I thought this was a cool picture of last night's celebration of the Eurocup win. I couldn't get it any bigger, but it shows all the revelers in Placa Espanya. I sense some social commentary behind the "Felicidades a todos los ESPANOLES."

Viva Espana!

It'd be a quiet night Sunday night at the hostel except for the fact that it's the EuroCup finals! This is the first time Spain has made an appearance in twenty some odd years so it's quite a big deal. While there's a little debate whether or not Catalans care to revel in Spanish football glory, here at Somnio we're equal opportunity fans.

Our Digital+ cable package is finally paying off. It's not a crazy crowd tonight but our buddy Jim stopped by. We also have some Thai and Japanese guests enjoying the game with us. No one knows the rules so our house color commentary is pretty bleak. Earlier, a British guest kindly informed us that this tournament is only played every four years (so it's not like the Superbowl??) We'll have to catch her on her way back from dinner to clear up this yellow card/red card nonsense.

While my inner Spaniard is pulling for our team, I'm not looking forward to the incessant honking that'll likely keep me up until the wee hours in the event of victory.

GOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I thought this was very typical of how stuff gets done in Spain. It might seem totally inefficient, maybe illegal and possibly life-threatening, but, in the end, there's always a method to the madness. Lee and I moved seats at a sidewalk cafe to avoid certain death, but no one else seemed fazed.



I can't figure out any way to rotate the image, so you'll just have to rotate your head.

Let's Go writer stopping by tomorrow. Nerve wracking!

We celebrated the feast Sant Joan (Saint John the Baptist) on Monday night with dinner on our rooftop and a beach party. Lee's friend, Spencer, and Spencer's friend Mika were in town. The neighbors provided hours of dinner entertainment with their amateur firework displays. It still never ceases to amaze me the things Spaniards think are normal compared to what Americans would go crazy about. If one person lit the kind of fireworks the neighbors all had, the cops would be all over it - let alone EVERY neighbor on the block.

We followed up dinner by heading down to the beach. Everyone was out in full force enjoying some serious botellón action. We ran into Sam of Tapaç24 fame. Being too cheap to pay the 15 euro cover charge, we opted to dance the night away outside of one of the beach clubs.

Someone kicked the glass out of our front door last night. We caught the hooligans on tape. I tried to get real CSI and zoom in on their faces, increase the resolution, and run it through the database of known Barcelona vandalists, but sadly it doesn't really work like that in real life. Anyone recognize these kids?

I got in touch with the editors of Let's Go Spain & Portugal today, and they responded personally to my email promising to stop by to check us out and pass our info on to their writers! That'd be really huge for us. I can't even imagine how that would change our business.

Why is there still construction dust in the air at the hostel and the piercing noise of a drill echoing down the hallways? Wasn't construction over three months ago? Shouldn't you have bolted the toilets to the ground back in February so they wouldn't now be leaking? Is duct tape and super glue really the best solution you can come up with? Did the drain covers that actually completely cover up the hole where the water drains make sense to you when you installed them? ARGHH.

Gil's out of town (our night receptionist/professional baseball player for those of you not following along at home)! He left for a baseball tournament in Germany, so we've had to temporarily replace him. I have to say that walking in this morning and not seeing Gil's smiling face was kind of like getting up on the wrong side of the bed. Hurry back!

Lee and I popped by the bank on our break yesterday to express some discontent. I guess La Caixa is notorious for hidden fees, and I'm starting to understand why. Every time we want to download our transactions into a spreadsheet, they charge us 1.50 and make us wait 2 hours. It makes sitting down to do the accounting pretty tough. Additionally, they charge a ton every time we want to make a transfer. And this is all on top of the 15 euros we pay every month for "service" and the 1% fee we pay on all credit card transactions that we accept at the hostel.

Fortunately, the magic words "I'm not satisfied with the La Caixa and want to move my money to another bank" worked like a charm. A couple clicks of the mouse, and we're no longer paying transfer fees or to download our transactions. I think I'm learning from our whiny guests slowly but surely!

