We went on a tour of a mattress factory today. I was under the impression that we were going to see models of mattresses to make some choice, but no, the tour was solely to show us what a mattress factory is like. Memories of the crayon factory on Sesame Street came flooding back (minus the music and bright colors). We got to see everything from the wire coils being formed to the neat patterns on the mattresses being sewn.

And in response to my Dad, yes, we would go on a toilet factory tour too if they let us.

I tried to take some stealth pictures, because I felt to nerdy to ask if it was okay. Instead, I just felt like a corporate spy.

Lee's clearly a little bored given the minute-by-minute updates. That's what I get for leaving her home alone while I'm off in Milan being cool for the weekend. The pertinent and humorous posts will return on Monday.

(Just kidding Lee. Keep on bloggin)

This is really something else. The salesman from the second lock meeting actually showed up early for his appointment. Of course, right after he arrived, the first [very tardy] saleman decided to make his appearance. I told him to come back in a half hour. Now, he's 20 mintues late for his second meeting. MCM locks? I don't think we're off to a good start.

Scratch that. It is now only 10 minutes until the second guy is supposed to show up. These meetings are going to coincide. Perhaps I should propose a bake off? I wonder if that's customary in the Spanish electronic lock market...

I think there's going to be a duel. Today, I scheduled back to back meetings with electronic lock suppliers. I scheduled them an hour apart, figuring an hour is sufficient time to hear all there is to know about electronic locks, and escort one sales guy out before ushering in the other.

Of course, that plan figures that the first guy will be on time.

So, it's now 10:44 and the MCM locks guy (who was due at 10:00) will surely run into the Benidorm locks guy (11:00) in the hall. Maybe his bid will reflect the fact that he's in clear competition? Perhaps this should be our strategy going forward.

Lee and I are moving out of our old apartment and into a really great new place a block away from the hostel. So we've spent the day showing our current apartment to all kinds of random strangers - trying to hide our piles and piles of shoes, killing any bugs before they see them, playing off our nosy neighbors as "friendly and caring," etc. I posted the apartment on loquo yesterday and had 14 people call within an hour. I think I might start dabbling in apartment rentals. Realtors here get a fee of 10% of the first year's rent. 1,200 euros for the work we did today? Where do I sign up?

The only thing I'm going to miss is the noise coming from next door that sounds identical to the noise in Sim Tower when the elevators went up and down. It was really inspiring my work.

By my amature opinion, construction went along pretty quickly in the first week. Here are some before and after demolition pictures so you can see for yourself -

Front rooms Before

Front rooms After (+ Lee)

Lobby Before

Lobby After

Bathroom Before
Bathroom After

We got the basic "don't call us, we'll call you" at our casting call today. I'm not sure we're the future faces of La Caixa, but we'll see. We did, however, manage to finally eat at Quatre Gats, which was right next door. It's a really iconic Barcelona place where Picasso and all his friends supposedly hung out. I'd highly recommend the Menu del Dia for 12 euros. Decent food, cool surroundings, great location, and local businessmen who like sharing cava with American "tourists." We dropped a little como se llama on them, and I think they realized we're locals.

We stopped by the hostel today to check on progress. Lee and I were both blown away with how different the place looks. I'll put up some before and after pictures tomorrow. It's great to start getting a visual of what it'll be like. The guys working enjoyed the cold 4:30pm beers we dropped off too.

Lee's sitting on the floor next to me with her computer wide open trying to clean out all the dust. The phrase "I think putting together a computer looks pretty easy" just came out of her mouth. I should stop writing and intervene.

Day 3 of construction, and things seem to be progressing without any serious issues (from the neighbors or otherwise). Lee and I are trying to stay away from the site so our contractor, Clive, doesn't start to think we're pesky. We'll probably drop by tomorrow with a few beers to say hello and see how things are going (ie butter them up a little).

We've spent the past two days putting together our giant To-Do list of everything we need to accomplish in order to open. So far we've covered outfitting, management, marketing and finances and we're already up to 162 projects. Technically, we could be opening in only 14 short weeks, so it's a little daunting.

