Air BnB is like Blind Dating

You just have to take your chances

In late May, early June of 2019 my partner, AleXander, and I spent two weeks traveling from sea to shining sea across the Iberian peninsula. We landed in Barcelona, took the high-speed train to Madrid and Toledo, bused it down to Granada and on to Sevilla and had a car and driver for the last leg of the journey to Lisbon with a stop in Evora, Portugal.

Amazing food, brilliant sights, awesome people and so many opportunities for my continued spiritual growth. I’m looking at you, Airbnb.

This is not going to be a surprise to anyone, even those who have never used the services of Airbnb, but whatcha get is not actually like what you might think you’re going to get based on those glossy, sun-drenched photos.

Right up front, I need to admit to a certain ambivalence about using Airbnb as well as finding that the entire “sharing” economy leaves a bad taste in my mouth. While the sharers are busy, busy, busy trying to earn some side money (or I guess main money in some people’s cases) the usual suspects are raking in the real money.

I’m the woman who sticks to buses, subways, and the very occasional yellow taxi. Left to my own devices, I won’t use Uber, Lyft or even Via. I won’t support interests that do an end-run around paying employees and providing health care insurance in a country where health care is a commodity. Hell, I’m the socialist waiting in line at CVS refusing to use those disgusting machines to check out.

Allow me to put my soapbox away now.

In Barcelona, we rented a room in a Super Host’s apartment in El Ravel neighborhood on the far side of the Gothic Quarter. Of the five cities we stayed in on our trip this was the one place where we rented a room in someone else’s apartment.

It was awkward

The apartment was tiny and, frankly, kind of run-down and smelled a little…off. We shared one bathroom with our host and his family.

The room itself was as advertised: clean and comfortable with the promised private little terrace. We arrived as the family was eating and it felt like such an imposition.

Our Super Host and his family only spoke Spanish but we managed to communicate through Google Translate and hand gestures.

There were a few glaring discrepancies between what the glossy, lovely Airbnb page offered and what was actually there.

The promised “dryer” (from the page: This is one of a few places in the area that has this feature) turned out to be clotheslines out on that terrace.

The “queen size bed” wasn’t. The room itself was much smaller than the photos made it appear but that’s to be expected.

We were clearly in the nicest room in the cramped little apartment. The rest of the family, mother, father, giggling ten-year-old daughter and a friend of hers staying overall spent most of their time in another bedroom down the hall from ours.

Occasionally we’d come in from our day taking in the glories of Barcelona to find them all wedged into a tiny side room that seemed to be both the dining room and living room.

It was especially awkward coming in very late at night and trying to be quiet with all the locks and doors.

Bad and happy

We left Barcelona on the AVE high-speed train and arrived in Madrid just in time to have missed our tight connection to Toledo. We were so happy to be heading towards three days and two nights in an apartment all to ourselves that we didn’t care. We hung out in the station in Madrid, read, I journaled and we arrived in Toledo well ahead of the 10 pm sunset.

Our Air BnB host in Toledo didn’t live in the city and had his father handle the guests who stayed in the apartment. Pablo, who didn’t speak English, was waiting for us at the train station with his mini-van.

This was our first, but far from last, experience of drivers zipping up and down narrow Medieval streets while forcing pedestrians to flatten themselves against the walls. When Pable turned up that first incredibly narrow street I couldn’t believe it. I thought it was for people on foot, not cars.

Pablo parked the minivan in a tiny plaza and we trundled our luggage up an even narrower street to the building. It was tucked in next to another building that was being extensively rebuilt.

The apartment was curiously laid out with interesting little hallways and a “pocket wifi” area that was limited to one chair by the front door.

We were so happy to have space to ourselves that we didn’t care about anything else. Until we went to bed and could clearly hear the people in the next apartment chatting.

Not talking loudly, mind you, just conversing. Because they were speaking Spanish, we couldn’t eavesdrop but we did hear every word clearly.

Yes, yes, we were part of the reason that this perfectly comfortable little apartment wasn’t available to some nice young Spanish couple trying to find a place they could afford to live in Toledo. We were so happy to have space to ourselves that we kind of didn’t care. Sue us.

Then the construction work started at 8 am the next morning. And when I say construction work, I’m not talking jackhammers across the street or pounding and power tools over there somewhere. That place being rebuilt was practically on top of the building we were staying in and the sounds of heavy construction were all but actually in our apartment. So, I guess any practical young couple looking for an apartment in Toledo would have passed on that one.

