New Year and guests

We spend New Year's eve with some guys from "the husband's" university, we were a bit of a sorry bunch of ex-pats without a family, but we had a good time and the food was terrific.
As I'm always the designated driver, I only drunk a bit at the beginning of the meal, a heady and unexpectedly strong mix of cava (the local champagne) and crushed pineapple that we always have back in Argentina. But that was at 9o'clock, so by 2 o'clock I was perfectly ok.
As usual, it was all about the food and the host really made an effort and cook a full 3 course meal that included stuffed mushrooms, Spanish ham and assorted canapés for starters, a lovely roasted lamb with potatoes and vegetables and we provided one of the dessert, a great baklava in honour of the only other guest who wasn't Argentinian, a guy from Syria; and assorted turrons and other traditional sweet to give the final touch.

All I want for at least the next few months is a bit of peace and quite. So we'll try to take it easy until we go back to work on the 7th. Although we're having people staying with us for at least a week, and people that we've never seen before.

Tomorrow we're expecting Japanese visitors from Latvia so we're going to spend the first day of the year cleaning the house.
A Japanese friend of a former college mate of "the husband" contacted us a few month ago. He's also a scientist and he accepted a job at the other university in Barcelona, the Pompeu Fabra University. He and his family (wife and 11 months-old baby) were living in Riga (Latvia) and he was hoping to rent a flat on the internet. HA! No way, Jose!
They wanted to live in Sant Cugat, a very posh village near Sabadell (where Patxi's rugby club is), because there's a Japanese school and community there. But it's a totally overpriced place to live with small studio flat costing up to €1,000 a month. So they started to look at flats here where renting cost are less unreasonable. At the end they managed to contact one owner of a one-bedroom flat a few blocks away from us and they asked me to go and check everything and see the flat.
Of course, I obliged, and the flat is tiny but it has a big and sunny balcony, a big storage room, a garage and, the best feature: a communal swimming pool and garden. plus is very well located and brand new.
The owner was a local señorita in her twenties who bought the flat before they starting building (something very common here) it with the idea of living there, but by the time it was finished her company relocated her to Madrid, so she wanted to rent it for a couple of years (something not so common as people usually want to rent for longer periods). She was very keen to rent it to a Japanese family as they have a reputation of being clean and tidy, plus they're only planning to stay a couple of years. But she was also worried of closing a deal over the internet with people she never meet. So I did my best to create a good impression while trying to suss her out.
The bad side was that it was totally unfurnished and it didn't even have the electricity or gas connected yet. But it was all negotiable.
And negotiate they did, but because the Japanese family was arriving the 1st of January we really didn't think that everything was going to be ready as most Spanish people work very little if at all during this time of the year. So we offered to stay with us in case they need it until the flat was ready. Here people join together Christmas with New year's celebration and the party doesn't end until after the three wise men arrive (tonight), so there was no way that they'd have the flat ready until the second week of January.
And so it happened. Despite her best efforts the señorita couldn't get the electricity installed on time and the Japanese family was faced with the option of going to a hotel for a week or staying for free with total strangers (but friends of a trusted friend).

They chose us.

So, as I'm writing this we're all cleaning the flat and getting P's room ready for a family of 3. They're going to arrive around 8pm today. Wish us luck!