A collection of firsts: Cohabitating edition :)

A collection of firsts

(in Romania, of all places)

➵ Cohabitating edition ☼

1. First time living with 5 strangers. 

I have to admit that I got super lucky with it, but I sure loved it. I cannot complain about my lovely fellow mushrooms, they have been and continue to be my greatest companions throughout this experience. We have laughed, cried, screamed, and traveled together. We ate (God, did we eat a lot!) food together, take away, ordered in, or homemade, we've stuffed our faces with it all. We did groceries and house equipment shopping like a proper family. We got drunk together, and suffered through terrible hangovers together. We all dirtied up our decadent though well-loved apartment, and then we mostly cleaned up together (or after each other, in some instances). We switched furniture and even bedrooms sometimes. We shared everything: bedding, clothes, hygiene products, snacks, confidences, you name it. We survived bugs invasions, cold, heat, darkness, and even the house we were living in falling apart in front of our very eyes! (But more on that to come...). 

2. First time dealing with cockroaches.

YES, you got it right, C O C K R O A C H E S. 

Disgusting, resilient, enormous f***ing cockroaches that caused more mental breakdowns among us than I bothered to count. My only advice if you ever find yourself in the same circumstances is: RUN. No, for reals now... RUN. 

Okay, you know what, it's not so dramatic. The sad thing about it, actually, is that you kinda get used to it at the end (emphasis on the "kinda"). I will forever cherish the majestic video I managed to take on one of the many nights when we found one (right in the middle of a Sex and the City marathon, of all things, AND when the boys are out!) and it included all of us jumping on chairs and sofas, even Polish Karo, who's supposed to be the bravest of us all when it comes to icky things like this. 

Now really, here's what you do to try to keep your house from becoming cockroaches central: KEEP ALL of your motherf***ing surfaces C L E A N. Seriously guys, cannot stress this enough. Scrub, pick up food scraps (all of them!), vacuum and make sure to generally keep your walls and floors nice and dry. Also, try to close your windows and doors, especially at night, because I'm telling you, these bi***es come crawling from outside. Finally, spare some money to get the most powerful poison around and just do a full sweep. 

I mean, we kind of failed in exterminating them all (to my great chagrin) but we did get to a semi-happy place when we're luckily only spotting the random cockroach once in a while. It does get old to get so freaked out about it after a while anyway, or so I hear. 

3. First time a bunker bed collapsed, (thankfully) NOT with me lying right on top of it.

Now, guys, in all honesty, I'm no Kate Moss, but JESUS H CHRIST beds are simply not supposed to self-destroy during the night while you're on a pee-run, in my not-so-modest-but-still-kinda-traumatized opinion. Now, thankfully I was not sleeping on it when it happened, and bless everything my roommate was not in the room at that moment, but I promise you it was a terrifying sight to come back to. Also, the noise did not help; I thought the ceiling must have come down or something! Anyway, this says a lot about the condition volunteers' houses are generally in when you embark on an EVS adventure, so beware of creaking furniture because it is most definitely not your friend!

4. First time having to live without electricity for 5 consecutive days. 

Yes, it happened. No, it was neither mine nor my flatmates' fault. Yes, your next guess is probably right. No, I do not want to talk about it. Let's just say that it's hard to find free charging stations in Romanian cafés and that showers and warm water are a truly important thing, even in full winter. Also, H E A T I N G systems are underappreciated. I rest my case. 

5. First time having in the flat and regularly using a projector to watch stuff together. 

Yup, that's just as awesome as it sounds. Living room, crisps, beer, projector on, lights off, and flatmates all around you. That's the life, my friends.

(Btw, we were supposed to bring the projector back to the office ages ago, but my guess is that since the flat was basically falling apart, our org. let us have it. Thanks, and sorry not so sorry!)

6. First time having to scream out "GUYS! WATER, PLEASE!!!" every time I tried to take a shower for months. 

First time I had to run to respond to the same desperate cry like 5 times a day, too. What can I say, blabla, the apartment sucked, bla bla, the heating was broken more times than not, whatever. It was all worth it. Plus, it was one of the rare struggles we managed to win! It got fixed sometime around April and now it only rarely fails to deliver hot water. Ain't that something to be grateful for? 

Yes, once more, welcome to Romania. 

7. First time stealing items from the streets and/or other establishments to furnish a house (that was already pretty filled up with trash anyway).

I plead the 5th on this one. Anyway, in the mushrooms apartment, we call them souvenirs, not loot. 

8. First time inheriting so much random shit from previous tenants. 

Like, I'm talking serious random guys. Letters, funny-smelling alcohol, funny-smelling sheets, frames, weird-ass pieces of art. We've seen and played around with it all. Even rearranged it to suit our tastes, at times. Mostly we threw it out though, to make space for our own personal garbage. Ah, the charm of the EVS life!

9. First time receiving complaints from the neighbors threatening to call the police on us. 

Oh yes bro, a lot! Thank God, parties never escalated to that point in our apartment, but it's pretty common for the effing SWAT team to just show up randomly at 2 AM on a Friday night on your doorstep, so be careful of not pissing your lovely neighbours off toooo much. Believe me, I have witnessed it with my own eyes. They sure do love calling 1213. 

10. First time living with my boyfriend. 

Yup, that statement is just as mindblowing as the cohabitation has been so far. More to come on that in future posts. For now it suffices to say that with the right person, every disgusting place can be home.