Two days ago I headed out of Boston to Barcelona. I will be working here for the next 3 weeks with the rest of the family still in Attleboro. Besides work, my mission is to get the apartment ready for the family so they can just move in.
It took awhile to make it out of Logan. It all started when I arrived as one of my two suitcases was 3 pounds overweight. I had to purchase another bag, repack and pay a fine. The plane pulled out of the gate and I thought we were all set - wrong. We returned to the gate to pick up two people that had missed the flight. So a few hundred were delayed for 2 people - nice cost benefit analysis by northwest.
The flight was pretty uneventful. I watched a few movies, read and slept only a few hours. About 12 hours later I was in Barcelona.
I meet Mele our realtor and picked up my keys. We had to do an inventory with the owner and with some time to kill we went for a coffee. The owner was suppose to meet us at 1:30 but did not arrive until around 2 - she was at court. The owner was very nice and the walk through was quick. The apartment is mostly furnished but to my surprise came with a hair dryer, toaster and iron - check 3 items off my to do list. Also since the other 2 apartments are short term rental I can use the maid's vacuum - check another item off my list. I was also able to get the owner to purchase and install a dryer for us, of course we are going to pay for it. My to do list is getting shorter by the minute and I have only been here a few hours. The apartment comes with wireless internet but is really slow. On the flip side I would be going crazy without it.
After everyone left it was pretty quite. I throw in some snoop, nwa and dre to get the blood going after being up for over 36 hours. After a little light up packing I went out to see the hood.
I must admit I was very impressed by the hood. We have pretty much everything in walking distance. The deli has legs of ham hanging from the ceiling -hmmm, the fish market is pretty stocked including some nice whole fish and the grocery store sells Old No.7 - that's Jack to you rookies. There is probably everything we need within a 3 block radius - still looking for the Irish bar nearby.
The grocery store was an interesting expedition. They do have most items from the US but very little choice. Then there are the little things that are missing like paper towels and cold milk. I bought a box of some milk like substance - I went with the one that had the best cow picture. I still have not tried the milk - perhaps today. I did find cheesy hot dogs but no dice on cheesy sausage. There was thin spaghetti and sauce for Julie.
After food shopping I took another trip around the block. I stopped for some late tapas and ordered some kind of white fish. It tasted fine - like scrod/cod. As I continued exploring I found many more bars, hair solons and the like. I am not sure why but there is at least 2 hair salons on each block. I ran across an electronic store. I wanted to buy a TV and DVD. It was easy picking out which ones I wanted then it was time to order and the fun started. It took 3 clerks to find the one that somewhat spoke broken english. I was trying to get the items delivered the next day. It came down to simplifying what I wanted to two words - mañana inicio. KISS works again. Then the paperwork started, we made it up as we went along. I don't have a local Spanish phone number or foreign id so their computer software was complaining. We worked around it as I showed them how to enter all 0s or 1s in those fields - they laughed.
I got home and tried some 3 euro red wine I got at the store while spinning up GI Joe on the computer. I feel asleep shortly after the intro. When I got up it was about 11 pm and the place was cold. I borrowed a quilt from the maid closet and got the heat to work in the room. It took awhile to figure out the heat but I got it and the day was done....
Josh
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