Lee and I sat down today and made a To Do list of about a hundred things to improve the hostel. Kind of like a really long list of belated New Years resolutions. Lee and I talk a lot about the difference between being small business owners and being entrepreneurs. In order to avoid becoming the former, we've resolved to take the bull by the horns in 2009 and keep pushing ourselves.

The links to the articles about the hostel that appeared in our suburban Chicago paper apparently no longer work. They only keep things archived for a month! So here are the scanned versions.

Coming soon ....

www.somniohostels.com en Español!!

Thanks to our night receptionist Ariel´s brilliant translations and my fumbling experimentations with Adobe Dreamweaver.

Don´t hold your breath, but at least it´s in progress.

Lee and I just got back from the States where we picked up brand spanking new visas in Chicago. Now, we have to apply for our new residency cards. Of course, like all other bureaucratic processes in Spain, the steps to get there are a nightmare. We went today to the Social Security office where the people helping us were completely baffled at how no one starting or running our company that is legally signed up for social security (well duh, in order to sign up for social security, you first need to get a visa, and to get a visa you first need to start a company and make enough money to prove that you can support the company). Then we headed up to the police office where the line was around the block. We were told there that we needed to pay some fee at the bank and somehow find the original of some copied letter that the consulate gave us. The bank told us that in order to pay the fees, we needed forms from the police office and could only pay between 8 and 10 on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Back at the police office, a lovely gentleman waiting outside informed us that we can pick up the forms AND the mysterious original copy at another office across town, but of course they were already closed.

Oy Vey! Somehow Lee and I took this all in stride, and managed to relax over burgers at Fastgood. Even they couldn't get their acts together today. We had to call them from outside their door to ask them to open up for the day and let us in.

We'll try it all again on Monday!

Lee and I went to a conference recently for the Eurecan European Venture Contest Awards that was organized by our favorite bank, Caja Navarra. Basically the event should have been entitled "Crisis, Que Crisis?" The setup at the convention center looked like a Bon Jovi contest, complete with lasers, insane lighting, and ridiculous sound equipment. Glad to know where our money's going.

At a few points we were asked to vote on a few survey issues and for the elevator pitch contest winners on our nifty handheld wireless voting devices (reminiscent of the fantastic Nickelodeon game show hosted by Marc Summers from 1991-1993 called What Would You Do).

The contest winner was some biotech company (figures), but the highlight was the canapes served afterwards. Lee and I made sure to eat at least one year in interest payments worth of seared tuna on a stick. We sampled one from every table to make sure that quality was consistent (it was).

I would like to know the truth, wouldn't you?

Somnio Hostels is now on the well-worn path of los testigos de Jehová, also known as the Jehovah's Witnesses.

They stopped by last week and spent a good half an hour trying to convert Lauren's depraved soul. It was a husband-wife team and the abuelita reminded Lauren of our grandpa's dear Spanish cousin, Ana Mari, so she humored her.

Today, they called again, this time asking specifically for Lauren. I must not look very convert-able because they didn't waste too much time on me. I was informed, however, I should think about forming a stronger relationship with God because he lets us know before doing things. I'm not sure if something was lost in translation but she made it sound a lot like a Magic 8 Ball...

Oh well, I can clarify later because they'll be back [for Lauren.]