Thursday, December 5, 2013

Dom Sweet Dom

Despite my laissez-faire approach to apartment hunting, I am finally free of Olga and Markus. Fate intervened and dropped a perfect housing situation into my lap, so I am now happily domiciled with a fellow Stanford grad and her Russian boyfriend. I am terrible at goodbyes, particularly in another language, and bidding “good riddance” to Olga went just as awkwardly as expected. She asked how much my rent would be at the new place and offered to charge me less, told me I’d be uncomfortable living with a couple, and assured me my room would be waiting if things went badly at my new place. She ended on the ominous note, “Лучшее — всегда враг хорошего.”

Me: Better. Always.  Enemy.  Of good?
Olga: Of course.
Me: I don’t understand.
Olga: Лучшее. Всегда. Враг—
Me: I know the words, but what does that mean?!

Though I finally figured out she was telling me “the grass is always greener on the other side,” I feigned confusion and ran away. It seemed more polite than telling her that she was the weirdest roommate I’ve ever had, and that includes a Basque guy who told me I wasn’t allowed to use the shower and a guy who played World of Warcraft 25 hours a day.

Although I have been in my new place for less than a week, it has already been a vast improvement on Chez Olga. Liz welcomed me with chocolate and wine, and her cat made a pet lover out of me in about a day. It turns out animals are good for something other than fur coats and food, and I am disturbed by the number of one-sided conversations I have had with Belka this week.

Belka in a bag (she climbed in herself, I was not trying to suffocate her)
The only negative I could find about my new place was that my room is always colder than the rest of the flat. Then last night I realized my window had been open for five days straight in subzero temperatures. It’s a wonder I’ve survived in Russia, much less life, this long.

4 comments:

  1. Congrats on finding a new apartment!

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  2. Hahaha, oh man, bad roommates. You seem to get the, um, interesting ones! Here's hoping your new situation works out better!

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  3. YAY BELKA!!! Posts about cats are the only thing that could possibly make me love your blog even more than I already do!

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  4. I feel like I should comment with a cat website just to put a cherry on top of this blog post.

    http://www.catsinsinks.com/

    You are quite welcome.

    ReplyDelete