Life in a shared flat

If we don’t take my family into account, I have never lived in a shared flat before. I mean, of course I have been on holidays with friends and spent half a year in New Zealand in youth hostels, which is kind of similar. The difference is just, that I always changed the place after a few days and therefore was not close to them or created a kind of society. But now, I live in a real shared flat abroad. I always wanted to live in a shared flat, because I don’t like living on my own. In Paris, I had to, because I didn’t find a shared flat and I really hated it. Coming home and having no one there. It was easy to notice as I always had someone over at my place or was staying at someone else’s place, even overnight. I am really happy of having found one in Portugal and then such a nice one! I live here with four Portuguese students, two guys and two girls, all more or less of my age.

We share a big kitchen with a gas herd, table as well as a dining-living room with a bigger table, couch and TV. I share my bathroom with one of the girls and have my own room, which is about 13 square metres big. I even have a heater and double glas windows, what a luxury! The guys share another bathroom and one girl has her own. It is quite well solved and no one ever has problems with occupied bathrooms. My room sadly goes to the north, so I don’t have much sunshine, which is especially in winter a big problem.

I live about 10 minutes with the bus, which leaves directly at my doorstep, from my university and if I go on foot, it takes me about half an hour, which is also good.

When I arrived, I was not so convinced by sharing a flat as the kitchen was pretty dirty and I started with cleaning it. It was mostly a consequence of the fact that it had been holidays and no one was home. They seemed to have forgotten some vegetables and fruits in the fridge, which had started to rot. I cleaned everything and felt directly better. I have to say, that our fridge is definitely too small for five people as everyone only has little space and I almost have to buy food everyday as it doesn’t fit much in the fridge. As no one was there, I just decided to occupy some space in the fridge. The upright freezer could not serve for me as it was so completely frozen and full of stuff of the other flatmates. I don’t know, who has what in there. But, it also didn’t get less. Maybe they keep provisions for the apocalypse there. I don’t know. A few weeks later, I would defrost and completely clean it as well. Afterwards, I actually had some space to put things in there. Before, there was so much ice that I almost couldn’t even open it and it took me hours and several hot water pans to defrost it. I took some of the dishes and put them in my shelf to be sure not having to wash them every them before and after I use them. Actually, we also have a dishwasher, but until I came no one even thought about using it. We then started to sometimes collect all our things or at least use it, when someone has more people over.

They also told me to lock my door, when I leave the house. Not that anyone of our flatmates would steal, but sometimes when more people are over things already disappeared. I was not really amazed by that. Always locking my door. I had imagined it a bit more familiar and easy. The problem actually is that my lock sometimes sticks and I can’t open my door. Later, I would be forced to lock the door, as my lock would be broken and the door would not stay closed without locking it, especially, if the wind was blowing.

Some of my flatmates allowed me to use things of theirs, if I needed and I thought it very kind of them. Especially as there are some things, you don’t want to buy, only for using it for some months.

We almost never cook or eat together. A few times, one of my flatmates said, they cooked too much, but would leave for the weekend and couldn’t finish it. So I could either eat it, or they would throw it away. Or they cooked too much, if I wanted to join them. With one of my flatmates I had almost regularly dinner. At first, we met by chance in the kitchen, but later we already knew, when the other would be there and joined each other, when we heard them. Eating together then also means, each of us eats her food and we just sit and talk together. But then often until late in the night. One time, I sat longer at my homework and came later to eat. There, she already had finished and excused herself that she didn’t wait for me. She had thought, I was not home and was so sorry. It was so sweet, as we didn’t even have an appointment. But, it was just already a ritual. Eating together, drinking tea and complaining about life. Just sometimes, if I really have a lot of stuff to do, I try to avoid meeting anyone, because if I do, we all talk a lot. In winter it got even harder to see each other as I always had the door of my room closed to keep the heat inside.

