roommates: old vs. new

Before my Grecian adventures, I moved out of my apartment to crash with some friends. I then moved in with the Italian duo of Lucia and Pietro. I may have already mentioned their culinary talents that I appreciate greatly. On top of that, it's great to finally live with people around your own age, or at least from your generation.

Which brings me to Abdel, whom I believe I promised to write about quite a while ago. My former 'colocataire', Abdelkader (as goes his full name) was a 50 + Algerian who has lived in France for most of his entire life. His grisly black hair was speckled with natural, silver highlights. He often wore it tied back in a sparkled piece of cloth. He had a beard of similar colour and texture. His sunken eyes were a deep, dark brown surrounded by aged, leathery skin.

A know-it-all by nature and through his many experiences, he loved to show me how to clean, cook, and just about anything else. Those of you who know me know I did not always appreciate being told what to do and how to do it. Cleaning all pots and dishes with douses of bleach is not the way I would go about it myself (especially when you can later taste it in the food, blech), but it seemed perfectly sensible to him.

However, his handiness was often helpful. For example, when I blew a fuse blow drying my hair with the wrong converter, he spent the next ten minutes testing all the ancient fuses to finally fix the one I messed up. And then time I

He was a stickler for a clean sink, yet never cared to wash the lonely hand towel once over a span of 3 months. As for the bathroom, he also loved to smother it in bleach, but was never one to clean his brushed hair out of the bottom of the sink.

His relaxed demeanor was increased the (many) nights he enjoyed his raspberry flavoured hookah. I could quickly tell the difference between the nights where he had to go to work at 5am the next morning and the days where he was clearly not. He worked as a bus driver for the regional buses in the area.

My other roommate was a radio DJ and librarian in her early 30s. I rarely saw Marie-Pierre as she spent most of her time at her girlfriend's place in the nearby town of Béziers.

An interesting living experience to say the least.