Soy Ana y vivo en La Macarena, en Sevilla. I just found the apartment yesterday. Macarena is far from Triana, but I think I like it better. I am living with Loli, who came highly recommended by Elena, which is how I came upon the apartment in the first place. I have not met Loli yet, as she is away on business and will be often, so I will sometimes have the place to myself.
One big problem is that there is no internet in the apartment. I thought that nowhere would have it, because it wasn´t common in Jerez, but most places do. I could get a quick connection for E30 a month... depends. There are not really any cafes or coffee shops with Wifi here. Besides, it would ruin the ambience of the awesome, social places these kinds of bars are. I saw one in Jerez last summer, but it was a really modern type of tea and coffee shop. That would be nicer than sitting here in the internet bar (just a room full of bad computers that are straining my fingers to type on.)
Anyways, it does have an oven, which is rare, though I managed to find a bakery like none other today - one that I think probably uses an actual wood oven (which people talk about here as being the proper way), and which makes awesome rye bread and croissants.

I am a little nervous about one thing, and that is the hot water. There are signs around the apartment asking the constantly revolving flamenco tenants to please observe certain things, all of which are reasonable. But there is a big "No" painted on the hot water heater pointing to the button that turns the heat up. It was set at such a low temperature that I might as well have been showering in cold water. As you know, I cannot survive in coldness. So I am hoping she will be nice, and not mind me turning it up.
The problem in Spain is that in general, people are much more frugal than we are used to being. They do not have enormous hot water tanks constantly being heated. They have a tiny thing that they ask you to please turn off after showering, in this case (so you have cold water to wash hands in the rest of the time), or at the end of the day, as last time I was here. I mean they even want the pilot light turned off, and the switch at the gas tank flipped.
There is no kind of heating except plug-in space heaters and the house is not warm. That doesn´t bother me - I can wear a sweater and plug in the heater, but cold water for a shower is unbearable.

Anyways, not a very interesting post, as typing is very rough going. Talk to you later.

Ana