Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Barça recon

Oli and I are in Barcelona in Lawson´s bar (see below) doing recon without Lily for a few days. Flat hunting has gone poorly but all together we´ve been successful in that we´ve reconnected with old contacts and pals who seem to have the Barça thing down:

Former flatmate Lawson is living in a 3-storey house in Maresme outside Barcelona and running his own bar in port town Masnou. The bar, which is full of beautiful old carved furniture and Scottish parafrenalia (including a sporran that just arrived by mail on Tuesday), faces out on to the port of sailboats and yachts and looks great. Law has many bright ideas for keeping the place fun and profitable and is happy that it has improved his Spanish and Catalan. Oli´s hoping to take a weekly shift to help him in the same way.

Neal, a former course director of Oli´s, met with us in his new business´s office and we´re stopping by in the morning to see the lady in charge of hiring. Unsure how much business English teaching is in our futures as it can be tedious, but it´s important to check out all options....

Oxford House College is still where we left it in Oxford Press´ former BCN offices. Got some good flat hunting advice from one of the adminitrators and are hoping to get some work there as it is a social lively place with further training/certification options and use for my Spanish.

Friends Antony and Marta are finishing off their cafe which will open in just a few weeks. Very exciting stuff on which we will likely report more soon...

As for housing, we´re thinking we´ll do a short-term rental starting next week and ending at the end of the month so that we can continue the housing hunt and solidify some work options. A friend of Marta´s and the contact at Oxford House both turned us on to an administradors website that we have found to show waaay better apartments at waaaay cheaper prices. There are more terms and conditions because they want to rent to serious people, but we are serious people, so no trouble is forseen. In fact, many of the terms and conditions are quite good for us. I really want to have a terrace (BIG balconies that are generally walled in) so Lil has some outdoor space attached to our home, so I´m being pretty picky about the places we call on.

This post has gone all factual, so I´ll end it and go watch the boys play video soccer.

3 comments:

Maiasaura said...

Since your facts are Spanish facts, they are inherently more interesting than regular facts. So don't be ashamed to fact it up.
I'm rooting for you to get a terrace.

Anonymous said...

I'm rooting for you to create the kind of life you travelled to attain. Time with the Lily and blue sky. Missing you blondies.

THE MOMMA

Anonymous said...

Good luck with house hunting! We're missing you guys in the States....