TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18
The scenery on the commuter train to Coslada, where we will stay for the next three weeks with two cats, was incredibly bizarre. Soon after leaving the Madrid train station, the land flattens into a pancake of dry, hard, tan earth, scrubby bushes, and dry twigs poking out like errant hairs. Graffiti covers cement walls separating trains tracks from clumps of light red brick, small-windowed apartment blocks and industrial warehouses. Random piles of scrap metal litter the earth. The ride takes only 15 minutes.
COSLADA AND THE SUBDIVISION
Coslada is a suburb of Madrid but also a town unto itself. The new subdivision where we will be living is a mini city of high-rise apartment buildings in the making. It is a strange world of unfinished paved and dirt roads, cranes cutting into the pale blue sky, dusty, fenced fields, modern lampposts without lights lining long, wide, empty boulevards, lone benches for people expected to arrive. Only a few simple, modern high rise apartment buildings are complete, one of them where we will stay. When we meet Karin, whose cats we are caring for, she tells us the community isn’t expected to be complete for another 10 years.
OUR APARTMENT FOR THREE WEEKS
Our building, though mostly finished, is also mostly deserted. Karin and her boyfriend’s apartment is on the first floor. They are renovating, something Karin failed to mention before we agreed to the house/pet sit. Though we likely would have agreed anyway. But the apartment basically has no kitchen — no countertop, no sink and no stove. This for the holidays with Hazel. Oh dear.
Karin is sweet but high-strung , an expat who was born in New Hampshire, left to live in London with her English husband, then divorced, and now lives with her Spanish boyfriend. The kitties are named Mia and Willow. An oversized TV is the centerpiece of the livingroom. Karin showed me the collection of movies and live stations.
ACCOMMODATION ANXIETY
This all made us very nervous about accommodations. We didn’t want to find ourselves in some strange apartment in Milan for three months. When we got back to our Airbnb, the search began again.
