William Wallace - hero of Andalucia

Ok, so the apartment in downtown Ogijares fell through. All that speculation I posted in the last blog entry about being able to share an apartment with Ricardo never got off first base, so I carried on looking elsewhere.

I liked the look of La Zubia. It's a large village or small town (I don't know how you draw the distinction) pretty much adjacent to Ogijares but perhaps a mile or two nearer Granada. There were some nice looking apartments up for rent so Chris and I made appointments to see a few of them and took the opportunity to check out the nearby amenities.

We found it to be a nicely quaint yet unpretentious place. Plenty of shops, public spaces and good bus routes into Granada. We found a pub, astonishingly called The William Wallace. Is there no getting away from the man? If I'd stopped to think about it I'd not have put much faith in a Scottish themed pub in this part of Spain and as we walked in I was prepared to be faced with some ghastly faux plaid wearing bagpipe playing local, with a face covered in blue woad who would immediately detect my Englishness and run me out of town. Chris had no such reservations. Inexplicably 'Braveheart' is his favourite film and how delighted was he to discover a bar owner (very much an Andalucian) shared the same exhalted view of this Hollywood piece of tripe. His photograph, showing him resplendent in his tartan kilt, stood proudly behind the bar.

In all fairness it's a great boozer. Magnificent tapas, easy going atmosphere and encouragingly packed with locals on what was otherwise a quiet day in town. There's a huge downstairs nightclub area the manager was very proud of but it was shut and he was unable to show it to us.

Well, I really liked La Zubia and I quickly identified the apartment I wanted. A top floor 'piso' with amazing views over to Granada, three bedrooms, and some (admittedly dodgy) furniture. The asking price was within budget. In addition, I discovered an English language school at the bottom of the street so I felt incredibly upbeat about things.

So, all of that was on Saturday.

On Monday we returned to the town to view a final apartment. It was in the same street as my favoured one, in a similar block, but was on the ground floor. It was slightly bigger and had yard space out the back. The furniture was better and it had air con which I can imagine to be a life saver out here through July and August. The owner of the property is a real character. He is a joiner and told us proudly that he had 'built' the William Wallace. He then showed us his right hand which was missing a finger sawn off with a chainsaw during the WW construction.

Ok, the apartment's a tad more expensive than I'd have liked but I bit the bullet tonight and put an offer in via a crudely typed Spanish text message. I knocked 15 Euros a month off the asking price and my offer was accepted! In a couple of days time I'll be a La Zubian. How cool is that?

In other news I almost got my bank account sorted out today (you wouldn't believe the nonsense that has to be waded through) and I give my first private lesson tomorrow at 17:00. It's to a lady in Granada and I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes. I go from giving the lesson to going over the contract of the apartment. Should be a fun evening.