So here is the glorious facade. Eh not really what caught our eye in the first place. At this point, the key is the red and blue "En Alquiler" (for lease) signs. Location is terrific though. Rambla Catalunya two blocks up from Placa Catalunya - for those of you that have visited.

Here's the lobby of the building....much better

The existing (brothel) lobby...We've got big plans for this space. I think our taste levels might be a little different. This will be our reception/bar area. The plan calls for knocking out the wall on the left. Our architect's talking flat screens. We're thinking more like ipod speakers. I'm sure we can meet somewhere in the middle though.


One of the rooms. Again, big plans.

And here are the architectural drawings. Obviously the photo I took of them doesn't do much justice. But it's proof that I'm not just taking pictures of the insides of buildings and pretending I'm opening a hostel. I couldn't make this stuff up. I barely got through 7th grade CAD.

Barcelona is a city full of history. Every building has a story. Every apartment has its past. And so does our place. Believe it or not, our future hostel will be on the site of a former brothel. That's right - red painted lights, intercoms to every bedroom - a full on brothel. That bodes well.

Everything seems to be coming along nicely though. Our architect, Paul, spent a few hours in the place today looking everything over. He's come up with preliminary blueprints. I took some photos that I'll post later on.

Happy Feast Day of St. John the Baptist!

Oh, we don't celebrate that in America? Well it's huge here. So huge that most Catalans drug their wound up dogs because the fireworks all day are so out of control. Or at least that's what our buddy Josep told us. It's 10:30am, and I haven't heard any yet. We thought someone actually threw a firework into our apartment yesterday, but it was just an exploding can of coke that we accidentally left in the freezer.

So we're heading up the coast today for a barbecue and some Catalan fun (courtesy of our American friend Amy). I guess the ritual is to swim in the sea at midnight.... like a baptism of sorts? Not sure who's on lifeguard duty. It coincides with summer solstice. It should be a fun night of general merry making.

Oh and hello to the two people that actually read this - Mom and Kelly. Thanks for the love.

Offer officially accepted.

Slight panic setting in.

Wow. So we came to agreement on preliminary terms of the lease today and put a deposit down on a place. Lee and I definitely laughed and high-fived for about five minutes while they left us alone to "think over" the counter offer. We'll hear officially if our offer has been accepted tomorrow morning, and then we start working on a final legal agreement.

I got a friendly present dropped on my head courtesy of the neighborhood pigeon posse on the way to the meeting. People always said that was good luck, and I rolled my eyes. I think I'm a convert.

I wonder what the dying baby bird waiting for us at our apartment entrance on the way home meant then??

We just made another offer on a place today. Hitting the send button was very nerve-wracking. I guess part of me still can't believe this is real and probably won't until we have our first paying guests. I keep telling Lee that I won't be able to breath easy until all of our guests actually wake up after their first night staying with us. Until then, red wine helps.

So hopefully I'll have happy news in the next post, but I'm getting pretty good at drafting the "nope, it fell through" emails and posts. Fingers crossed!