House Hunting International is on. This time instead of the Pearl of The Atlantic, the gorgeous Madeira , our location is the much sought after City of Barcelona and the surrounding areas.

I’ve been looking at properties for the last week or so on the net, mainly in Castelldefels and Barcelona. A. is more like a penthouse type of guy, prefers to sit on a terrace smoking his cigar , sipping wine while enjoying the panorama of the city or the seaview.

However I on the other hand prefer houses, or worst case scenario a ground floor flat with a garden. Must have at least a small patch of land to tend to, to get my hands dirty.

I believe that I cannot survive in the city in the long run, short while ok, like now. School days in the city, but by Friday I am itching to get back to my beloved mountain. Actually cannot even survive 5 days without it, normally by Wednesday I am up during the day, even if it is just for a few hours, get to breath in that magical air, admire my plants or just take a short walk to the Thief’s Rocks.

Despite of this I kept looking for properties keeping in mind A.’s preferences as well.
Got in touch with a few real estate agents, then narrowed it down to 2 to start with. Figured, with a small town like Castelldefels and Sitges they will know most of the properties on the market, or if not, they can get it from other agents.
Barcelona was different however, tons of apartments, but new ones or newly renovated with sea
views and below a million are not that easy to come by.

The plan was for A. to fly to Barcelona alone, see the properties, send pics , then visit us back home and discuss it.
He soon realised that on his own he won’t get far, won’t be able to ask the right questions, doesn’t even know what to look for…so quick change of plan and decided that all of us should go.

Can’t say my son had problems with it. Happy to skip a few days from school. He wrote about it brilliantly in his diary, but then it is not public, so I am afraid that I cannot share it with you.
No, I did not read it behind his back, he reads it to me every day, guess he trusts me, my little boy.

So here we are. Back where we were before. The Eurostar Grand Marina. This time on the 8th floor, with a much better view, a suite with its own roof top terrace. With one bedroom and a dining and living room area we thought it will be spacious enough. However for some reason they have weird looking and really small sofas not big enough to sleep on. So A. solved the problem, after some negotiations he took out a room right next us. Each of us have their privacy.
After a time, especially if you don t live together with someone, you get quite used to your own routine, prefer your own bathroom, living space…so its best for all of us. Though he only goes there to sleep, being all day out or relaxing here on the terrace.

Arriving quite late, we ended up just going for dinner to the Maremagnum to our “usual” place. Eating there 2x in 4 days and still wanting go back means something. Extremely efficient and quick service (but do not ask for ketchup or mayonnaise , because now that will take a while, by the time it arrives you are almost finished with your chips ), delicious seafood and a great, well priced Rioja wine to go with.

Walked back home lamenting on whether to have a waffle or not. Life’s small questions. Settling into bed with the book I’ve started to read on the plane. It is about arabs. Funny. If anyone, I sure know a lot about them, having lived in a Gulf country for 15 years. The characters are slightly exaggerated, but then again, nobody would read a story where there is an arab gentleman , ever so gentle, totally straight, falls madly in love with a girl, marries her and they live happily after.

But it is the perfect read on an early night.

Have a full day ahead of us. Will we find what we are looking for?