The landlord was over the other day; he's actually been over every couple of days lately since we are trying to get some appliances straightened out. We are very fortunate that he is truly a nice and honest man who has been very willing to work with us on everything we've brought up thus far. ((and he scaled our patio to let us back into our locked apartment on day one)) When we signed the contract T agreed to put in a proper microwave at his expense and split the cost of a dishwasher with us since we would leave it behind when we moved. This was great because then we could go pick out what we wanted and T gave us a few leads.
When we moved in Mark and I walked around the house and decided that this time there are things we will budget into our life that are not worth living without. One of those things was a tumble drier. The past 3 years have taught us that we do not like the scratchy feel of hung dry clothing - go figure. We had a pretty decent washing machine that was left by the last tenants and had begun making good use of it. In early conversation we also talked to T about splitting the cost of the drier with us and we would leave it too. We quickly discovered that the washer had a decent dry cycle on it that soften up the clothes off the line just enough so there would be no need for us to buy a drier but we had not yet relayed that to T. 1 week into our stay the Washer started blowing a fuse in the house. The first time was late in the evening while Mark and I were on different sides of the house. We quickly w/o panic of being in a strange place or confusion about what to do we grabbed a flashlight and met each other at the breaker box. The Washer spent the next 2 or 3 days intermittently blowing fuses and freezing up mid-cycle. When our second load of clothes got stuck in the machine we broke down and called T. He was out the next day with a repair man who ended up not being able to fix it. :( During the attempted repair T realized as well that the machine had a dry function and a drier would not be necessary if we could get it working again so he scheduled a different man to come out the next day. In the meantime T was also trying to scheduled the installation of our Microwave and Dishwasher. Luckily all the visits about the Washer had allowed us to agree on a Dishwasher that he had found and it was much cheaper than the ones we had seen thus far. {{I'm painfully temped to go off on a tangent about the price of things here but I will try to refrain and touch on that later}}
The next Repair Guy was also unable to repair our Washer - T left and said he would bring one from another property he had and be back within the hour (he felt terrible that we had been a couple days without proper equipment). He indeed returned within the hour with a different machine and removed our English model. This "new" machine was scary. It was much older, smelled, was stained with what looked like mold on the inside rim of the machine, had no user manual (more important over here than you can imagine), had fewer program settings and no dry function. T had obviously took note of this because when arrived the following day to have the Dishwasher installed, to our surprise, he brought with him a new Dryer (at no charge to us). We had already decided that we were going to wait a few days and let T know that we were not happy with the Washer and we would by our own, on our own but this new act of kindness had tripped us up and we were now speechless as we watched the installation guy lift the Drier -practically on his own- and set it on top of our icky Washing Machine. We will now have to rethink our Laundry situation and visit it again later...
On this latest visit we were chatting with our Landlord T and expressed our frustration with our inability for find basic household items like a water kettle, a coffee pot, small furniture like an entry table or bathroom storage, etc and he starts spouting off stores not just in our neighborhood (which we have explored with little to know luck) but fabulous stores we had not yet discovered during our internet searches. With a little bit of new hope fueling our wings we took off late Friday afternoon to discover this shopping mecca. We did not hold our breathe because I had found many stores online thru message boards that promised great things and did not deliver! In fact, I had been moping around the past couple days because we have not been able to find anything besides painfully overpriced toasters {{uugghh - one day...}} But when we passed this new store we got excited because we stumbled on a small electronic/appliance store which had multiple choices of almost every appliance we needed - In fact it had better and cheaper versions of the few items we had already bought!! We were SO happy! We picked up a much needed Blender and an often heard about but never seen (in Malta) Rice Cooker!!! Oh joy! We even, almost found a Cappuccino Machine but they didn't have the color we wanted in stock so we passed for the moment. After an hour of roaming thru this little piece of heaven we wandered back up the road to the store we had actually drove out there for....
When I walked in my chin hit the floor, my pupils dilated and I wouldn't wipe the smile off my face! This store was 4 levels of.... beauty. A smaller but very well appointed Ikea wanna be. :D It is not a 100% replication but close enough to give us hope that we will be able to finish furnishing our house. We only had a couple hours to peruse but found a couple of small pieces that we planned on coming back for but that night bought a lamp for the living room and more importantly a fully automatic cappuccino machine {{mmmmmm}}. We closed down the store but vowed to come back in the coming days to re-look at some stuff! On our way back home we passed even more good looking stores - I think we have finally found a pocket!
----Fast forward a couple of days-----
We have tried to visit a couple of these other stores but this place has crazy working hours so it is taking us a couple of attempts to get in there and look round. A very large majority of stores close between 1-4 during the day and then close for the night around 7pm, are only open until 12:30 - 1pm on Saturdays and are rarely open on Sundays.
We are adjusting to the Washing machine since the smell is now gone and the mold stain doesn't seem to be going anywhere but it still freaks me out every time I open the door. The drier isn't used much because it doesn't seem to dry any faster than hanging the clothes on the line outside. The microwave has now been installed and although we are disappointed with the lack of digital-ness it is pretty and works really well. We haven't used the Dishwasher yet because we still need to get some soap but it is on the list for today. The new Coffee Machine is fabulous and looks great! We have even finally found a storage shelf for the guest bath and a regular sized trashcan for the kitchen. :)
At the end of the day we are settling in nicely, everyday we find something new - great adventure.
{{It has taken me 3 days to do this post & I'm not sure I want to proof read this one either. :) Don't worry, I'm sure over time I'll be able to get to the point much faster and w/o all the crazy details.}}
It is now time for us to get thru the shower and get on with our day but first one more "caffeine solution" from my husband's new kitchen gadget.
Cheers!
xoxox
That is a good looking beverage. Sorry to hear getting supplies has been so hard. But yay for finding the better store. Maybe you can still hang your clothes to dry and then toss them in the dryer to get rid of the scratchy feel. Love you both.
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