The Princess Diaries

Since the beginning of Somnio, there has been a large construction project across the street. For a long time we endured cat calls from the wily security guards and were kept guessing as to what was going on over there. It's a hotel! a mansion! no... it's an art foundation.

So the Fundació Francisco Godia is opening up across the street. A little bit of culture to beautify the neighborhood could be good for business (or maybe just make our façade look dirtier by comparison). Lauren and I were most excited about the possibility of an invitation to what surely would be the black tie opening event. We haven't been flirting with those security guys for nothing!

It seems that once again, our invitation got lost in the Spanish mail. I was over it until I ran into our neighbor yesterday and he told me that the king is coming! I'd noticed that more of the Guardia Urbana were all of a sudden taking their day-long smoke breaks on my block and now that he mentioned it, there were an awful lot of barricades and official tape strung up. He might be on to something...

All day, I monitored the activity in the street from the window of room #9. I didn't want to miss the king! What a publicity opportunity- the King of Spain visiting Somnio Hostels (kind of!). I left the hostel only to spread the gossip in the neighborhood (and I know all the right people for the job- the guy at the newsstand, the lady in the commissary, the other flirty security guard...) and get the scoop. To my dismay, the doorlady at our apartment set me straight.

It wasn't the king. It was the Infanta Cristina. I had to nod and pretend like I had any clue who in the hell that was. Upon googling her, it confirmed my suspicions that she's one of the king's retarded (I know this much from a reliable inside source) daughters.

Oh well. After my shift is done, I might still go home and put a dress on to see if I can sneak in. At the very least, maybe one of the security guards could scrounge up some leftover cold canapés for me. I might find my Príncipe Azul afterall.

Whoo Hoo!!

(click for a bigger image)

I joined the library today! I'd highly recommend it to anyone in Barcelona. It was easy to sign up for a card online and then pick it up the next day. This is the first time I've been a member of a public library since I was 9, because at age 10 I moved to a library-less "village." Sadly the branch I went to was slightly smaller than my high school library, but they do have a nice outdoor patio, free weefee, lots of CDs, and pretty liberal lending policies ("if you think you might need these more than a week, just call us and let us know!").

Fortunately neither of our disastrous election night interviews has surfaced, but we did get some face time on La Vanguardia's website.

Check it out!

Happy Election Night! Lee and I went to a party hosted by the US Consulate at a nearby hotel. In attendance were the current and former mayor of Barcelona, some other politicos and a lot of really old men. We only held on until about 2am before calling it a night. We did manage to squeeze in some fun times with McCain masks and a couple interviews for the local media. Lee was interviewed by Radio Catalunya about the "Broccoli Effect," and I had to explain on TVE about how I would feel if Obama won. My very eloquent answer was "uh, me da igual." You can't expect intelligent well thought out answers in Spanish at 2 AM after copious amounts of free mojitos. I'm sure they edited it to make me look like the dumb gringa.

Lee and I parked our car in a nice little residential area outside of the center about 7 months ago. We finally went back to get it only to find out that it had been impounded. We had to trek out to some random industrial park about an hour outside the city to get it back. It was quite an adventure. They definitely had a junkyard dog. The security guard would only let me go with him, leaving Lee stranded at the front gate and me praying that I wouldn't be assaulted.

The battery was dead in our car and required a jump, but otherwise I was just happy it didn't look like this gem that was parked across from it...


It's now parked safe and sound in a real garage spot right around the corner from the house. Getting it in and out is going to prove another challenge. I'll take pictures of how tight the spot is.