In the meantime, Lee and I are going to a casting tomorrow to be in a national print ad for a Spanish bank tomorrow. We saw it advertised and figured it could be kind of fun. I always wonder who the Joe Schmoes pondering their mortgage options in the La Caixa ads are. They're looking for average looking 20-30 year olds, so we probably won't make the cut due to our definitively above-average looks. It should be funny though.

Maybe he has a nut allergy? No way he didn't like the cookies.

After the initial shock of this man's comments wore off, and I could manage to close my mouth again, we've decided firmly that we're not letting one crochety old man (and the people he's paying to express his crochety-ness) to get in the way of our dream. So construction will continue as planned, and we'll deal with the complaints/town hall/police/eggings as they come

Hey - at least i'll make more for more interesting material for the blog.

I guess somebody didn't like our cookies...

We're starting construction so yesterday we decided to remind the neighbors by leaving a letter in their mailboxes along with our contact info. Before we did this, we made a courtesy call to the Presidente of the loosely-affiliated renter community. During our earlier cookie meet & greet campaign, we only met his wife. We wanted to take the opportunity to meet him and get his approval to put the notes in the mailboxes.

Como se dice mistake?

Our warm American smiles and Wall Street apparel did nothing to impress this guy. In the millisecond before he slammed his door in our face, he managed to shout at us: I'm against this! We're all against this! We don't want a hostel! I can't talk to you! You'll be hearing from our lawyers.

Fabulous. Stay tuned for the next chapter in Us vs. the World...

Evidentally there was an earthquake in Barcelona at 9:20 this morning measuring 3.2 on the Richter scale.

Didn't wake me up!

We're signing the contract with our contractor on Monday and officially starting construction on Tuesday! I can't tell you how exciting it is to know that we'll actually be running our own hostel in just 3-4 short months (barring all unforeseen disasters, of which I'm sure there will be a few). I'll put up some before pictures on Monday and then some after demolition at the end of the week. I'm thinking about adding a link on our website to keep a construction update as well.

Meanwhile, we're busy comparison shopping for mattresses, key card locks, signage, etc. I've started to put some posts up about the hostel on different travel websites. We've already had quite a few reservation requests that we've had to turn unfortunately. We are taking reservations starting June 2008. You can book online at Gomio.com. Hopefully the opening date will be more like March, 2008 but we're being overly-cautious for now.

I made a definitive discovery of where my eat-til-i-vomit gene descends from - a little place in the north of Spain called Asturias.

This weekend was a marathon food-fest. On Friday I started out thinking this isn't bad, there are worse things to be force fed than arroz con leche (rice pudding). Boy was that point proven when they busted out the pig tripe the next day!

There's a very fine balance between complimenting the chef and expressing so much interest that you're served more. Not taking second and third helpings is a personal affront. If you even so much as glance at a piece fruit, it will be cut up on a plate in front of you before you can say no gracias. I needed a serious lecture in "Just Say No" before I went.

All in all though, it was a great time. It's nice to know that we have family, no matter how distant, just an hour away by plane. Plus it's fascinating to imagine what life would be like if my great-grandfather hadn't punched out the factory foreman in a bar and been forced to move to the US to look for work...

We're off to Asturias early tomorrow morning to reconnect with our familia espanola. I'm counting on plenty of fabada, queso cabrales and sidra (spanish cider). This should be interesting given the highlight of our last visit there was chugging sidra with my grandpa's 70 year-old cousin in my face yelling "Come on, you're a Gonzalez! Drink!"

Hopefully I'll be back safe and sound Monday with an update.

First construction bid in right around where we expected! Good news for us. The project will not be coming to a grinding halt (not this week at least!)

Lee and I are taking Catalan classes offered for free by the government of Catalunya. We loved our first level class, but now we're on level two. We went from head of the class to the bumbling idiots in the corner. Our new class is full of people who have lived here for 15 years and speak Catalan daily with all of their friends and coworkers but have only now decided to formalize their education.

In class today, our teacher told me that my pronunciation is good, but I take too much time thinking about the words. Uh, no kidding. Considering that this time last year I hadn't even heard of a language called Catalan, I think I'm doing a fine job. It's probably a good thing that I couldn't think of the words fast enough to say that out loud.

Just another day at the office........taking photos of ourselves doing fake work.