Forget the Bus Turistic, the coolest new way to see Barcelona is a GoCar Tour. Lee and I went on tours with Lee's friend in town from Hong Kong, Christine and our friend Tom. You get to drive the streets in little yellow cars with a GPS system that takes you on a tour. The voice-guide is mildly humorous, and directions got a little confusing. It'll be interesting to see how real out-of-towners manage to navigate the roundabouts and small streets of Barcelona. But it was great to zoom around in a bright yellow car honking and waving at everyone who couldn't help but stare at us. Much more fun than having to pedal on a bike tour or sit on a sticky bus with 50 other people.

Tom sucking car fumes no our second trip around the confusing roundabout

We've gone out the last two nights in search of some school-night entertainment. So far we're one for two.

Monday, we saw Portuguese jazz singer Maria de Madeiros perform at Luz de Gas. Lee and I had to stifle laughs at how bad the singing was as we made our exit about six songs into the show. To be fair, the musicians were great, and the venue is fantastic. Plus our tickets were free.

Last night, we took a Vietnamese cooking class at a place called Romeo & Juliet. I've said for awhile the Vietnamese cuisine is my favorite, so I had pretty high expectations. We made a green mango salad, pork skewers and a orange milk dessert. Everything was half prepared for us so there wasn't any serious work to be done. It helped that you could order drinks between preparing course. We made good use of our cava bucket both to keep our bottle cold and to wash our hands. Of course Lee and I were uber competitive trying to be the best at supreming oranges (it felt like a Top Chef relay!), doing everything the fastest, etc. The teacher actually told us we were one of the best groups when we left. That was pretty much all I needed to make the 30 euros we spent worth it!

Plus, we sat next to some very friendly Spaniards, one fo whom is a partner at the chocolate shop Cacao Sampaka, which Ferran Adria also happens to be a partner at. His name was Albert, so I had it in my head that he must be Ferran's little brother, Albert in cognito for a night of amateur cooking fun. Upon google image searching later that night, I realized that's not the case. However, this might be a our eventual ticket to an impossible reservation at El Bulli. We'll see!

This transport strike's no joke. The grocery store is completely out of fresh meat and fish. the produce is dwindling. All of the bottled water is gone. They did have warm baguettes at the bakery though. I just hope it doesn't continue for too long. We might be living off of olive oil packed clams and sardines for a few weeks.

There's nothing to get your heart racing in the morning like a panicked call from Lauren. As I'm checking in some guests, she calls and shouts, "LEE! Did you see the email that Cristina Vandrell [the lady who owns the floor the hostel is on] sent?" I'm sorry, I'm busy right now, Lauren. Can I call you back? Then, with sheer panic in her voice, "LEE! You really need to see this email."

So, I hang up and have to pretend I'm not on the verge of cardiac arrest while I show this nice French couple their room. The urgency in Lauren's voice told me that our worst nightmare could be coming true- that all of this will blow up in our faces.

It ends up, Lauren's Spanish skimming abilities aren't so good and we might actually have a good opportunity laid out for us. The landlady wrote to tell us that she's decided to sell the property. Yikes. We're in year one of a ten year rental contract and in month three of what we predict to be a 28 month break even hurdle. Upon more careful reading, she said she'll outline the conditions of our lease to whoever buys the place, to honor our contract AND she said we can discuss the possibility of leasing to buy. So, that is good news for the Gonzalez girls.

I think we'll probably rope a dope for a bit while we learn more about the current real estate market. I don't even know what is in order but a trip to the bank to discuss mortgage terms, checking out some comparable properties in the neighborhood, and an appraisal are on the docket right now. Owning property was never in our business plan but we'll see what the offer is before making any decisions. Stay tuned...

There's a new place opening next door to our building called Monvinic. It looks like a wine shop, but it's going to be so much more. Accordingly to their website (and the lead sommellier Isabelle who stopped by the hostel looking for rooms for other employees), it's going to be a "centre for the dissemination of wine culture." They have a library of wine publications, tasting sessions, talks and promise to be "a permanent celebration." It's opening in July.

Where do I sign up?