On to Granada

Granada was the one place we stayed on our trip where we opted for a hotel rather than going the Airbnb route. And this was because it was impossible to get the highly coveted day passes to the Alhambra without having that as part of the hotel reservation. So we booked a room at the Hotel Posada del Toro.

I kind of hadn’t realized I was having a quiet little underlying itch at taking advantage of the “sharing” economy until we checked into our room in Granada. The minute we got to our room that niggling sense of unease was completely gone.

We had saved aggressively for well over a year to afford this trip without relying on the credit cards. We’d scrimped on things that we would have liked to do and even with all that frugality, we couldn’t have quite managed to stay in hotels in Barcelona, Toledo, Granada, Seville, and Lisbon.

But for three days and two nights we gloried in our unique and very comfortable room in the Hotel Posada del Toro. Back in Toledo and here in Granada, we discovered that thick walls and serious light-blocking blinds eliminate the need for air conditioning. Siesta during the blazingly hottest part of the day in our cool, dim room was heavenly.

Back to the sharing economy

We took the bus from Granada to Seville where we met our host and were shown to another apartment all to ourselves right in the heart of the city. Our host was busy but very kind and the apartment was quite modern with all the amenities.

We got nicely settled in, pulled the light-blocking blinds for the afternoon and went out into the day. Or tried to. I can’t remember what we forgot, but when we tried to get back into our apartment, the key didn’t work. We tried everything, every little jiggle and pull you can imagine.

No go.

Finally, with enormous reluctance, AleXander called our host who generously returned and showed us the jiggle we hadn’t tried to get that key to work.

After that we were golden. Curiously, our building was part of a small section of the city that was gated. The heavy wrought iron gates were open during the day and locked at night so we had one more key to figure out when we’d come in late which we did every night we were there.

On to Lisboa

In his research for this trip, AleXander discovered a service called Day Trips that is essentially a type of long-distance Uber. The drivers were local men who used their own vehicles to drive you from one city to another, making any stops you are interested in along the way. So much for avoiding the sharing economy, I know. I know.

Albertino was right there to get us early on our last day in Seville and off we went to Lisbon. He was Portuguese and, in our conversations, it was clear he didn’t think much of Spain or the Spanish. He told us he was a journalist who couldn’t make ends meet with that work so he supplemented his income driving for Day Trips. What. A. World.

The reason AleXander wanted to go to Lisbon with a driver was so that we could stop in Evora, Portugal. He’d been to the Chapel of the Bones there in the ’80s when he and his partner were backpacking around Europe for six months. It made an impression. You can see why.

Albertino was great and we learned a lot about the history of the area as well as the politics. There was an election coming up and banners everywhere sported the hammer and cycle with the Communist party in good shape to win.

Our Airbnb apartment in Lisbon was in the Alfama district, the oldest of the five districts of the city. It is famed for its many (many) bars and restaurants featuring Fado singers and is the very picture of old Europe with its steep winding streets. Our hosts called their Airbnb apartment “The Crooked House” which was quite apropos. The stairway up to the second floor was dark, cramped and kind of sinister-looking but the apartment itself was a curiosity and a delight.

The apartment was strangely laid out with little steps up and down in unexpected places and shallow balconies overlooking the street.

Our host’s manager met us there and the host had left us a bottle of wine (which AleXander was unable to finish on his own; lightweight).

There was also a high-tech burglar alarm system that had to be programmed when we went out and released when we’d get back before being able to actually gain entrance to the apartment. Tricky, but not bad.

We’d scheduled ourselves to have five beautiful days in Lisbon. Our dear little Crooked House was right up a steep street from the Fado Museum and we’d arrived just in time for the annual Fiesta of Lisbon. This bore an uncanny resemblance to the Feast of San Genarro which happens in the fall here in New York City on the lower east side. Lots of booths, lots of booze, lots of singing and food and prizes and loud music.

Before I lost my great-paying day job we’d begun planning our next trip abroad to Thessaloniki in Greece with a quick flight up to Kyiv for several days. While we did do some initial Airbnb research, we also determined that hotels in both cities, especially Kyiv, aren’t prohibitively expensive. If I’d been able to keep that position or find something comparable, it’s likely that we’d have opted for hotels for our trip.

That said, our experiences with Airbnb apartments were on average quite positive. Our hosts were helpful and responsive. The apartments themselves, while offering some surprises, were mostly fine. They were certainly clean and any unpleasantness was generally not something our hosts could control.

So you pay your price and you take your chances with Airbnb and just about every other thing when it comes to traveling or just life in general. Who knows, someday in the not too distant future some nice tourists from Belgium could find themselves bedded down in our modest apartment in the heart of Manhattan!

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