The sun is blazing away outside but in my poky, stifling little hotel room, all is dark and depressing. So I've spent the last couple of days flat-hunting with Aline and her brother. As anyone who's ever rented a flat anywhere will know, you get a mixed bag, although not sure anything will ever match the place in East London with no power points and an outside toilet. But I digress.
The first place we looked at was a hilariously awful Seventies nightmare. It was a hellish vision - through nasty smoked glass - of pensionable leather sofas and faux mahogany, all dimly visible through a stale but potent fug of fags. The "American kitchen" the owner proudly presented to us included a fridge whose age and state of health resembled Fidel Castro's, but the bedroom was the last straw.
We walked in to see such a hideous "futuristic" bed with bizarre dials and plugs all over it that I very nearly got the giggles. I'm smiling now just remembering it. The mattress was brown and white with added stains, and the landlady didn't even try to tell us any of the bizarre switches and dials worked. God, it was repulsive.
There was also a staircase leading out of the living room which ended at the top in an MDF wall of similar robustness to the fridge, plus another door which turned out to lead to a second bedroom full of more sub-car-boot junk, which was to be kept locked and out of bounds. She did generously promise to lend us bits of it if we needed to accommodate passing friends, but my Portuguese wasn't up to declining on the grounds that I want to keep my friends.
All this, and a mosquito-ridden canal-stroke-sewer outside, for a hefty 750 reais per month. We got the hell out of there, wondering how on earth such a bargain was still on the market. *shudder*
However! I think I may have finally found somewhere, for a much more reasonable R$550 per month. O frabjous day!
It's filthy, and all the furniture is ancient and cracked, but it's also spacious, light and airy. Most important of all - and uniquely so far - it has the all-important balcony! With hooks already in the wall! My cup runneth over. Or it will when I get some G&T in (local weirdness: a bottle of Gilbey's here is about 2GBP, but Gordon's is nearly 15GBP. Que?)
Anyway, it also has the standard 24-hour porter service, which is actually quite a bonus because despite being less than 10 mins walk from Aline's flat it's definitely on the borders of some rather dodgy areas. People are *paranoid* about crime here, and I can understand why - on about my third day I was in this internet cafe at about 3pm and a woman came in crying, having just been robbed. Eek. Aline insists on driving me the 200m back to my hotel if I leave her flat after dark, and given her horrible experience of car-jacking some years ago I don't argue.
Anyway. The flat's also 15 mins walk from the beach and I am SO looking forward to getting in there. So I'd best be out of here.
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