Let me start out by stating that I am typing this from the shiny new hotel/apartment that Kris and I will be living in for the next month. It is great. It has a real bed in the living-kitchen-bedroom and we know that when we clean it, it will actually stay clean. It is more expensive than we would have liked from a month, but knowing that we will have a bed to come home to for the next four weeks is worth it.
Of course, getting here was not the smoothest ride. First, I must send thanks to Dev for even finding this place. Without your wild internet searches, we would be on someone's floor outside of town right now. Thank you. After getting over the initial shock of the price, Kris and I sat down and talked about how much peace of mind is worth. Apparently it is worth a lot. Unfortunately, one cannot simply book a room in this residency hotel. Because the rooms are booked a month at a time, the wait until one is available can actually be quite long.
On my first call I was told the first room that I could book would be available the 16th, and that it was the only one. Thankfully the woman on the phone spoke English, so I was able to ask why it appeared that there were rooms available starting on the 1st, not the 16th. She explained that the people in those rooms had not yet decided if they were leaving, and until they did you could not book them. If they decided to stay, the room would simply disappear from the website. If not, it could be booked on the 1st. This was the 29th of September. I am nothing if not a good listener. At 12:01 am on October 1st, the room became available. At 12:03, I booked it.
Kris and I breathed a collective sigh and got ready for bed. Just before closing my computer I noticed that the apartment was still listed as available. I clicked the link to book the room and found that it still worked. Kris told me I was crazy, but I became convinced that someone else had already booked the room and that we still wouldn't have anywhere to stay. Instead of falling asleep I worried. I worried right up until 9am when I called, and they informed me that the computer had made a mistake and someone else had booked it.
In the moments after my stomach bottomed out, the woman clacked away on her keyboard and apologized for the inconvenience. The clacking continued for a while and she told me that she would call back. I couldn't do anything productive for a while, so I sat on the unmade couch-bed and stared at a book. After about 10 minutes she called back and explained that another tenant had handed in the keys that morning and that she would book us that room instead. It was roughly the same price and would hopefully make up for their mistake. I thanked her profusely and wrote down the address where I needed to pick up the key by 3pm.
After telling Kris the good news I dragged all of our luggage up from the basement and started packing our miniature life back into the edges around the still-sealed vacuum bags of most of our clothes. I vacuumed the apartment, cleaned all the dishes, and put the room back in working order. Kris walked in the door at 2:15 and we walked out the door by 2:20 each with a backpack, carry-on suitcase, and grocery bag, not to mention the extra suitcase for Kris. We made it to the hotel just before 3 and plopped down in reception. The cheerful brunette who welcomed us by name disappeared into the back and emerged with the contract. She did not look happy.
She pointed to our bags looking confused and then to the contract, explaining that the room was not available until tomorrow. I explained to her what had happened this morning with the double booking and she nodded along saying, "Yes, I know. But the room is not ready until tomorrow." I asked why I had been told to come today and she responded that she was sorry, but that had been a mistake.
Looking back this seems like a small setback, but at that moment I felt that the only thing useful I had done here, the only thing I had accomplished, had been a waste. The staying up until midnight to book, the morning phone call to confirm, all of the packing and cleaning, and the dragging of suitcases all over the city. I tried and failed to remain calm, asked what time we could come back tomorrow, and left. At least I had taken the suitcases for a walk. And a bus ride. And a ride on the metro. And a walk up the hill to the hotel. Then down the steps to the lobby, back up the steps out of the lobby, down the hill to the metro, from the metro to the bus, and from the bus and back up the stairs to the apartment. At least it had been good exercise. We unpacked the necessary items, made dinner, went to visit another apartment, and went to bed.
This morning I called to confirm that the room would, in fact, be ready by 11. We re-cleaned the apartment, re-packed the bags, and took our luggage for another walk, bus-ride, metro, and walk to the hotel. Check-in went smoothly, if you ignore that the room hadn't been fully inspected yet and the contracts weren't printed. But in the end we had keys and a bed, and we were happy. We took another trip back to the apartment and lugged a second round up on public transportation, leaving only two large suitcases and a guitar to get in the evening with Fanny and Vic's car. We bought some spices and other basic cooking supplies, visited two more apartments, and came back to the tiny room that at least felt something like home.
I will leave the details of the apartment and its stoveinkerator for a post with pictures and simply say that Kris and I are feeling more like ourselves again. It wasn't smooth, but nothing here is going to be. We have three more apartment visits tomorrow, but at least we get to spend tonight in a real bed. Sweet dreams, and more soon.
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