The Residencia

I´m moving out of the residencia into a host family. It was a pretty spur-of-the-moment decision, and I made it at the last minute. The last day the program allows people to move is May 1, so that´s when I´m going.

I don´t hate the residencia, but I´m tired of it. It has a lot of silly rules, and sometimes it feels like the people who work there keep adding new ones just to make our lives more difficult. My room is pretty sterile since we´re not allowed to hang things on the walls, and there´s no real place to do work. That´s mostly my fault, since I could work at my desk if it weren´t completely covered in papers and dirty coffee mugs. But it´s also the only place to throw stuff if I don´t feel like putting it in boxes and folders, which I mostly just don´t. We´re not allowed to have guests in our rooms ever and in the building at all after 10:00.

These are all minor annoyances. The real problem is the food, which is a constant struggle. At the beginning of the month, we get 30 meal tickets for breakfast and 30 for lunch or dinner. Breakfast is fine. There are several options, and I usually get cafe cortado, a piece of fruit, and scrambled eggs with a little roll. We used to be able to get dulce de leche or queso untable to spread on the roll, but now it only comes with the toast option. We have to pay extra for it otherwise.

The other meal changes every day. On days that it´s good (salad with tuna fish, beef stew, potato-and-egg torta) there´s no problem. On days that it´s gross (hot dogs with fried eggs, fried beef with french fries) we can choose from three other options: chicken with salad, beef with salad, or pasta. I get the chicken, since I don´t like white pasta and the beef is almost inedible. But sometimes that means I have chicken for lunch and dinner two days in a row.

I tried talking to the owner of the residencia to get salad with tuna fish added to the daily options, and he told me it was too expensive. I pointed out that switching canned tuna for chicken couldn´t possibly cost that much, and he told me I didn´t understand inflation. Now he hates me, which is fine, because I don´t like him very much either. We can no longer get butter for the rolls that come with dinner without paying extra for it.

We´re also not allowed to keep any food in our rooms (although I do anyway) and the wireless internet that broke after the first week still hasn´t been fixed. I have to go downstairs to the computer room whenever I want to go online.

Reading over what I´ve written, it sounds whiny, and in all honesty it´s not that bad. The residencia was perfect for the first month. I was lonely and overwhelmed and I could walk outside and find someone else lonely and overwhelmed to talk to. But I miss my privacy, and I´m excited to have a kitchen. I don´t know what the family is going to be like, but I´ll find out soon enough.