Amply-piso'd

So, I'd been keeping a blow-by-blow of the new lows in Madrid housing (and had a couple to add to the list), but tonight I write to you, dear reader, from the comfort of an armchair in my sitting room/salon/study.

Last night, after having met up with my friend Matt, who's been nice enough to let me crash on the (miniature--too short even for me) couch of his (also miniature) attic apartment in La Latina, and having gotten sandwiches, my cel phone rings. It was someone with a room to show me. Since the room was on the way back to Matt's apartment, I told the woman that I would stop by within five minutes.

I saw the place and knew that this was where I needed to live.

It's a second-storey apartment with high ceilings and crown molding in an 1860s building on Calle de la Cava Alta, right off of Calle de Toledo, a block away from the La Latina metro stop. It's a hip, night-lifey district; there's a restaurant on the first floor of the building where my rooms are.

That's right, rooms. My bedroom has a window; the study (for such is its current use, as I am writing this in it) has a balcony. Neither the window nor the balcony really look out onto anything (they're interior rooms, so they're just facing light wells--they're pretty big light wells, though), but the balcony has beneath it the kitchen for said restaurant on the first floor, so a lot of good restaurant sounds and smells fill my room.

I haven't even started to unpack yet.