Leaving Barcelona Like the Colts Left Baltimore

The story you are about to hear is true. No names have been changed to protect anyone.

Eduardo can't leave the dining room without straightening all eight chairs

Cast of Characters:

Giovani - Owns two apartments; ours and another one upstairs. Currently in Brazil.

Eduardo - Minion of Giovani. Lives in upstairs apartment. Overseeing our apartment.

Angelo - Former apartment mate. Now lives upstairs.

Matt and I signed a lease with Gio to live in his apartment through the end of May. Part of the lease was that we agreed to a set of House Rules; which are, basically, to clean up after ourselves, keep the noise down in the late hours and take turns cleaning the common areas of the apartment once a week. Fair enough. There are 9 people living here, so you want to keep things tidy.

Well, Eduardo, who is an obsessive/compulsive, likes to leave notes on the whiteboard in the kitchen when he feels the place isn't up to his cleanliness standards. Here are a few instances of what he considers dirty. Someone left a bottle of water on the coffetable overnight - note on the board. Someone left a couple dirty dishes in the sink and went to work - note on the board. We had a party on a Saturday night where people brought snacks and drinks. The leftover stuff was left on the dining room table on Sunday for anyone to help themselves to - note on the board. Then a reminder was put on the whiteboard that we all agreed to the House Rules and that we need to follow them. This pissed everyone off, because no one saw these as problems. Now, everyone is pissed at Eduardo, becuase he's being a busybody. A busybody who DOESN'T live here. The atmosphere in the apartment was getting pretty bad, so Matt and I decided to send an email to the owner asking him to help resolve some issues.

Eduardo can't leave the living room without symmetrically straightening the pillows on the couch. The pillows, as they are in this picture, would kill him.

In addition to asking Gio to have Eduardo back off of his cleanliness crusade, we also had a problem with Angelo, the former apartment mate. When he moved upstairs, he found a friend to take over his old room. For some reason, Gio allowed Angelo to keep his key to OUR apartment so he could visit his friend whenever he wanted. We didn't think this was right and we said so.

We got an email reply from the owner. It basically said that Eduardo was acting as his agent while he was in Brazil and that he had free access to our apartment to enforce the House Rules. In addition, he told us that Angelo was a "trusted friend" and that he could keep the key to OUR apartment. Needless to say, we weren't happy. Then, Eduardo paid us a visit to discuss the email we sent. I won't get into the whole argument, but it ended with Matt calling him a liar and kicking him out of our room. He had it coming. This happened last Saturday.

This pain-in-the-ass living situation, in addition to some other factors, has lead to our decision to cut our Spain adventure a little short. We're coming back to the States at the end of February.