I called him and he said he´d come by immediately. Three phone calls and five hours later, I told him that if he didn´t come immediately, I was throwing all his stuff on the street.
He left his pet tortoise though, and all his plants because he didn´t have a flat and didn´t have anywhere to keep them. Oh yeah, and before he left, he´d asked me if he could leave a package in the freezer. The way he´d asked it was a bit shifty, and I remembered what he´d said about being a drug dealer, so I asked him what it was and he hurriedly grabbed it and said it was nothing. Moron. I can´t believe he tried to keep drugs in our flat.
We had a very normal Spanish student who actually signed the contract, but he got offered a job in his home town so wasn´t moving to Logroño after all. There was also a very tall cook with tattoos all over his arms who came to look but I didn´t feel comfortable around him. And a working woman who stank of smoke, a girl who never called back and a painter from Morocco/New Orleans who looked very blingbling-ish and had red eyes like he´d smoked too much weed.
I think our housewarming dinner went pretty well. It was a bit hard with the international people and the Spanish because the Spanish spoke too fast for the internationals so the internationals reverted to their own languages, but when you're eating you're not supposed to talk anyway because then you either talk with your mouth full, which is disgusting or you miss out on the food. The Spanish are alcoholics. There were 14 of us, 2 bottles of champagne, 1 bottle of white and around 6 bottles of red and they were pretty much all finished by the Spanish end of the table before dessert was even served. I wish one less person had come because according to Agatha Christie, if you have a table of 13, the first to get up is the next to die. And I wanted to see if it was true and who it would be.
Reuben was supposed to try my hakarl (the putrefied sharkmeat I brought back from Iceland that I put in the freezer) but in the end, only Timon, Beza and I were brave enough to have some. Go us! We rock. We could only eat a piece each so I put the rest back in the freezer for when Lisa comes to visit. (Timon: Mmmm, I'll have some more thanks. Cath: Please, kill me now. Beza: Quick! I need gasoline!)
Yesterday, The Fellowship of the Ring was on TV in Spanish. Frodo Baggins became Frodo Bolson, the orcs became orcos or orcas and Gimli the dwarf became Gimli el enano. I usually hate dubbed versions because the voices are so incredibly irritating (the females are always high-pitched and whiny and the men sound constipated) but this was pretty good. Still don't like Frodo. He's so useless in the film.
