First things first

Girona, Spain

As I try to piece together what can be made of a desperate grasp at life in Europe I consistently run up against a problem with my land lord this year. At the start of this season I came over specifically with plans so that I could spend the year completely sane in an apartment that I felt comfortable in for the indefinite future. After several weeks of sampling different apartments and speaking with different agencies I found a place that overlooked the city with splendid balconies looking both east and west and furnished to rent with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a garage and everything in between… I even negotiated 50 Euros a month off the price. It was like an apartment dream, bundled into a little apartment present for Christmas. But then in the stocking above the fire or maybe in the fire there was a little flame called Francisco Gil. He is my landlord, and he is infamous and notorious as a hell monger. He pops up at the most inopportune times in an effort to impede anything that could be referred to as “your life.” At first I was sympathetic with his perspective thinking that if I owned an apartment and rented it out I too would be worried and weary of what my tenants were up to. But then he hammered on and eventually I lost my patience with him and began to feel like the poor helpless peasant under the repressive rule of ‘Franco’ the compassionate Spanish dictator. As of late I have made it my mission to overthrow his tyranny, and instead of cowering under his wrath I have had an audience with local authorities and taken my case to despatx d’advocats garriga pradas (attorney- garriga pradas). Not because I prefer to stay any longer in his apartment, but because I feel now that the unyielding nose of his in my life is a complete and total invasion of my privacy as a tenant in any country, and that he ought to feel what it feels like to be held helplessly against his will- whatever that may mean...