The Story of the Vacuum Cleaner and Other Mishaps

My life would not be complete, and I would not be who I am, if I did not have many awkward and hysterical occurrences in my life daily. These do not only occur in the U.S., but also in Spain (and probably more frequently haha). Since I’ve come to accept my “dumb blonde” status, I wanted to share some of these stories with you.  As many of you probably already know, when I was in Sevilla last year, I had a small issue with trying to use our vacuum cleaner. Unbeknownst to me, you actually had to plug it in for it to work! I spent over an hour trying to figure out how to turn the stupid thing on, and never once thought that if I plugged it in it would work haha. Now in my defense, the plug was a retractable plug and was hidden underneath and in the back of the vacuum. So when my roommate came home and asked how the cleaning went, I had to explain to her that I didn’t know how to use it. She gave me a funny look, pulled out the cord, plugged it in, and bingo! it worked. So here are some more stories just like this one that have happened to me since I have gotten to Spain (and remember that’s only been a little over a week).

-       While staying in Madrid for orientation, I had to use the restroom during one of our breaks. We were having our meetings downstairs in the conference center/rooms, so there was a bathroom downstairs. I tried to open the door by pushing (as most doors open that way), but sadly did not succeed. So instead of just moving on, I shoved and shoved thinking that I could get it open. My friend Juliet just stood there laughing at me, while everyone else stared. Then the idea hit me, what if I pulled instead of pushed? Hallelujah it worked! But no, the embarrassment did not stop there. I was so flustered that I just made a fool of myself trying to open a door that I saw a stall and just walked right into it. After going to the bathroom, I came out to wash my hands and saw urinals on the wall. Then a guy walked out of one of the other stalls. I had inadvertently walked into the men’s restroom! Needless to say I booked it out of there, ran into the girls bathroom (which was in the same door just on the other side) and proceeded to wash my hands there as if nothing happened. I’m not sure if anyone saw me, but if they did I’m sure they’re still laughing about it as I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off.  Moral of the story: read bathroom signs before walking into them!

-       Most people think that you can only get locked out of a flat, but no you can locked inside one! When I moved into my flat on Monday, one of my roommates was there but was leaving right away so after I finished putting away my stuff and talking to my landlord, my friend Nell and I were going to look at a place for her. When we tried to get out we couldn’t! I guess with our flat, if someone is inside you can’t lock it from the outside or they are locked in!  So yes, we were locked inside my flat with no way to get out because our landlady was with us and both of my roommates were gone and weren’t answering their phones. Luckily one of my other friends was out and about so we had her come to my place, threw my key out the window to her and she was able to unlock the door. Moral of this story: don’t lock your door if your roommates are inside!

-       Washing machines are pretty self-explanatory and easy to use right?! Not in Spain they aren’t! Our washing machine has the entire alphabet on the dial and you must choose the exact letter that you want for the cycle for it to work. Easy enough?! Still no. I put some of my laundry in to wash and turned it on thinking that it was easy. Well it stopped about 5 minutes later and I knew it wasn’t done, so turned the dial to another letter hoping that would take care of it. After about 7 times of me turning the dial to another letter and praying that it would work, I thought I had got it. When I finally got the door open, water spilled all over the floor and flooded the kitchen! Apparently I hadn’t set it to the spin/drain cycle, so there was still water in it. So after mopping up the whole kitchen I figured I would know which one to turn it to. Wrong again. After that was done and I opened the door, water came spilling out again.  Needless to say after consulting with my roommates, we decided we should ask our landlady. After a frantic call to Pilar, she showed us the correct three letters (why does there need to be 26 on there I ask you). Moral of the story: don’t wash your clothes in the washing machine unless you are absolutely certain of the alphabet!

Hopefully these make you feel better about yourself and I’m sure there will be plenty more stories to come!