We're heading out for our Discovery Trip this Sunday. I'm excited, anxious and just a tiny bit terrified. If anything makes this move a reality, this will be it. I've been searching the real estate websites pretty much daily to find something I love. Haven't found it yet. I think I'm in for a harsh reality when I get there. Our realtor, Mele, has been guiding us but hasn't actually sent me a link to anything yet - my hope is she's just waiting til it's closer so she can make sure it's still available when we go there. That's my hope. She seems to be on top of things and has been great about educating us about life in Spain.
Apparently she's not educating me enough though. As I said, I've been doing some research on my own and last week I found this fantastic website http://www.johntaylorspain.com/barcelona.html that I was taking a look at. I found a few great properties like this one http://www.johntaylorspain.com/930ba.html that I sent over to Josh. "Hey Josh, aren't these great? Why do you think they are so cheap? This one is only 1.250 euros per month. Do you think it's the area?" He tells me these are fantastic properties (seriously, you should see the crap I've been finding on the other websites) compared to what I had been finding. Here is an example of one of the ones that I had seen before that before I saw this website was at the top of my list. http://www.idealista.com/pagina/inmueble?codigoinmueble=VP0000002796826&secc_inm=fotos So anyways, I send my link of my fabulous apartment to Mele with a note similar to the one I sent to Josh and seeing if at all possible, can we see one of these places?
That night as I sit on the couch I go back to the website. There I notice there is a tab for both rentals and apartments. Hmmm... which one was I on earlier and what is the difference? I click on rentals. Nope, this isn't where I was earlier. These ones are small, crappy and expensive! What's going on here???? I click on apartments and light dawns on marble head. These aren't apartments (well they are as far as Europeans are considered), these are condos!!! And they aren't 1.250 euro per month. This place is SELLING for 1.250.000. Notice my use of decimals. That's what tricked me. Yes, this isn't 1,250.00 (with an extra zero because I just figured that maybe in europe they go to the thousandth instead of the hundreth). This is 1.25 MILLION. Hmmm... just slightly out of my budget. Now embarrassed that I've sent these suggestions on to my realtor, I now must send her an email explaining my faux pas. Thankfully she gets a kick out of it and probably now thinks I'm quite the airhead. Oh well. For just a few hours I thought I was going to be living in the lap of luxury. That bubble has most definitely been burst!!
So off Josh and I go to explore at the very least, the neighborhood we are going to end up in. It would be great if we can find a place too (otherwise he will have to do this in Dec), but we need to first figure out what part of Barcelona we want to be in. Right now we are torn - Eixample and Sant Gervasi are both in between Aidan's school and Josh's work...however, the Vila Olimpica (where the 1992 olympics were held) is close to Josh's work, in a family oriented area and by the ocean. Can't get much better than that. Only it's very likely (we don't know for sure) an hr commute for Aidan to school. We probably wouldn't do the bus for him if that's the case and one of us would need to bring him to and from school. The decision we need to make is do we sacrifice lifestyle for a commute to school? If there are more kids in this area to play with, more parks, a boardwalk and the ocean, do we have him do a longer commute rather than be in an area where there are less kids and few parks to play in? Keep in mind we are not going to have a yard so a park is essential and a boardwalk would be nice for the kids to bikeride on. And we are beach people. I keep finding myself pulling to the Vila Olimpica neighborhood but until I see it and the others, no decision is final. We need to decide where we are going to be happy as a family. http://www.barcelona-tourist-guide.com/en/albums-en/port-olimpico/index.html
In addition to this, we finally heard from the relocation company this week. Since speaking to them I've received several emails with forms. I've chosen to ignore the emails for the past two days because if I don't open them, then the forms I need to fill out just don't exist. I suppose I should fill them out before our discovery trip. Fun stuff. We also talked about our container for our goods and that it can take 4-6 weeks to ship and get thru customs. So in order for us to have our goods waiting for us when we get there, we will probably need to ship at the end of November. Keep in mind we are gone almost the entire first week of Nov (next week already!) which means that I will have less than 3 weeks to determine what is staying and what is going. How in the world did I go from 3 months to 3 weeks? It's like a blink of an eye. Every day I do something related to this move and yet I feel like I've made minimal progress and now I have to have it all done in about 3 weeks? Just shoot me and put me out of my misery!!
There will definitely be a lot of updates and pictures in the coming week. I'm looking forward to the pictures - I can't wait to see what the city looks like in person.
Post again soon!!
Julie
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