Solving Problems . . . Unsuccessfully

(I wrote this over a week ago, on March 29th, I think? Finally getting it actually posted because I was able to figure out how to pay for the platform after the two week free period.)

We completed our time in Oviedo on Friday, March 27, still pretty unimpressed with the city, and made our way to Gijon, the port city just north of Oviedo.  

Our first impressions of Gijon were that it had multiple points in its favor compared to Oviedo: beaches (obviously, as it’s a coastal city!), bike lanes, bike racks, better playgrounds, a branch of a ramen restaurant that Tui already knew he liked.  

And then, we got to the apartment we had rented.  

It was cold.  No central heating, only one-and-a-half working heaters, and the kitchen light wouldn’t turn on.  And, all of the drawers were musty.  And none of the bedrooms had exterior windows.  

If you haven’t spent time in Spanish apartments (I imagine this is similar to some other places?) that might need some explaining.  

Spanish apartment buildings, at least in the locations we’ve visited, are built with no space between them.  So, there’s like a solid city block of building, made up of multiple apartment complexes.  But, you can’t get enough exterior space to have windows on all of the rooms that need them that way, so there’s courtyards built into the buildings so that there’s columns of not-building in the middle of the buildings.  Almost none of the courtyards we’ve seen have been for using, like you can’t get to them to store things or play in or grow shade-loving plants in.  But, some of the rooms of your apartment probably face the courtyard.  Which is great because you have windows, but not awesome because, very likely, you never actually get direct sun.  Which matters greatly to the mental health of some of our party.  

Yesterday was our first full day at the apartment.  It was so cold in the apartment.  We tried to use the three space heaters they had given us, only to find that one completely didn’t work, and one only partially worked.  It took away the chill, but we were still struggling!  

We finally went out in the afternoon.  It was cold and drizzly, and we went to a burger place that had options for gluten free buns (for me, Sofia!)  

The food was fine . . . until Tui ate into the middle of his burger and found that the inside of the burger was literally raw beef.  Blech.  

This was the first problem I tried to solve.  We had been debating whether to try to do something about it or not.  So, I called over a wait staff and told her, “Hamberguesa esta cruda,” (my best estimate of “the hamburger is raw” - my Spanish is quite elementary.)  She said things back to me, which we all took to mean something like “Do you want us to get you a new one?”  So, we said, yes, to go.  We walked out of the restaurant, having paid for that burger, with a to go bag.  

When Tui sat down to eat it later, we found that they had just boxed up the raw burger that we had told them about.  Meaning Tui didn’t actually get any food.  And we had somehow messed up what they said fully enough to have had the vast miscommunication that ended with us walking away with a half-eaten, half-raw hamburger.  

That evening, we were back at the cold apartment.  

Problem number two that I tried to solve.  

We needed heaters.  And, for the sake of Morgan’s auditory sensitivities, we needed quiet heaters.  

So, I went out to the closest variety store a few blocks away and walked through the whole thing three times to see if I could find a heater.  No luck.  

I went back to the apartment to get Morgan’s mobility scooter and my phone and went to a store that I thought was a department store.  It was a grocery store.  No heaters.  

At this point, it’s past 8 pm.  Most stores are closed.  We haven’t made or eaten dinner.  But, I needed to solve this problem.  

(Oh, I should say, we’ve been asking for the managers of the rental to solve this problem, and they told us that the unit was advertised as being without heat, so they weren’t going to do anything about it.  This did not help anyone’s mood in our group.)  

So, I got out my phone and started searching for any search terms that I could think of that could get me some heaters.  After searching several options (home supply store, hardware store, department store, etc), I found a variety store that was still open with the word “Hogar” in the name.  I knew, from my work for a Washington State nonprofit called “La Casa Hogar”, that “hogar” means home.  Seemed like a good bet.  

I scooted myself to the store and all around the store and didn’t find any heaters.  Finally, I used my translator app to ask a worker if they had heaters.  Clearly, the word that the app gave me was not correct.  But, we worked out what I wanted, and she showed me the heaters, and there were two of the kind I wanted, silent, small radiant heaters, each for less than 20 euros.  OMG.  I could solve the problem! 

I scooted home with the heaters and we got them plugged in.  Next stop, dinner.  

I turned on the oven to bake chicken . . . and we lost electricity.  

Found the breaker, got the electricity back on.

Turned off a heater.   

Turned the oven back on.  

Lost electricity again.  

Gave up on the oven.  Lessened the number of heaters.  Used the (still electrical) burners to cook dinner.  

My solution to the problem of the cold couldn’t solve the problem because the unit didn’t have enough power running to it to keep us warm & let us cook food at the same time.  Aaaarg!!!

As I’m writing this, it’s the next day, and we’ve rented another unit in Gijon for the rest of the week.  It’s warm, it’s not musty/moldy/mildewy, and all of the windows face the street.  We’re (almost for sure) not getting our money back on the last place, so we’re wasting money on paying for a place we can’t stay in.  But, at least we’ll have enough resilience to actually be able to experience the city we’re trying to explore and get to know instead of just trying to deal with how miserable everyone is.  (Except for the almost 6 year old.  They weren’t miserable at all.)