In my small New York apartment I have old wooden floors. The kitchen floors have been painted years ago by a previous tenant, white. The floors in the living space and my bedroom have kept the normal dark brown color. Original wooden floors are beautiful, but if they’ve been untouched since the 1960s it’s safe to say they’ve past their prime. To put it bluntly, my floors are dirty. I could clean them twice a day and that still wouldn’t take away the random holes, scuff marks, food stains, and water marks. On top of this, they collect all kinds ddg (dust, dirt, and grime).
In my large Madrid apartment I also have wooden floors. However, these floors have been newly laid and you won’t see any stains from the past. Although the floors are clean, they still collect ddg. In Madrid I sweep the floors daily, collecting all the ddg that has come in from the open windows. I also mop. Now if anyone knows me out there, they’ll know that I’ve never been a cleaner. I’ll clean every once in a while, but daily, well, no, not my thing. But because my apartment in Madrid is what the Spanish would call, de lujo, I like to keep it as it is, perfect. Also, I should mention in Madrid I have a roommate, who I’m going to call V. And what I’ve noticed is that cleaning and Murcia, where she’s from, go hand-in-hand.
A quick digression.
My roommate, who is my friend, used to live in the apartment next to us. Her old apartment is also filled with our friends (3 girls who I’m going to refer to as G from England, L from Murcia and M from California). Pretty much if you were to come to Madrid and stay with me, you’d think I was living in the t.v. program “Friends.” The doorbell is always ringing, we go over if we are out of milk, they come over if they need a spare can of tuna…You get the picture.
Back to the point.
Anyhow, what I noticed is that V and L always wear house slippers. And V and L are always cleaning. Like I said, Murcia and cleaning are friends. So after a couple days of watching the process it goes like this. V enters the house, takes off her shoes, and puts them in the closet. From the closet she takes out her house slippers and puts them on. V only takes them off to get in the shower or put on her street shoes. I also monitored L for a day. She did the same thing. I thought about it for a while and decided it made sense. I went out to the chino bought myself a pair of house shoes and since that day never went back.
Now, in New York why would I want to bring the street into my apartment. Especially since my floors are nasty to begin with. Every night in Madrid at 11 p.m. the government sends out the cleaning crew to wash down the streets, and dispose of the trash. In New York, well, that doesn’t happen.
Mission 2: House slippers
I’ve come to love house slippers. They actually remind me of my grandmother. I remember she always wore beautiful, somewhat lifted, slippers around the house. Always. So after searching through my luggage, I finally found my light blue, chino bought, house slippers. And, yes, they are on my feet right now!
Mission 2 Accomplished!
by 
They do the same thing in Turkey!!