Has a nice ring to it, doncha think?

[updated: 10 November with pic & new ending]

Yeah, don’t ask. It was one of those spontaneous moments. I was showing the apartment next door (yes, another tenant has flown the coop) and mentioned that I was thinking of finally seeing Inglourious Basterds as it was going to be the last week for it, and the prospective tenant said it was the best film he’d seen all year. Five minutes later one of the present tenants, Nieves, showed up at my door saying she wanted to go to the cinema with me. And five minutes after that we headed out with Nog, not even remotely suspecting we were going to end up not seeing the film and wanting to open a B&B…

When we got to the cinema I found out I’d been looking at the wrong cinema website and Inglourious Basterds hadn’t been showing there for over two weeks, so we headed towards home past the Bellas Artes Museum and thought we would take in the Duquesa de Alba exhibit (her private collection is on loan until January). But when we saw the massive queue we decided to keep going. And about a block up the road I saw a For Rent sign on the balcony of a gorgeous old building  – and then saw “500 m²” written below the phone number! – at which point curiosity got the better of me and I called the number just to ask how much it would cost. When the man told me he was just five minutes away and could come and show me the house right away I found myself saying that would be great, and thus it happened that Nieves, Nog and I suddenly became prospective B & B investors.

It started off as a lark, but after being taken through the entire house (four floors and two fabulous rooftop terraces) the B & B idea started to take on a life of its own. And the owner was certainly convinced that we were serious clients. Afterwards we went out for a beer and did some rough calculations and, you know, it was almost doable if we could get the owner to lower the rent, well, quite a bit actually. But there was enough space for me & Nog to share a small apartment and then have about 5 or 6 rooms to rent. As well as still being able to teach some classes in the office on the main floor, and do work online on the computer in the reception area. It was like seeing a whole new life open up with the “working at home” thing having so many more possibilites.

And then suddenly our beer glasses were empty, and Nieves said she was going to try and catch the Barça game at Flaherty, and Nog and I walked home feeling like we’d just woken from a dream. It’s actually been awhile since I’ve had such a  pleasant dream. And who knows, perhaps one day it just might come true.

Update: Went by the house again on Sunday and saw that it had been rented. That was fast! Considering we’d just looked at it the previous Wednesday. So oh well. But this time it was daylight and I was able to get a nice photo of the place. Looks great, doesn’t it?