I'm toying with the idea of starting a website for video recommendations of restaurants, bars, and tourist sites in Barcelona. I figure reading a review and seeing pictures don't really give you the full impression. It's nice to see the lighting (Lee's obsession), the noise level, crowd level, etc. I think it'd be a really great way to review a place. And then we'll have space for user comments after they've visited the place.

I'm playing with different video hosting websites now and some other blogging tools (sorry blogger, but I'm not sure you can handle it). I'm a little concerned that we'll have some great stuff, but no one will know it's out there. Any good ideas on how to boost site visits/get our name out there once we're up and running? We're thinking of tying it in with the hostel and calling it something like Somnio Says. So stay tuned, and hopefully we'll have some fun content soon.

Any thoughts or ideas? Suggestions?

I generally don't answer my cell phone when I don't know the incoming number. You never know who I decided to give my phone number to at 3am on Saturday or which mattress vendor will be harrassing me for payment, so it's best to screen. Sometimes when I'm in the mood for adventure, I'll answer.

This morning I got a call from some woman about a "presupuesto pendiente" (outstanding estimate). Of course it's some random company name that sounds like total gibberish to me out of context. Finally I figured out that she had sent an estimate for linen prices in July 2007, and was following up. Say what? Thanks for the great customer service.

I finished the passport study - so here are the final results...


Our guest's average age is 31
The youngest paying guest we've had is 16 (we've had babies stay with us)
The oldest guest is 75
We've had guests from 67 countries


Our guests come from:

14% United States
10% Spain
7% France
7% Germany
6% Japan
6% Netherlands
5% UK
5% Italy
4% Australia
4% Canada
4% Brazil
3% Sweden
etc...

Things will pick up at the hostel again in two weeks so Lauren and I think it's prime time to paint. It's amazing how banged up some walls can get in under a year. I can think of a few guests in particular who've been unusually abusive to our poor walls. In the coming days, we'll be spackling and adding a fresh coat so that Somnio will be as good as new just in time for the spring/summer rush.

In preparation, we went to the paint store today to re-find our colors. Our contractor was less than organized so it might take some trial and error to make sure we've got the proper palette. We couldn't believe how cheap paint was! Senor Contractor never should have taken us directly to the supplier. (We also know where he gets his tiles and plaster!) I think we might skip the middleman on Somnio Dos.

My dad's pretty cool too.

I wish I could find the article about my mom entitled "Principal Gonzalez Puts the Pal in Principal," but I guess high school newspapers aren't online yet.

We copy everyone's passports upon arrival at the hostel. We haven't really done much with the copies aside from let them collect in our spare bedroom. Today I went through about 800 of them (maybe half?) and did some fun excel work to figure out the demographics of our clients. Here are some of my findings so far:

Our guest's average age is 32
The youngest guest we've had is 18
The oldest guest is 75
We've had guests from at least 64 countries

Our guests come from:
14% United States
9% Spain
7% Japan
7% Germany
6% France
6% Netherlands
5% UK
5% Italy
4% Australia
4% Canada
4% Sweden
3% Brazil
etc