It's a relief to know that gas boilers don't explode. I was worried about that.

I didn't get the name of the woman who checked me in. She was a woman of late middle age wearing tight jeans. I kind of got the impression that she worked for the building rather than for Sevilla 5, because I saw her opening closets in the hallways where cleaning supplies were kept.

In the United States people tend to expect those with Spanish surnames to speak Spanish. Spanish is much more of an important world language than Polish. People here don't expect those with Polish names to speak Polish.

Perhaps it's because most of the Latin American immigrants raise their children to speak both Spanish and English with varying degrees of success.

The European immigrants tended not to keep the language of the old country. Many of them had such problems themselves trying to learn English well enough to get jobs and fit in with American life that their main concern was raising their children to speak English without a foreign accent. Nobody was traveling much in those days, so they didn't consider that it would be nice if their children could speak both languages. They did what seemed right for them at the time.

As for what was wrong with the apartment, there wasn't much of importance. I felt I got good value for what I paid. There were a lot of burned out lightbulbs. Usually I'd just go out and buy new ones, but these had a different size from the normal standard socket, and I didn't want to mess with strange electricity, so I just used the ones that worked. The bed sheets and blankets although clean were rather old and shabby and should be replaced. The television set was very small. I didn't bother with it much, but a woman in the next apartment claimed hers got only a few channels and asked me to try to fix it.

All in all, it was actually better than I anticipated, you don't get much apartment for your dollars in Europe these days, so I have no really serious complaints.

Next year I'll go to Buenos Aires and live in luxury.