Actually, it is not as easy to meet someone as I thought and also having time to talk, when you meet them. We all have different timetables and they mostly go home for the weekend. On my way to university or back, I often meet them and we say hello, but when I have time, I often don’t meet them for days. Pretty funny actually, living a shared flat with five people and feeling alone. Sometimes one of them stays for the weekend, but often I am completely alone. And the flat is really big for one person. One time, I heard strange noises and locked my door, just to be sure. And always when I am alone, a grumpy, old man appears at the door, mumbles something about water, when I got that right? I let them enter and hope that they know what to do as I didn’t understand anything and also I have no idea about what is where in the house. Luckily, they always know.

One time, suddenly a really loud noise started in the kitchen, it sounded like an alarm. Of course, I was alone and couldn’t find out what it was or how to stop it. I called my flatmates and my landlady, no one answered. I knocked the door of several neighbours, no one opened. After some time, I found someone to help and explained them in Portuguese what was going on, which was hard as I didn’t know what was going on. Finally, the came to my home and found out what it was. It is an old system, where you had a button in each room to call the maid, which had her own room. And some room was calling. They told me to just disconnect the button, but we couldn’t find it and they supposed that they had just removed them. After trying some time to find a solution, we gave up and just cut the wire. Problem solved.

Another thing is the washing clothes. Always, that I want to wash my clothes the washing machine is full, but then also for several days in a row. And during that time, no one is at home. To dry your clothes, there are some wires in front of the window, but honestly, I know exactly that mine will fall down and I have to find out where to search them and then explain the owners in Portuguese what happened and that I am too stupid to hang up my clothes. No thanks. I just dry them inside, where the wires are also constantly occupied. Same with the dishes. As no one uses the dishwasher, most of the time, the sink is full with dishes and exactly the ones I need are always dirty. But I don’t start washing after someone else. I always wash my stuff immediately. Ok, then it might stay some time on the drying thing, but there it is not in the way and if someone needs something, they can just take it.

Normal shared flat situations, I would say! I know from many people that they have the same situations and I have to admit that I like exaggerating. Always makes a better story.

But, apart from that, I really love may flatmates and also their partners. We get along really well and they are always ready to help me. With anything. One of them goes shopping with me, when I can’t find the things I need, the other one explains all kinds of stuff, his girlfriend calls me the taxi or corrects my essays in Portuguese. That, they almost had to do all of them. Correcting my essays. But, it was really helpful and also during normal conversations they would correct my language. Now, they say I have improved so much and speak already very good.

Sometimes, we are like a family. We help each other and we alternate the general washing. We get along very good and I always try to get us together for dinner, which never works out as we are all busy. One time, I sat in my room, coughing – it was beginning of winter – and my flatmate knocked at the door, offering me some cough drops. So sweet! Another time, his girlfriend came to borrow my hairdryer. One time, my neighbour girl came to ask for an eyeliner as she had lost hers. Now, I know at least how it is called in Portuguese. Everyone is also very thoughtfull about the others. Always thinking about not making too much noise and telling beforehand if it gets louder, if they have visits, or someone stays over night.

I really learn a lot here and improve my Portuguese everyday. I am so happy of having found this flat and having got to know my mates. They all told me to stay longer than the initial six months and that is what actually happened. I will write more about that in another post.

But, I can tell you, that I changed room with one girl, who left for her Erasmus and would come back, when I leave. Like that it is easier to find someone for my free room. With her, I had a goodbye dinner, where I made typical German Kässpätzle. Actually, I wanted to have everyone together, but we didn’t have time at the same day. It was really nice, actually the first day, we both talked a lot, because we rarely met before.

Her room is a little smaller than mine, but has better isolated walls, against noise and coldness. I also have my own closed balcony, which isolates even more against the airplanes and is good for drying my clothes. The big wardrobe with big mirror is also a nice plus.

Now, in March, another of our flatmates is leaving and we made a dinner together, we really did it! I don’t know how we managed… He cooked for us: curry with apples, chicken and rice. It was really good. We had some wine and talked. I liked it so much. That was what I always had imagined.

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