Despite what Lauren may lead you to believe, it's not all fun and games here in Catalunya. Right now, we're anxiously awaiting construction bids from three contractors. They're due in on Friday but we've already heard that one local bidder won't be ready until next week. I'm afraid that may be a sign of things to come. This week, Lauren and I are taking over/under bets on both the price and the time budgets. Email us if you need any color.

In the meantime, we're making serious contact with suppliers. By serious, I mean we make sure we aren't in our PJs when they stop by for a meeting. Lauren was a little too gung-ho when she sent out an all-call email in February to a legion of potential suppliers. To our dismay, they took the liberty to stop by our office [read: apartment] at nine a.m., unannounced. We've set up the room we've painted in the hostel as an office so now we conduct all of our official business there.

The man we met with last week about electronic locks must have been impressed because he waited 10 minutes before he asked us if he could "tutearse." Senorita Burke, our junior high Spanish teacher, once explained the formal "usted" form as something you'd use to talk to President Clinton. Flash forward to the present- I'm meeting with a sixty year old man in Barcelona, talking about electronic locks in my self-decorated ikea "office", and he wants to know if he can drop the usted form? !Ay Caramba!