First day

Well, this is really no surprise but it is tough to start working again after a month off. I have started on Thursday my new job. After being given the survival kit of any consultant (that's a laptop and a mobile phone) I spent my first 2 days meeting the people in the Barcelona office and having coffees. Not much else, really. My last job was located in North Acton (for those of you who don't know London, it's a very ugly and depressing place) and now I'm in the Torre MAPFRE. I could try and explain what it is, but a picture will save me a couple of lines so here it is : click here . I'll take my camera to work next time I'm in the office to show you the view... Amazing! On the funny side, after 9/11 the only 2 buildings in Barcelona to be on the "potential target list" for terrorist attacks were the MAPFRE tower and the World Trade Centre of Barcelona. And guess where Teresa works? Yep, got that one right, the WTC!

One thing which is frustrating (or irritating, depending on my mood) is that because of its location, around my office you only see people on their way to the beach: flip-flops, bikini or shorts and shades. When you're dressed to go to the office and carrying your laptop, it doesn't feel right! On the other hand as we don't have a canteen, we usually eat in one of the restaurants sitting around the harbour. Can't complain about that. Nice food, served in a very pleasant environment, I never had that sort of treatment in any of my previous companies.

I can't really say much about the job itself, mainly because I haven't met anyone I'll be working with yet. From Monday I'll start the real work and I'll be away from Barcelona from Monday until Friday. No big surprise there, I knew it was going to be like that and I don't complain. I guess I'll have more time to write on the blog!

Enough about work though. For those of you who are interested, the flat thing is moving forward. We should get a surveyor to have a look at it on Monday and hopefully by Saturday we should have some sort of ideas of what kind of mortgage we can get. Right now both Teresa and I are desperate to move into the new flat. Of course we're tired of not having a place we can consider home (and that's been going on for a while now) and also because everyday we think about how to set-up the flat and start coming up with ideas. It's like a torture, because we don't have the keys yet, so all we can do is speculate and not only we love it but we just can't seem to be able to stop. The latest big one is which room to use as a bedroom and what to do with the other one...

Enough said. I have to go now because I still haven't opened a bank account and if I want to be paid this month I'll need one. I'm off but will be back sooner than you think.