I have been hearing stories of how parents of grown-ups (as in
engineers/ graduates etc) accompany their offsprings when they get a job in
some other city/country. My mom says that’s fine as long as parents have the
money and time to do that…..but lately I heard an incident that a girl did not take
up a job as she didn’t get a decent long term accommodation in the city.
So I thought I might pen down some of my house hunting stories
for a perspective and to tell them not to worry…the worlds not as bad, if you
got the courage.
I have been working outside my hometown since my
engineering.. and I had to travel outside the country quite a number of times
for work as well. And since I travel for 2 or 3 months, getting an
accommodation is real tough but I don’t budge till I get them… And I being a miser, always hunt for a less expensive option with a kitchen (well that’s because I want to eat healthy :) )
Though my first countries of work visit were UK and NZ, searching accommodation
there was not a challenge as advertisements were plenty and got colleagues to
help …the challenges started in Singapore.. I paid $100 for a small hotel room
without windows! We got hold of a broker the day we reached who showed us Tamil
households settled in Singapore who rents out a room for guests. I had a
fantastic colleague who gave me the confidence to check out from hotel the next
day of reaching Singapore, saying that we will definitely search something that
day…so the next day morning I checked out from hotel and went office with no clue where I will sleep that
night :p. After office we looked around for a suitable PG and got one around
10:30 in the night (after about 3 hours of looking around)…my friend got one as
well. We came back to hotel to take our luggage and shifted that night itself.
Phew!!
Then the same situation repeated itself in Australia, in
fact it was much worse. Hotels were claustrophobic and food was a problem. I
had no help. I started looking into Gumtree sort of ads and went searching….and
man, was that scary!! I went to a carpenter’s house. There was one Israeli
couple staying in one room, one was for himself and one room was available. At
first I saw the room which looked kind of ok to stay and then I walked into the
living room - there were huge loads of scrap material and dangerous tools
scattered around. It freaked me out! He told that someone has died and left all
these for him. I ran for my life, I mean who leaves scrap in will for someone? Then
I went to another house of an old couple…the lady was not at home and a cat
welcomed me. Then the man showed me around and was looking at me with huge
strange eyes ..I ran from there too. One situation scared me with a faint
forecast of “Saw” :p , and the other sort of “Psycho” :p :p. If you know what I
mean ;) . Then after some more hunt, finally got into one motel with kitchen in
a studio apartment…
Then I went to Netherlands. What a beautiful country that
is. But there again I paid about $120 for hotel room …that was not me :) . So I checked out
next day morning. And searched for BnB online…contacted quite a few over phone
but none was available for 3 months that I needed. Then I got in touch with one
lovely old couple. They came down to my hotel to meet me in the evening. There
was huge language problem, but somehow I understood that this is as well not
available for full 3 months. In between about twice for 3-4 days I have to
look for something else…but that’s obviously not a problem.. they took me to
their place in their car and once I liked the place( oh it was a beautiful
farmhouse! ) they again did another trip to get my luggage…I met the loveliest
of people there from different European countries and my hostess there(the old
lady) used to call me her third daughter after 2 of her own. I am still in
touch with them and would never forget their kindness. You wouldn’t believe - I
didn’t carry enough woolens (it was awfully cold) and her son who ran a
business of garments, got me 3 woolen pairs to keep warm! It was like family… And then the time came
when I had to step out as the place was fully booked and I found out another
BnB which belonged to a Dutch miser…he had kept the attic room on rent too and
I took it! Miser dealing with another miser you see :p… got a fair bit of
scolding from family and shifted to a proper room the next day :).
Oh the next time I went to Netherlands I was in Hague which
is the capital city and quite commercial. In Netherlands , there are these
Surinamis ( Surinam is a Dutch colonized country beside Brazil which had many
Indian labour workers from Bihar and they have now migrated to Netherlands.
They speak Bhojpuri and Dutch ) and I found a PG with a Surinami lady who
married a Dutch. Man, she was mad! I went directly from airport to her place.
She hadn’t even bothered to clean the room. All her luggage was strewn around and
the room didn’t have a lock! Every night I had to keep my luggage beside the
door so that in event of any mishap , it takes time to open :p….then I objected
and got a lock done. Just when I was kinda settled there, one night around 12 o
clock there was a huge fight downstairs in the family. It was so loud and unusual I went and saw that the son of
the Surinami lady was abusing someone badly in Dutch and the lady and her
husband had a horrific scared look on their face. I was scared to my life as I
felt there might be a murder in the house that night …I kind of slept for few
hours in the night and next day around 6 o clock the lady knocks at my door and says that- I will have to leave that day itself, cause she is as well leaving for some
trouble in the house…can you imagine! I made a few calls in the day and found a
man who rents out flats for short term as well. He took a bomb from me for a
studio apartment but I got another girl who agreed to share…all in a day as
usual!!
These might not be ideal cues to take from, but these along
with other travel experiences of mine teach me 2 things-
First- We’ve got to have faith!
And second, we need to take a lil bit of risk, if we need deals! After
all risk is what keeps us young :)
Comments